Worry

Today God blessed me by giving me the chance to take care of many things that have been worrying me for several days now.  Now, at the end of the day, I feel much better--less stressed, more relaxed, more optimistic, more as if I'll be able to sleep well--that I have felt for the past several days, and I am more able to trust that God will take care of several other things that I've also been worrying about, and that there is really no need to worry.  It is a true blessing.

And yet--I can't help wishing that I could attain this level of trust and serenity without having so many less worries at the end of the day as I had at the beginning.  I wish I could just trust God to take care of my problems as He sees fit, rather than being happy with Him because He took care of my problems today.

Or am I thinking about it the wrong way?  Should I be thankful that God took care of my problems (well, of course!), and see this as proof that He will always help me (again, of course), and take this proof and use it to remind myself of His faithfulness when I'm worrying about something else, and see my lack of worry as me doing just that--seeing that God is faithful and taking comfort in that?

I don't know, but either way, thank You again, Lord, for all Your help today, and thank You for Your faithfulness!

Exhaustion

I am totally exhausted after today.  Lord, please help me to rely on You more; please renew me in Your love.

Worrying

Getting ready for bed tonight, I couldn't help thinking about everything that I need and would like to get done tomorrow.  Worry!  But I heard God say to me: "You know what?  I am amazing.  I will make sure you get done what needs to be done, so don't worry about it."  I give my worries to You, Lord.

Prayer Today

Today I prayed for:
-Jason
-that I'll listen to You today
-that I'm not getting sick
-safe weekend for everyone
-that You'll show me what You want me to see as I'm reading the Bible
-that I'll work hard today and strive for perfection
-for faith
-Uzbekistan
-Luxembourg
-Germany
-Portugal
-Sri Lanka
-Alexei
-the Congo
-Australia
-gene manipulation
-hunger
-hunters
-knots and untangling them
-Iceland
-Brazil
-pilgrims
-the music industry
-jungles
-drug addicts
-jail
-the world
-Scotland
-Ethiopia
-drivers
-Emma
-ambulances
-fire trucks

I thanked God for:
-food
-water
-electricity
-the sun
-time spent with Him
-flowers
-bees
-butterflies
-tea
-study parties
-friends

Fellowship

On Fridays I go to a meeting of fellow Christians.  The meeting today was a real blessing.  For most of the week I felt stressed about deadlines, things that needed to be done, deadlines, etc.  During this meeting was the first time all week, I think, that I was able to forget about all that stuff and just live in the moment and focus only on God.  The peace that I felt once God made that happen was absolutely wonderful.  The whole week was a reminder of how I can't run things well when I try to run them by myself.  God is so, so much better at running my life than I am.

Mark 6:27-28

These two verses just really hit me today.  Yesterday I saw someone in passing that I haven't seen for a while.  It seemed to me that he glared at me as I passed.  At the time it really took me aback, and I started thinking about how unfair it was that he was angry at me when he was the one who treated me unfairly in the past, etc, etc.  I even started getting a little angry with him again.  An hour or two later, another person asked me to a go away, in a way that seemed surprisingly hateful/angry.  What??

Reading these verses brought all this back, made me think about it again and get angry.  But that's not what God wanted.  It doesn't matter how wronged I feel, I need to get over it and forgive them (did they really do anything wrong??).  It's surprising how hard that is.

I pray that both of them have wonderful, blessed days today.

Sadness

I spent a lot of today fighting with an overwhelming... I don't know, sadness, I suppose.  It's a feeling I get sometimes that I honestly imagine being exactly what clinical depression feels like--I feel something that's honestly deeper than sadness (or maybe I just have a trite idea of what 'sadness' is because I've never experienced anything truly tragic), for no particular reason.  It's the sort of feeling that I can tell would overwhelm me if I let it; but I always turn to God and power through.  So maybe the comparison to depression was unfair; true depression isn't something you can just power through, and it doesn't just go away.

Walking in the rain

Today I took my weekly walk with God and thought about the past week.  Thank You God for Your forgiveness!

Today I prayed for...

Today I prayed for:
-inspiration from God as I read the Bible
-the courage, strength, and wisdom to do what's right today and to follow God
-patience
-help with laundry
-couples
-students
-workers
-people with Alzheimer's and their caretakers, friends, and family

Today I thanked God for:
-food
-sunshine
-Jesus
-God's love
-Disney music
-His help with resisting sin
-friends
-family
-new books to read
-music
-Bananagrams

Opposites

Today was a day of opposites.  The morning was wonderful, full of prayer and joy that was a direct gift of God.  And then somehow I switched to pointless inactivity and doing what I wanted instead of consulting God.

I'm not sure what to post about today.  I had no spectacular revelations, not even any small ones.  But thank you for the small chance I had during the bustle of the day to take a few minutes and read Your word.

Valentine's Day

I hope and pray that everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

I didn't talk to God enough today.  Please forgive me, Lord.

The Beauty of Nature

On my walk today, the beauty of God's creation just took my breath away and filled with with an indescribable joy and peace, despite a stressful and sin-filled week.  Almost everywhere I turned, the snow-covered woods just seemed so wonderfully beautiful; I spent five minutes watching a flock of sparrows flitting around in a bush, and a few more minutes watching a nuthatch walk every which way on a tree's trunk.  God created the whole universe, is even bigger than the whole universe, but He is also in each and every tiny moment and place and creature that He created.  How awesome is that?!

My Prayers Today

Again, today I recorded everything that I prayed for:
-me to not sin today
-John's track meet
-me to stay in reality today
-for the strength to resist sin
-that I will read the Scripture for the right reasons
-seniors and thesis-writing
-V feeling like she's not a good friend
-P with testicular cancer and his wife
-Wendy
-teachers
-a friend who didn't get the job he wanted
-all my friends (sick, stressful jobs)
-call-center workers
-people stuck outside in the cold
-Ireland
-servants
-people not getting enough sleep
-pilgrims
-names
-sour people
-anorexia
-first impressions
-Google
-the planet
-freerice.com
-Ferris wheels
-assistants
-Argentina
-that I will not get sick
-my family
-people making decisions
-aid workers around the world

And thank You, God, for:
-the snow
-the sunshine
-chocolate
-water
-calculators
-health
-soap
-new books to read
-good food
-friends
-bubbles
-water

Tired

I am very emotionally and physically tired right now.  There is something wrong between me and God, and I'm not sure what it is.  I've been praying that I may find out what it is.

Motivations

Something I have a real problem with is staying focused on work and things I need to do through the day.  Today, for whatever reason, was a particularly bad day.  About 11 o'clock, I found myself completely unwilling to do work, so instead I went onto freerice.com.  After lunch, I did the same thing.  The second time, I heard God say to me, "Just because you're helping to feed hungry people doesn't make what you're doing right.  You have to do the right thing for the right reasons, too."

Staying Dependent

Today was quite a lesson in staying dependent on God.  In the evening today I had a meeting that I was really looking forward to and I wanted to think about all through the day, wonder and imagine what it might be like.  But God told me this morning, very firmly, that he didn't want me to think about it at all through the day.  'Alright,' I thought, 'I can do that.'  Asking me to not think about certain things is something that God does rather often, and I thought I was getting pretty good at it.  WRONG!!  I realized very quickly that I couldn't do it, at all.  All through the day I was praying for God to take the thoughts away and focusing on the present rather than the future--so on the grass I was walking on, the fact that my ears were cold and I really should have worn a hat, the heavy door, my hard seat.

So, thank You, God, for sticking with me through the day, and for Your patience, and for the strength You lent me!

Meh

Today I just wasn't feeling it.  Something just felt off all day between God and me, and I'm not sure what.  Thank You, God, for being with me even when I can't feel it.

Morning Prayer

This morning, instead of reading the Bible like I normally do, I just prayed--mostly for others and for situations in the world.  I will admit, I'm not sure how much difference it made in my routine and how I thought about things.  I didn't pray much during the day, and feel like I didn't listen to God all that much.

The Sky

On my walk today, since the weather was so wonderful, I stopped at a field, laid down, and talked to God while laying there, looking up at the sky and the bare branches of a tree.  Thanks for a wonderful Sabbath, God!

Praying through the Day

Praying is something I really struggle with--what to pray about, not just praying about myself, and just praying at all.  So this morning I decided to write down everything that I prayed about today.  Here's the list:
-various friends (feeling tired or depressed, working a difficult job)
-my brother
-the country and the world
-the debt crisis
-greed
-starvation
-AIDS and other sicknesses
-people living in a dictatorship
-seniors (of high school and college)
-a friend's sick sister
-people applying for internships and jobs
-that people may keep the right priorities
-a friend's friend with brain cancer, and his family and friends
-wisdom to know what God wants me to do today
-doctors
-everyone with cancer and their family and friends
-that people would come to know God
-the rich
-Iron Man (fans, creators)
-people who are confused
-Hungary
-restaurants
-Uzbekistan
-that everyone has a good weekend
-safety for people who go out tonight
-the people in Europe who are trying to deal with the sudden cold
-friends in Austria
-people who are suffering from war

Things I thanked God for:
-food
-music
-the sun
-rain
-people who come to meetings
-peanuts and peanut butter

Thanking God always gives me a feeling of amazing, completely inexplicable joy.

Doing this--writing down everything I prayed about, I mean--really helped me to focus on praying, especially if I ran across something that needed to be prayed for.  It was pretty amazing.  I feel like the focus on prayer and thanking God made my day much more joyful.

Weekly reflection

Looking back on the past week, I feel like I didn't focus enough on what God wants from me and spent way too much time and energy thinking and worrying about what was expected of me by the world and other people.  Now, I'm not denying that those things don't need to get done, because I'm not; they do need to get done, but part of the problem I had last week was that I didn't let God decide when and how these things needed to be done.  I tried to decide for myself, with the result that I didn't get all that much done, I used my time very badly, and I've ended this week feeling tired.

Mark 4:26-29

The farmer sows his seeds and waits for them to be ready to harvest, but he doesn't know how or why they grow.  For some reason this just really struck me.  Your mysterious ways--we don't or can't understand, whether we think we can or not.