Check Number 3

I recently posted about how I have put my complete faith in God to provide for a move back to St. Louis and a return to school. I wrote about how he provided me with a place to live and eat. Now I was waiting for the third check... a job. Well, I have accepted a job as an Individual Care Aid. I will be working with an Autistic 4th grader. The job not only will help me make contacts for when I finish my Counselor Degree, but it will also make accomplishing several of my class assignments easier. The most important thing is that this job offers FREE health insurance.

I was EXTREMELY nervous about working one on one helping to educate this very intelligent child. However, I started thinking about it and this had to have been God's plan all along. He gave me everything I needed in a job, housing, etc, but if he had made it all easy, I would have quickly forgotten his provisions. He gave me a job that will force me to enter into my fears and to trust him and to seek his counsel. I am grateful because too often I forget.

There is one aspect of all of this that hurts a bit. It is sad, believe it or not, to leave my job at Blue Cross Blue Shield. God challenged me there as well with a boring job, but he opened my eyes to the needs of the people around us. He also put me in a place with a lot of need to highlight my God-given gifts. He placed people around me who were non-believers and believers alike. People that had strange personality quirks, marriage problems, sick children, abusive spouses, homelessness and so much more. I was humbled that I grew up 20 minutes from all of this and I never really experienced the poverty and the pain around me. He forced me to share my testimony with people experiencing similar situations and guided me to share my faith. I had never ever done this. One coworker made a decision for Christ during all of this. Through all of this God showed me that I am accepting, patient, encouraging, caring, willing to help, willing to lead, willing to listen, and willing to love. I am not sure I would have recognized my gifts without this experience and i am not sure that I would have followed his gifts to pursue a career in counseling. I am extremely excited about my counseling classes. For once, I feel like I am heading in the right direction. While the job at BCBS was sometimes painfully boring it was necessary for me to experience that. Thank you God. I can't wait for what you have next.

I'm Moving!

Yep, God finally kicked me in the butt and said, Hey kid... you are trying to do WAY to much without my help. Have a little faith, I'll give you food, shelter, and a job.
For those of you that don't know. I have been living with my parents in the Carbondale area for the past few months. I quit my job last December intending to go back to school to pursue a degree in elementary education. Well, after taking an intro class at the local junior college, I decided I couldn't handle dealing with 30 kids by myself for 6-8 hours of the day. However, I still love working with youth and wanted to be in a school setting. I talked to a few school counselors and all of my spiritual gifts point to a career in counseling. So I looked around and found an evening Master's program in school counseling at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO. I decided that I would start looking for a job in St. Louis. First comes a job, then an apartment or place to live and then I register for school. I had decided I would shoot for this fall, but if I didn't find a job, that I would start in January. Well, I prayed for all of the above to happen. Nothing happened. Then one day last week, a bright light came on. God said, I am not going to give you all that you ask for because you wouldn't have any reason to trust in me. He said, register for class, trust that I will give you the rest. So on Friday I took the day off of work from my FABULOUS Blue Cross Blue Shield job, drove to St. Louis and signed up for class. Step one, check. Your turn God. Well,now I need a place to live. The BIG GUY answered, free apts/rooms started popping up. Yes, I said FREE! One was with an older woman who was offering an apartment in exchange for housework, the others were all friends offered their places for several months. Step two, check. After much torment about which opportunity to pursue, I realized that they were all gifts from GOD. "So what about that job, God?" Well, it so happens that I have a pretty good friend in O'Fallon, IL that is the Vice president of the School Board. I called him up asking about available jobs. He said there are 12 teachers aide positions available and to send my resume ASAP and he would try and pull some strings. SOOOO God is working on that third check.
Oh and during all of this, I get a message from my currect supervisor on Friday asking me to call him. He says we need to talk before I come into work on Monday. Immediately I am worried that he has discovered my plans. I call him and to my complete surprise he offers me a PROMOTION! So I tell him my plans and he understands and wishes me the best.
So I knocked on the door and God opened it wide. I am moving Labor Day weekend to O'Fallon, Illinois to live with a couple friends of mine for the fall. Please continue to pray that I keep hearing God's voice clearly, that I give HIM all the credit, and that I keep my eyes focused on his amazing love. Thank you to everyone who offered a room to sleep in. It was a difficult decision and I am blessed that I have such awesome friends to make my decision so difficult :)

Dog Days Of Summer

Well, they say that this is the time of the summer that gets you yearning for that first falling leaf, the cool breezes and the frosty mornings. They call it the Dog Days of Summer. Well, for my parents' dog sophie, she couldn't be happier in the summer. Summer weather means she gets to go swimming.

For those of you that don't know, Sophie used to compete in "Dock Diving". She did a really good job, but is now retired from competing. She would show up to the competitions lying outstretched on the back seat of my parents car. The other dogs would be penned up in their crates, just enough room to bark jealously at sophie as she sauntered by. Sophie loved the events. She used them to socialize with the humans more than the other dogs. Her demeanor was so outgoing and sweet that she would quickly become a crowd favorite. Her best jump was somewhere just under 22 feet. The best jumping dogs, the ones featured on ESPN jump about 25 feet. Anything over 21 feet is considered a "Big Air" dog. So Sophie was among the elite. After several competitions, she decided she enjoyed socializing more than jumping, so she quit. Well, now she jumps for fun at home. Everday after work I change into my swimming suit and go down to the dock and throw a stick for her. We do this for about 30 minutes and it has become a routine that she will not let me forget about. If I want to take a day off, she comes up to me and jumps up on me, nudging me to go out and play. On weekends, when the lake is full of recreational boating traffic, she will regularly attract several boats full of families amazed at her ability. I have attached a movie of her jumping. It's a lot of fun and pretty amazing at the same time

Epiphany!

A few days ago I posted about desire. Today I feel like I am starting to put it all together. I have had some awesome time of reflection the past few days and God has really given me a peace and understanding about our desires. Angie asked me this week after emailing back and forth about desire, what my desires were. This is something I think about on a regular basis, but for some reason this week God really spoke to me through this question. I started thinking about my desires. I want to enjoy nature, I want to work outdoors, I want to be surrounded by friends, grilling out, I want to be 100% physically healthy so I can play and do all the things I want to do, I want to have a family, I want to be a school counselor, helping kids through those difficult times in high school, I want to eat amazing food, I want to have a farm on about 100 acres, with a lake and a tall mountain, I want to travel the world, the list goes on and on. I realized that what I am describing is HEAVEN!!!! With the prompting of various scripture and John Eldredge's book, I realized that if i had all these things, why would I need God? If I had those things, I could be happy here without God!

"God must take away the Heaven we create (or try to create), or it will become our Hell. You may not think your efforts to arrange for a little of what you desire are anything like Heaven on Earth. But some deep and tender part of us gets trapped there in those times and places where we have had a taste of the life we long for (Eldredge, Desire)." God places the desire in our hearts so we have a yearning to seek Him and a yearning for what is beyond this life. Too often we experience little "tastes" of Heaven. That fluttering lightheaded feeling of being in love, the exhilaration of our favorite team winning the World Series, the awe inspiring feeling when sitting on the top of a 10,000 mountain. We all have different experiences that allow us to touch Heaven. God plans for this. Our problem comes when we taste that desire and decide we want that here now and forever in this lifetime. We turn that desire and that experience into an idol and worship it and do everything to achieve it. The problem is that we can't. We can't because that is reserved for ETERNITY.

I know it may seem that I have jumped quite far from my desires and the feeling that God wants us to fulfill those desires, but he does! After realizing that all of the things I was longing for are awaiting me in Heaven, I realize my only desire is to live a life pleasing to the Lord, to stand by Him and keep my focus on Him even when the going gets tough. He has a sanctuary prepared for me. When we desire Him we can look past the winter of our lives and DESIRE the reward of Spring.

"Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is REVEALED."

1 Peter 1:13

"See! The winter is past; the rains have gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come."

Song of Songs 2:11-12

I have always had a hard time setting my sight on Eternity because my view of Heaven was so whispy... I saw Heaven as a city in the sky.... a place with people dressed in white robes, walking around talking... hanging out.... in the presence of God. It sounded nice, but not exciting enough! I realized that HEAVEN is here. God will renew the Earth and we will experience the place we have lived our lives like we have never seen it before. It will be magnificent and fresh and new. Eldredge quotes Revelation, "Look I am making all things NEW (Rev 21:5) Not I am making all new things."

Finally he really makes me get excited when he suggests that the reason there is reported silence for half an hour of eternity is because we are all quite speechless (Rev 8:1).

There is so much more that can be elaborated on and touched on. Some of these ideas may bounce around too much. But I feel like God has lifted a veil that covered my eyes for so long. I have been stuck in a rut, worshipping my desires. I am ready to worship God, thankful that I get to spend and eternity bbcueing on my ranch with all the people I love.

Our Heart's Desire

I am reading the journey of Desire by John Eldredge. Most women would recognize him from his book Captivating, while most men connect with his book, Wild at Heart. His words have really connected with me.

I go to bed at night with a burning in my heart. I wake up in the morning feeling like there is something more. Like life is meant to be passionate and full of adventure. So often we are told to settle down, to be careful, to watch our step, don’t sit so close to the tv. God created in us a deep desire to live and a deep desire for certain things, this often goes hand in hand with their spiritual gifts. For people who are gifted with counseling, they love to see others heal themselves and grow. For those who are good craftsmen, they love to build. When we dismiss our desire as a “temptation to sin” we suppress God’s call to live a full life.

One of my biggest fears is that my desire will continue to be dismissed as immaturity and unrealistic passion and that I will begin to believe those lies. In all reality, I have already started believing that my desire is something that should be harnessed and kept under wraps. We grow up being told to believe in our dreams, shoot for the stars, love with all our hearts. But then we are told to be realistic, to have a backup plan, to take out insurance policies. We are too worried about living safe, boring, unpassionate lives. This has become such a norm in our society that I feel ashamed to follow my desire. And the older you get, the more you are labeled immature and flakey. Yet at the same time, deep down in everyone’s heart is a longing to be “that guy.” To be the guy that lives a simple yet passionate life, following his heart and not always having a plan. The difference between an immature adult and one seeking the desire that God intended for us is that maturity means putting your faith in God. It means knowing that God takes pleasure in seeing us living passionate lives. It means knowing that his plan is perfect and that he has sent his son to save us when we mess up. It means loving his children. It is extremely hard to follow your heart. Every turn there is someone or something trying to convince you that it is sinful or that you need to grow up. Satan’s influence is strong.

But how do we walk the fine line between following our desires and avoiding sin? Focus on God first and he will provide the desires that we seek. If we focus only on the desires, they become idols rather than the blessings they were meant to be.

When we focus on the desires first, those things become substitutes to make us happy rather than delighting in the God’s grace and forgiveness.

Psalm 37:4
4 Delight yourself in the LORD

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 145:16

16 You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

I could be completely off base with my interpretation. But as I seek to figure it out, God delights in my struggle to go from crawling to walking to running. He doesn' t laugh when I fall down. He picks me up and says try again. I will try again and again.

My Turn

Well, my sister started it, my mom signed up, so I figure I will give it a try. This is my first blog ever! Exciting, huh!? Well, don't expect too much, but I will try and post on a regular basis. Let me warn you though... be prepared for anything. I called it "Searching For Answers" because so often when you freewrite what is on your mind then leave it sitting for a while, and come back later on, you find that you are much more tuned into life than you sometimes think.

I am also getting in touch with my artsy side by trying to get into photography. I will post some pictures every now and then.