The main thing is this week I started my job at Target. While I still have a ton to learn, and feel like I stock shelves at the speed of mud, I'm still really excited and honored to have this job. Praying for the ability to learn at a supernatural speed and for my fine motor skills to kick in a wee bit earlier than they have been the past few mornings. :)
Other than that, I don't know that I can adequately yet describe how I've been feeling during this whole process of moving here. I feel like God has taken all of the different characteristics of my life, my dreams, my passions, my ambitions, my hopes, etc. and put them in a blender then turned it on full speed. Every once and a while I find myself staring really hard at a wall, not realizing what I'm doing and then I have other moments where I'm thinking about so much I feel like my head could pop right off. When you think you know who you are for 23 years and then come to the realization that that's only just the beginning, it's kind of a bit hard to process. When you've always felt like an extravagant dreamer and then you realize that really your thinking was pretty small, that's kind of hard to process. (you get the point) I have never laughed so much, cried so much, wondered if I was crazy so much, and believed in myself so much. (a little hard to process!)
Everything is changing. And all of it is so much for the better, and so much for His glory. It's just that sometimes I have moments every now and then where my flesh gets really concerned (as it should be) because it is losing all control. Our flesh is an ugly 15 headed monster that really doesn't want to die. I feel myself dealing with insecurities I've never had to deal with before. Thinking and dwelling on things that simply do not matter because my mind is desperately trying to remain in control. But it's so good to go through this process. It's so good to get all of my 'stuff' thrown in a blender so that God can make something wonderful and delicious. (i know, lame analogy.)
I find myself being so overwhelmed by His goodness. I don't think it's so much this place, but just being in right alignment with His word, and what He wants to do with my life in combination with taking a risk like this for Him. He loves risk so much more than I ever realized. He loves having the ball put in His court so that He has to show up to bring glory to His name.
Today I came home from work feeling pretty overwhelmed. I haven't had to learn how to do anything new in a work setting for about the past 4 years. While I'm constantly learning new things, work was something I never had to worry about. When I work, I like to take charge and get things done and today I felt like the annoying high schooler that no one wants to help because they pretty much just get in your way. So I came home and I was dealing with that. And then God gave me this perfect image of how He views us during our times of 'training.'
Have you ever had moments when you feel guilty because you're not reading the word enough, or worshiping enough, or thinking right thoughts, or fill in the blank? Do you ever get on yourself for the time you've wasted or for how slow you seem to be stocking the shelves of your character development like I did at work today? God just really used today's situation to show me that when it comes to Him, it is really all about the relationship and the position of our hearts towards Him.
He could care less initially about our effectiveness, or efficiency or speed. He is so much more concerned about the condition of our hearts. About what our hearts true desires are. About the longing and aching of why we are in relationship with Him. He really taught me today that He is the redeemer of all time, and He can give us back all those moments when our hearts longed to do the right things, and we just couldn't seem to get them done.
I am so glad that I serve the redeemer of all time. Aren't you? I'm so glad that He's so not concerned with performance and efficiency but rather with humbleness, purity, and meekness. And while this doesn't give us a license to do whatever we'd like to, it does release us into more freedom. Which is what He's all about. Freedom. Because when we're truly free, that's when we start to have effectiveness in the kingdom. That's when He starts to speed our steps, and make us efficient.
We serve such a good God.
With Love,
-L-
This is my home for a few months! :) Please continue to pray for the right place to live, room for when all of you visit and the funds to pay for it!
The view at the end of the drive.
The view the other way. Hard to see, but more mountains!
If there's one thing I can't get enough of it's beautiful sunsets. Happy to say that California, too, has beautiful sunsets! (this is Shasta Lake)
Tonight's beautiful sunset.
Of course hard to see but I am happy to announce that there are visible stars here! :) I'm obsessed with skies.
Well Laura I must say I loved reading your story here in Columbus Ohio at 7:45 on Christmas Day. I am really encouraged by your faithfulness and spunk. Yes, God enjoys taking our life and chopping it up in a blender and starting all over again, a painful process but the outcome is priceless. I will come into agreement about your house and finances. I was delightful to hear from a young person who is in covenant with the most High God.
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