What a Sabbath

Man, today I did absolutely nothing productive today. I sat around the house and enjoyed time with my family. We talked, laughed, and planned for the coming months. 

After an entire week of fun activities and more than 1,200 mile of travel, barreling a virus since Wednesday and a to do list a mile long, today was a true experience of a sabbath. Something I'm not really sure I had ever experienced before. 

I am thankful for this rest. This week of fun and activities with friends and loved ones. This #LentChallenge that Billy and I are doing is really something incredible. Today marks the day of being half way through Luke. After not seeing Billy for a week, I am blessed to feel close to him knowing that he is growing in the Spirit and that our relationship is growing closer to the ways of the Lord. 

This #LentChallenge is benefitting me in so many ways that I don't even know yet!  I am excited to continue as well as the exciting things to come. 

Something I wanted to work on in this time of Lent is for me to figure out how to trust God fully. Recently I had heard a sermon that convicted my heart in such a way that made me realize how little I was actually trusting God and how much I was planning and trying to controll. 

This blog is ending abruptly based on the fact that it isn't about me. It's about Jesus and how we should give him control of our lives. If we give God the paintbrush, He will paint a much bigger masterpiece that we can ever fathom. 

Planning

I'm a planner. I plan things, I organize things, I make decisions and make things happen. I mean business. 

Graduation. 

I keep having conversations about how I can't find a job locally or no one will even contact me back. 

I've heard that God laughs when we plan out the details of our lives because only He knows them.  Man; He must be rolling on the floor when He looks at me right now. 

I'm filled with so much fear, confusion about what jobs to go for, worry that I'm under qualified, and so much more. 

The sermon from this weeks service at Commonway just keeps resonating with me. More importantly just the last few lines. 

Paul was one of Jesus closes followers and yet he spent his time not learning about scripture but just knowing Jesus. 

This sermon inspired me to just stop (not entirely) learning about Jesus and get to know Him. I know this sounds cheesy but I want to sit down and get to know Jesus. 

My soul longs for a glimpse of my future but I understand that must wait. Please consider praying for me about these issues as well as rest, focus, and what my next step should be. 

Psalm 13 and Thoughts

 This morning, after weeks of frustration, I opened my bible in search of something that resonated with me, not just something to read and learn. I thought, "Oh, the Psalms. There's like 140, there has to be one that will resonate with me." 

Turns out there's actually 150 Psalms. But I just started going through from 1. I read each theme at the beginning and either read the psalm or passed over it. Then I got to Psalm 13. The theme in my bible says, "Praying for relief from despair. We must continue to trust God even when he doesn't answer us immediately."

Woah. That's it. Yup. People say, sometimes the Bible speaks to you. Yeah. That just happened. Anyway, I read it and just every word of it resonated with my situation in life. And then I felt a calm sweep over me. 

Below is the NLT version, I hope it brings you peace.

O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
    How long will you look the other way?
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
    with sorrow in my heart every day?
    How long will my enemy have the upper hand?

Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
    Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
    Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.

But I trust in your unfailing love.
    I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord
    because he is good to me.

 

Growing up and Graduating is hard

The job hunt is on! And boy, is it scary, challenging, and an emotional roller coaster. It's hard to find the balance of self encouragement, pride, reality, and confidence to keep applying after rejections and under qualifications.

The newest problem is that I don't have an actual music degree. I find this is a standard and that I might be getting straight overlooked because my degree isn't music business, or music production. Additionally I feel like since I don't have a prestigious name next to my degree I'm also getting over looked.

I am trying to have full faith in God, his provisions and timing but when I don't have any direction as to where I should even be applying it's very hard. I know He is good and will open the right door, but when will I know. Haha.. thats a silly question.

Margaux has invited me to go to Nashville with her over Spring Break and this has my head reeling. I am excited for the opportunity but then is that where I'm supposed to be. The thought of moving away in May and being away from Billy and my family is really hard. A hard reality that hadn't really hit me until today.

Also, moving away! Where? What if I don't have a job. Do I just up an move, immerse myself in a town, make it work there? If I move home I know I won't be devoted to moving away because I'll be working and taking time away from the job hunt. Nothing in college prepares you for this. The fear and confusion that approaches in the months leading up to graduation. I guess I just picked a difficult field, or maybe its a calling rather. I know what I'm doing is right but it is so dang hard.

So for now, I just wait. I seek, pray, and wait. Feeling lost but trusting in Psalm 31:14-15: "But I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands"

Life decisions are hard

Sometimes when friends talk about how we are four weeks into the semester I go into panic mode. That means that in twelve weeks I'm supposed to have a job secured and be ready to go there. 

When I have friends who graduated last May who still don't have jobs, this notion is terrifying. 

Ever since I got into audio in high school I've always thought "man how cool would it be to work in a church doing audio" and as I grew up this seemed to feel less attainable. Less like a "real" option. Tonight, feeling frustrated and hopeless I searched "church audio jobs" and some cool stuff came up. Like two really awesome opportunities at Elevation church which I will apply for in the coming month after I create a video. I have yet to delve into this search further but it is bringing hope back into the job search. 

I'm so much more comfortable in a church setting than an actual recordings studio. Imagine if I got to work in a church setting. :/ 

So much uncertainty and doubt is making it quite difficult to focus in my faith right now. I'm feeling like I'm being tossed around by the waves and some days the waters are still, some days it's rough water.  

None of this goes to mention the uncertainty of the road ahead for Billy and me. We currently have no idea when or where will be a good time or place to be married. All we actually do know is no matter where we are, we do not want to live together before marriage. We are literally trusting for God's timing to prevail. And that can be super hard when friends are getting engaged and married, at least it is for me. 

Directly here are some things that you can pray about us for:

- Recently a possible church job for Billy in Renton, WA has been applied for. He is in talks with a pastor there but we haven't heard anything for about a week or two. 

- I need patience. I am at my wits end trying to find a job in a place I don't know about yet because we haven't picked a place. Job searching is hard when you don't have a specific area in mind.. I'm frustrated with God and don't feel that he is leading me anywhere. 

- Togetherness. The coming months through August are going to be interesting for Billy and me. I graduate in May, Billy in late July. Billy is taking 21 credit hours and our time is minimal and often spent doing homework together. 

Thanks for your support...

A 5 year story in the making

If you had me stop and reflect on the last five years, I would tell you different stories depending on the topic. Education, friendships & joining a fraternity, love, or life in general, are each very different stories and how they each developed in the last five years would be a very different story. Right now I want to tell you the love story.

 Yup, that's awkward high school juniors, me & Billy. 2009. Our first photo. This was probably in March after we started dating on January 19, 2009.

Let me just make the long story short about how we started dating. We went to the same youth group, and this youth group goes on a ski retreat every year to Michigan. In October, Billy started talking to me and then we started IMing each other on Yahoo Instant Messenger (oh yeah.. the cool stuff). And then fast forward to MLK Weekend 2009 we found ourselves and oh, probably 30 of our fellow youth group goers in Michigan. The weekend was full of God moments and lots of reassurance for me.

A tidbit to know what I was experiencing going into this weekend goes as follows: April 2008 I had gone through a break up, July 2008 I went to CIY and gave my life to Christ after realizing that I am LOVED no matter what I have done, then in August 2008 I was baptized. I was super excited for this new worship-experince-retreat-type-deal.

Aaaaaaannnnnyyyy way, back to the love story. Here we are in Michigan and then all of sudden Billy, who had never actually hung out with me since we lived 30 minutes apart, starts like sitting at my table for meals and then he like.. walked with me to services.. and had hot chocolate with me, since I hadn't yet come to the dark side of coffee yet. (Side note: white mocha nasty, for anyone who remembers that story) Then sometimes at night we would have free time and one night we were just sitting in the cafeteria playing Slap Jack and talking. It was fun. And then here's another picture, good freind, Taylor Utley one day at lunch told us to frame the fire. So being the awkward indivduals we are we did this:

 I'm not really making a long story short.. sorry. Just reminscing.. And moving forward! That weekend was great, amazing, perfect, awesome, wonderful and then we came back on the buses to Indiana, and Billy asked if I would sit with him. So I did. And we listend to music and I think if we had a song it would be "Haight Street" by Anberlin because we listened to that song like.. so much on that 9 hour bus ride.

So yeah. January 19th 2009 we officially started dating. Our first date was on my birthday at the Danville Winter Guard show and since i was running around like a chicken with my head cut off  it wasn't really a date but he picked me up afterwards and took me home in his truck. Then yah know prom happened. I'm not going to give a play by play of high school.


If I'm trying to high light the important things in the last five years here is the short list:

The day Billy had his first seizure, during senior year of high school, was the first time I knew he was "the one". When Bruce called me and I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest, looking back, that's a pretty clear sign of love. This is the photo Susan brought to the hospital of us. It's Billy favorite photo of us from that shoot even though I hate it.

Seattle/Tacoma 2010. Serving together, learning together, traveling to an amazing city! I hope God let's us return there some day.

Being at Ball State together, learning about music together, and just learning how to be "adults" together. It's been great. This photo was sometime Freshman year just chillin by the Duck Pond.

 Flight of the Fallen. Words can't even begins to explain how Billy "helping Ty" and play some bass in November 2012 has changed our future. Since then we have met some amazing people, gained gospel friendship within the band that has really helped my faith, and just been a HUGE blessing.

I feel like I left a lot out but it's hard to narrow five years into one blog post. This last weekend our mothers came to Muncie to surprise us with money for us to go on a "ridiculously expensive date that we would never buy ourselves." We chose The Eagles Nest, downtown Indy.

I basically want to thank everyone for all of the fellowship, prayers and encouragement over the years. If you've known Billy and I for any amount of time, you know that we've had our hurdles and we could not have gotten over them without the grace and power of our loving Savior and your help as friends.

"Let all that you do be done in love."

- 1 Corinthians 16:14 ESV

What I really need

Today I found myself complaining to a friend how these next few months are seeming to have the potential for a lot of stress. 

Mumbling about the catch 22 of billy needing experience to get a job but not being able to get the job to gain experience, going on about not being engaged yet and not wanting to live together before marriage and how expensive that might get, also going on to say that the idea of planning a wedding from another city will be stressful. 

Later I got onto Pinterest to kill some time during band practice, and I saw this pin and I was SO convicted by this one pin. 

After almost a month of various ailments and illnesses I am finally starting to feel better and as soon as I saw this image I felt so dumb. If I had only taken more concern to Jesus my whole December could have been different. 

I need Jesus. Three words. Wow. Just kinda hits you like a wall. Sometimes the simplest words in the right combination can be so impacting. 

Additionally with all the potential that 2014 holds I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. I'm practically shaking in my boots. But the same image that convicted me so, brings me so much hope. 

I need Jesus. I have Jesus. 

I have Jesus as an ally. He is here at my side, on my path, walking beside me! What joy! What relief that I do not have to do this alone! 

Man, sometimes I swear I wrote these posts just so I can process. Haha! 

As 2014 is brand new to us, I am taking this new year as a new chance to cling to our God in every step, for every path, and every mile. I hope that you might join me in this same journey. 

Deuteronomy 30:20 

"And may love the Lord your God, obey His voice, and cling to Him. For He is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

(AMP) 

There's a Battle

There's a battle between good and evil
And it's raging inside of me
There's a struggle, it's God and the devil
It's love against the enemy

There's a snake that's hiding in the garden
There's a beautiful apple tree
There is trouble on the horizon
But I'm claiming victory


I'm going through a very rough time right now but God is greater. He has over come. If you would, I ask for you to pray for me. I am just dealing with all kinds of trust issues, jealousy, desire, motivation and anger. I greatly appreciate your prayers and thoughts as I try to unpack all of this over Christmas break.