Seen Ways, Counted Steps

It's 11:00PM on a Friday night. My body is tired, but my mind is spinning like crazy. Nothing particularly remarkable has happened lately...I mean nothing physical. God has been doing something in me, though.

I've heard the opinion "Live everyday like it's your last" since I was a little girl. I've always agreed with it, but never lived like it. Up until now I've lived my life half-expecting time to just slow down for me somehow. I can't do it anymore. I can't live my life hoping for something else to happen, for something else grandiose and wonderful to come along and change everything. It doesn't work that way.

I heard something interesting from Joyce Myers the other day. Basically, she said that people will never be content with their lives until they learn to accept the fact that there are some things they will never be able to change. God has to change things for them, and He does it in His timing. We just have to believe that He will do them...when it's right. We can't worry about them, we can't control them and manipulate them. Everybody gets dealt a hand in life. Some people get a raw deal. For some reason, I've been given a lot of grace in my life and never had anything traumatic happen to me. Maybe it's because I'm not as strong as other people...I wouldn't be able to handle it as well. I don't know.

But I can't keep living each day like I've got plenty of time to change. I don't want to keep living the way I have been...it's miserable, always wondering if I'm missing something or not doing enough. I know now that as long as I praise God - make it a point to talk to Him, worship Him, love Him the way I was created to do...everything else will fall into place.

I've felt very convicted about my eating habits. Food has become an addiction to me, and I can say that now with honesty because I know the number of times I've tried to go on a diet and failed. How is giving into temptation by eating unhealthy food constantly, in the process hurting your temple - how is that any different than taking drugs and hurting yourself? It's not.

It's amazing the kind of clarity that gives me now, though. When I look at something I want to eat really bad now, it's like...something in my mind recognizes it as something I'm either going to give the power to control me or not. I want to know that He who is in me is stronger than the hungers of my flesh, no matter what it is I may be hungry for.

School is really hard right now. I'm getting into the meat of Criminal Justice, and there are so many complicating factors to our judicial system and rules of evidence. Everything has stipulations. You have to think about EVERYTHING before you do it when you work in law enforcement or as a lawyer. You have to scrutinize every action and remind yourself of rights and rules and...just so much stuff. And the kinds of things people do to each other is unbelievable. I have to work through this, though.

As far as men go, Nena is officially on hiatus. I'm just tired of trying. I'm tired of getting hurt, I'm tired of hurting others, and I'm tired of trying to work through every emotion and meaning behind it. God is everything I need...I believe that now. Maybe He has plans for me that require me to marry later in life. Whatever it is, I don't care. I just know that I love Him, and I need Him, and that when love does come around for me...it'll be because God wanted it to be there, and not because I tried to make it be there. I'm not interested in dating anymore. I'm interested in letting God blow my mind when the right person comes along, and waiting until that happens.

Among the things I feel like should count in the "Live like you were dying" department (I've had a ridiculous number of confirmations on that, by the way), making it a point to be alone with God everyday and trying to practice the keyboard as often as I can are included. Keyboard is hard right now with taking an upper-level criminal justice course in the summer (half the time, so twice the work every week), but I'm working on it.

That’s life right now in a nutshell. In the midst of it all, I’m connecting with God on some deeper level. Some place where, when I’m alone with His presence, unspeakable joy enters into me and reminds me of the meaning of my life. A joy I’ve never been able to find in anything or anyone else. When I can just sit and sing to my Savior and understand that He’s devastatingly in love with me as He listens…that I can have that type of effect on Him - He who is beauty and strength and purity and love itself - it stops my world for a while, and I can forget. I can forget about all of my obligations and all of the bars I set on myself, and I try and memorize the way I feel in that moment so I won’t ever forget what real love and freedom feel like.

I really hope this spiritual season lasts for a long time. I can’t get enough of Him.