get it all out

Tonight I am back at Higher Groundz, one of my favorite coffee shops in SLO.  It is a good place to study.  I should be studying, what with the French midterm tomorrow, the senior project introduction due Friday.  

But I need to write something in my native language.  So hello, WordPress.  I am overwhelmed, underwhelmed.  Here comes some “verbal” processing.  The Lord has been leading me so well, directing my steps as I remain in him.  Here’s an example:

Today I sat in the UU plaza with Caellin and Lyse and got the WORST sunburn of the year  It’s not real cute.  Anyway, we talked about our weekends, and I soaked up all the wisdom I could from Caellin as she explained her experiences of ministry partner development (MPD) to Lyse and I.  Later, after a brief intermission of French literature, I came back to the UU plaza to meet with Megan to talk about support raising for her summer project to Tokyo.  I felt really inadequate talking with her, because I am dealing with so much doubt in the are of the Lord’s provision lately.  To be honest, my emotions feel just like the skin on my back: dry, itchy, burned, uncomfortable.  I’m over-cooked with all of the information that my mind marinates in after a weekend full of good, albeit overwhelming details of MPD.

It turns out that the Lord blessed my conversation with Megan, who brings joy to my life through her willingness to follow the Lord’s call to Tokyo.  Talking with Megan was just what I needed to remember all of the truths the Lord has been teaching me lately about how to trust in him to fight for me.  Deut. 2-3, 1 Kings 17, Philippians 4 just kept coming to mind as we talked.  Towards the end of our conversation, Ashley, a team member from the Invisible Children roadies came to up to us and we talked for a bit about Invisible Children and life.  After a few minutes of chatting, Ashley shared with us about how she recently stayed with a missionary family in Orange County, where she was blown away by the way they lived their lives completely off of financial support from ministry partners.  

I was blown away too.  This story, unsolicited from a complete stranger was a breath of fresh air into my sunburned day.  Thank goodness for aloe vera and encouragement from sisters in Christ.

Ashely is great.  Check out her video….she’s legit:

Amen.

I read this while I was blog surfing today:

my mid twenties can be summed up in one breathe as this; You’ve become an adult and its really nothing like you imagined.

Amen and amen.  That’s all I can say….just substitute the word “early” for “mid” in front of twenties, and that’s me in a nutshell these days.  But it is good, oh so good.

 I’m kicking-off my internship with Campus Crusade this weekend and the appropriately named “kick off weekend” in Orange County.  Here’s to long car rides with friends, putting off homework til Monday morning and learning all about support raising.  Pray for me if you think of it.  That’s all…I’m late to my French conversation class.

contentment.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  (Phil 4:12)

This is what I ask the Lord to teach me this day.  I know that I can ask him for what I want, but the true desire of my heart is not for my own wants but for his.  My heart aches over my own desires. I am blinded by what I want,  so much so that sometimes I can’t even see where my blessed Lord is leading me. 

Here’s my delimma…I’m supposed to ask him for what I want.  How much can I want and yet be content at the same time?  I don’t understand this at all.  My prayer is that the Lord would shape my desires to line up with his, that I might be content where I am, rejoicing in who he has made me.

I don’t want to wish my life away, chasing a desire of  my heart while missing out on the good gifts the Lord has given me for this day.  It is so hard.  I am tired.  It’s so much easier to just pine away sometimes.  Sometimes like right now.  I feel my fleshy-ness so much in moments such as these.

Has the Lord revealed truth to you about this? How has he taught you about your desires, about contentment?  I would love to hear about it.