The Year Of...

For those of you that don't know (read: really only the 3 of you that visit my blog), my birthday is coming up in a mere 6 weeks. This year will mark a quarter of a century. Although I wouldn't change it and don't think "F-O" 24 (as Amy said to her 27th ;)) is necessarily the way that I want to end this year, I would very much like to start 25 refreshed and moving forward rather than just standing still. In this spirit, I have decided that I want this year to have a name... a mascot, if you will. So far, I'm partial to the year of the giraffe...

... or the year of the penguin.

I'm open to more suggestions, if anybody has any great ideas. ;)

Okay, now that's just wrong. You don't even know how long I tried to get that space in there two posts ago. Wrong, I say... just wrong. Blogger is messing with my head!

Bored

I'm sitting here on a Saturday night... eating a bowl of Cheerios... wondering why exactly it is that I feel like such a loser if I don't have plans for Friday and Saturday nights. Really... no less than a loser.

I'm also thinking about how much it bothers me that when I hit return twice to put a blank line between two paragraphs of my blog, that it now posts without the blank line... as if I only hit return once. I didn't hit it once. I hit it twice, dang it! And for good reason!

See... it happened here.

And here...

And here!

Relentless Pursuit

I am so amazed at God's love story for us...for me! I think lately if I have been particularly lonely I'm reminded of it even more. Reminded that I already have all the things that I'm wanting or missing. More and more over the past few years God has given me the gift of seeing different points in my life when He was right there... pursuing me... loving me. I wonder sometimes why He's allowed me to see these things, but I am so thankful that He has. I think maybe it's the times when I doubt myself the most that I'm reminded of something so intricately arranged by God just to get my attention... one more try to get me to turn to Him... to love Him... to want Him. He never gives up on us! What good news! I hope that part of eternity will be God showing me "our" story... and I'm certain I will fall in love with him many times over because of it.

The Gardner

It seems so inherent to who I am, but not to who He is. He sees it for what it is from the beginning, but for me it takes convincing. I don't even see it as a problem. God knows, though, that without it I'd be more like Jesus. So, at first, he just points it out. In my brokeness, I want to keep it. It's what I know. It's familiar. And it's usually selfish. Slowly, he stretches that part of me out. He pulls it out into the light so I can see it for what it is... something that I'm better off without.It is painful. It's not pleasant when God calls you on your sin... that you didn't recognize as sin in the first place.

When I think of pruning, I think of God cutting off branches that won't bring me life and maybe even some that are already dead. In my case, he has both taken things away and asked me to give them up... in that order. God, in his mercy, is patient yet firm. I want God's dreams for me, and to learn to trust Him completely. He's teaching me how to do that.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10