Whatever It Might Be....

I always start off by saying “I am going to write so many times this year and make sure that at least it is once a month” but it amazes me how quickly I get caught up in the busyness that I just overlook the things I consider important to me. But then that being said in itself makes me question how important that item really was in the first place, ya know?

I look back to how my life has changed over the past 3 years and especially since I started writing in this blog. Three years ago I was living in Canal Winchester, Ohio. I had already applied for the company that I worked for today and I am pretty sure I already had my first interview. I had a place to live lined up, I was crazy to think that I would sell everything that I couldn’t fit into my car to move a thousand miles west away from everything that I knew and everything that I had ever experienced. Crazy? Yep. I would describe myself as crazy and radical and full of faith but most definitely crazy.

If you would have asked me if three years later I would still be living in Oklahoma, I probably would have told you no and that I would have already moved somewhere else. There was a time in my life and even to this day, I would wrestle with the thought of settling and throwing down my roots so to say. I knew I was supposed to move to Oklahoma but I assumed it was only for a season. A very short season. Three years tops and then I’d be on to my next adventure. I assumed I might be married or at least on the way, but the funny things is all I got was a dog and two incredible roommates and some pretty amazing friends that have turned into family along with incredible memories that I wouldn’t trade for the world. But I’ve never been happier and for the first time in my life, I am content. Not many people can say that. Especially at 26.

I never saw myself working full time in banking but it just so happens that the cards have been dealt in my favor. I thought I’d be on staff full time as an administrator in some church or out speaking and traveling. But not banking. I never wanted corporate. I never wanted a clock in/clock out type of life. But I love what I do and every day I get the opportunity to help change someones life and half the time it happens without me realizing it. Again, not many people can say that.

I didn’t know exactly what to expect when moving to Oklahoma, I just knew that my life was going to change. It is amazing; I feel like I have lived here all my life and if you were ask me today if I could ever see myself moving away from here, I can honestly say that I just don’t see it. That in itself shocks me. When I commit with anything or anyone, I go all in. There isn’t a half way with me. What you see is what you get. You get the laughs, the tears, the joy, the stress, the frustration, the jokes, the happiness, the crying, the OCD, the naps, the loud music, the dedication. You name it, you get it. It is not in my nature to do anything “half-assed” some might say. But when it comes to throwing down my roots and saying this is it, this is where I will build my life, it scares me and I always would run after I got comfortable. Maybe that is the point of never being comfortable. You should always be living for whatever God has for you next but also having faith and patience in his timing.

I also have always thought myself to be a patient person. Stubborn but patient and it has come to my attention over the past 6 months that I am not as patient as I would tend to think that I am. Don’t you just love it when that happens? It’s not that I want it to be done my way , I just want it to happen. Whatever “it” might be. We all have them. Mine at first was a new career. I resented the position that I was in and I felt like I was being completely taken advantage of and so I did just about anything and everything to get out of it. In the long run, it was hell on earth so it seemed. I hated going to work every day. I would have used all of my sick time if I knew I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble. I got frustrated with friendships and relationships that I began to revert and pull myself out. I would make up stupid excuses of “I’m tired or I fell asleep or I have homework,” yet my class had ended a week ago. I tried to quit my position at church, twice. I knew that staying and enduring was part of the process but I still wanted to quit. Why? Because it wasn’t happening when I wanted it to happen. Again, whatever “it” was and still is to this day.

This past January and February my pastor preached and taught on the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And for the first time in my life, I wanted to know what I believed. I wanted to be able to defend what I gave up everything for. I also discovered for myself that God isn’t spooky. The Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost whatever you prefer to call him isn’t spooky and creepy. He can be understood and if you want him to be apart of your life, He will and can change it for the better. For the first time, I really wanted people to come to church with me and learn about this God that I believed in and I wanted to help change their lives. Not for me or my benefit but for their benefit. It was the best 5 weeks of teaching I am pretty sure that I have ever heard and I grew up in church.

One of my friends said something about the Holy Spirit and it changed my life and the way I think about God as well as the Holy Spirit: “The level in which you allow him to operate in your life, is the level in which he can change your life and you can understand him.” That changed my entire perspective. God doesn’t just want to be apart of your life for the moments where you are sad and going through trials but He wants to be active and apart of your life at all times in all things. This is where the Holy Spirit comes into play. In every way He is there working and acting on your behalf if you allow him.

We tapped into the fruits of the Spirit and it’s amazing how when you think you are a patient person that the first thing that God will call you out on is patience. I was like “WHAT?! I am patient!” I knew in that moment that my patience was about to be tested and oh how it has been. I read a passage on patience today and it was going over how when you are patient for the right things in life: the career, the spouse, the house, the car, the church, the opportunities, that your attitude towards whatever you are being patient for is so much more important. It shows the importance of whatever your “it” might be. Patience and faith in God shows that you are making him the cornerstone of your life in which everything else can fall into its place.

The book of James says, “Let patience have her way with you for when she is finished, you will be complete and lacking nothing.” If that doesn’t motivate you to wait for IT then I don’t know what else you might need. When I begin to find myself getting ancy, I quote that over my life. I also will speak Jeremiah 29:11 over my life and Ezekiel 22:30.

It’s funny how we limit our own selves, not others. We put the blinders on our own eyes. We restrict our own faiths simply because of the “what-if”s or “I don’t knows” or the impatience that we have. I have learned that the “what-if’s” and the “I don’t knows” are okay as long as you don’t live in and on them. I have also learned that questioning God doesn’t mean you are doubting him, you just are simply human and it is our nature to be curious and ask away.

One of the greatest things that I could have experienced on my journey over the past three years were the silent times, the testing and trying of patience and obedience. I still have the silent times and I have learned to appreciate those seasons. It is in those seasons that I am able to see full circle why everything is happening around me and to me. Things I wouldn’t understand and might not see if my life was just at continual, full speed. It amazes me how sometimes I think that God has forgotten about me and then in the middle of an ordinary day, something makes me recognize his uncontrollable and unfathomable love for me. The assurance that He hasn’t forgotten who I am or who He has called and created me to be. That when I don’t understand why things happen or go the way that they do, that He is all knowing and I must recognize that faith in Him includes faith in His timing.