encouraging sisterly affection

something to be thankful for: an amazing sister.

i love that emily and i have fun doing pretty much anything together. she is so warm, loving, and sweet. i love coming home because she is always excited to see me. she is simply awesome.

some of our favorite things to do together are laughing, cooking, baking, watching pride and prejudice, thrifting, watching glee, drinking coke floats, singing, dancing, getting frozen yogurt, playing board games, watching old movies (mostly musicals and anything with bing crosby) and sleeping with our beds or mattresses pushed together.

everything is bound to change

once upon a time, i graduated from high school and went to college. lora wong made me a mix cd, and written on the cd in sharpie were the lyrics from a sean mcconnell song: "you know things can never stay the same, you know everything is bound to change." truth. things were bound to change then, in summer 2007, just as things are bound to change now. this is the course of life.

when i experience major change, i feel there is a lot to grieve: the loss of the things that have been. new, good things will come, but it's hard to deal with closing a chapter of life. i am truly a creature of habit. change is hard for me. i can't think of any other time in my life when i've felt this frustrated with the things God is doing, or in my case, the things i feel He isn't doing. i know He's working even though i don't understand but i want answers to my questions. when is He going to make me excited about the future? when will the confusion disappear? what exactly are my passions? what is my specific calling in life? these are things i really desire...

maybe the issue comes down to what everyone else is doing. other people are getting jobs in areas they're really passionate about. other people are moving to cool cities. other people are getting married. other people have actual jobs where they will make money and support themselves. other people have internships that will eventually get them jobs. other people have perfect plans developed. other people are looking forward to the future. i know i shouldn't be playing the comparison game... but sometimes, compared to all this, i feel like i have nothing.

i know the Lord has specific, perfect, individual plans just for me. i have hope that He will bring to completion all the things He's been starting in me (though i don't know His timeline). i have faith that the Lord is still good, still strong and powerful, still sovereign, still loving and kind and gracious and merciful, still righteous and holy, still perfect, still all-knowing... even though, in some moments, i often don't feel that these things are true about Him. they are still true. and Jesus is still worthy of everything: all my strength and hope, all my love and devotion, all my trust.

elissa has captured my prayer for this morning:
"i do not need to know Your schedule or Your plans
Christ died so i can live is all i need to understand
i put my trust in You and on Your promises i'll stand"

help me to know this is true, Jesus. help me to trust You.

on deck or in the hole

tonight during my small group of dance leaders, my friend katherine read the devotional from "jesus calling" from march 26, the date that restoration happened this year. she read it to us because of the final line, "in My presence is the fullness of joy." this is cool because this part of psalm 16 was popping up all over the place. it was our "theme verse," if you will, for the tap piece meredith and i choreographed, and as leaders we really felt the Lord speaking His joy, a joy that is not defined by our circumstances but by the Lord's goodness and faithfulness, over the dancers and the audience.

but, surprisingly, this was not the part of the devotional that really stuck out to me. the majority of it was about waiting on the Lord. oh the ironies.

"I have promised many blessings to those who wait on Me: renewed strength, living above one's circumstances, resurgence of hope, awareness of My continual presence. waiting on Me enables you to glorify Me by living in deep dependence on Me, ready to do My will."

there was a similar topic in one of my favorite devotionals a few days prior. the text begins by mentioning the forty years that the israelites spent oppressed in egypt before God delivered them. sometimes, God waits. as the devotional says, "yet when God delays, He is not inactive. this is when He prepares His instruments and matures our strength. then at the appointed time we will rise up and be equal to our task. even Jesus of nazareth had thirty years of privacy, growing in wisdom before He began His work." (streams in the desert, march 22)

and further: "don't steal tomorrow from God's hands. give Him time to speak to you and reveal His will. He is never late - learn to wait."