Okay, here is another list of highlights from my day...1 - Hanging out with Sandra (which actually was Saturday) - but it was definitely a highlight to my weekend
2 - Talking with my best friend in Madrid, Ruth - FINALLY, after a few weeks of busyness - she is the person here who really knows me more or less inside out, good and bad, what is going well, what is not, my hopes & disappointments, and who loves me and who prays for me and about whom i know the same things. Definitely a huge highlight to my day.
3 - The card from my daddy.
4 - Some great time with the Lord in Starbucks, looking at what faith is, His faithfulness, His unchangingness. Amazing!!! We serve an amazing, present, loving, and powerful God who promises to fulfill his promises and to be with us wherever we may go. Definitely another BIG highlight.
5 - Talking to Ana on the phone, another good friend, who is compassionate and who also actually cares about my life - hard and easy.
6 - Taking a step back from the present realities and seeing that, yes, I need to again realize I am not quite superwoman and that that is okay. Focusing on a few things and only one or two big projects at a time is in fact good, wise, and the only advisable thing. I don't have to do everything I want to see happen here this year and it is actually the LORD who is to produce the results, not me. I just need to walk in these truths, which as of late, have been a bit hard to do. I keep on wrestling be wanting to do many HUGE, IMPOSSIBLE things all at once instead of doing one at a time and instead of stepping back. So, it was good of God to yet again remind me that I am a person and that He is present and that He IS delighted with me as I walk by faith and trust him with one step as a time AND that I need to wait on him first.
7 - All the RED in my room and that I'm wearing presently. Somehow the color red makes me happy! Silly, yes, but happy.
8 - Having Mondays to rest a bit, pause, and plan for the week. Somehow, I really don't tend to like Mondays, but they are good. I need Mondays, particularly after the crazy busy weekends I tend to have. Thank you, Jesus, for knowing what I need better than I do myself.
9 - Colony, the band. I think they've probably broken up by now, but my TA in college for Animal Physiology (I was a premed, biochemistry major) was in this band. In my college years they were signed by a big record label, put out a couple of cds, and looked like they might get really big. Anyway I have them on my itunes and am listening to them right now.
Okay, ONE thing that makes me frustrated and angry- my stupid bed that has these wooden planks that on an every few week basis just fall out and send me falling to the ground. (Okay, maybe a bit of an exaggeration since there are about 20 of them. Every week or so one of them falls out making the bed a bit uneven. But then every few months (and just now, thus the frustration) about 7-10 of them all at once decide to fall out and they do send me falling to the ground (or close to the ground). AHHH!!! It is easily fixed, but just frustrating. And a little reminder that I need to invest in a better bed. :-) (And I guess frustration is not all bad because I think I actually figured out a way to at least get some of them to stay in place a bit better. A few nails and a hammer do wonders. And the hammering helps a bit on the frustration :-). I do still need to get a new, less maintenance needy bed, but for the time being it looks like I'm set. At least for the time being...)
10 - I am also VERY thankful that God holds us closely, firmly, lovingly in His strong hands. I love the picture above. This is my prayer, that I would remember His very near presence, that I would allow Him to love me and realize more and more of the depths of that love, that I would rest in Him, and that I would be quick to tell others about His greatness! :-) Ahh! Fresh air!
11 - Some good friends, who are fun, who remind me of what is true, who just listen to me, who just care, who pray for me, who love me, and who are just good friends!!!
12 - Blogs - I have begun to really like using this to process life or just share joys and sorrows or things I find interesting. Fun and good for my heart.
13 - Jesus, the Bible, and being able to talk to Him whenever I want, about anything I want, just as I am without having to put on a mask or guard what I say or how I say it. And I can trust that He listens, that He cares, that He loves me, that He will respond, that He will lead me, that He will change my heart and my attitude and my outlook, that He will make me more like Himself little by little, and that He will help me to reflect him more and more by the Holy Spirit alive within me. Yeah, Jesus, my love and my king!
14 - My friend, Sarah Mueller's amazing voice. She was a part of Cheating Kay and does some work with her husband Thomas who is Miller Howell. Anyway, I'm listening to some of their old stuff and just love to hear her sing.
15 - Hearing great stories about how God is at work in others' lives, particularly in the small seemingly insignificant, but very important to us, details. Thanks Ryan!
16 - Rice cakes, peanut butter, honey, and raisins and carrots & my neighbor's rabbit paté. Unfortunately I need to go shopping, so this was my dinner. I really do like rice cakes, though. They are part of my dinner thanks to my roommate Anna.
(Note: As of late, I tend to make these lists of top 10 or more when I'm having a kind of blah day to remind myself of what is actually good. Somehow it helps to take the dark cloud of overwhelmedness or gloom away. Just FYI and insight into my life. By the way, it really does change my whole outlook. I've also begun to do it with people too whom make me angry, so that I don't demonize them and can see something good in them.)
