Life changes

Okay, I'll admit it. I am the world's worst blogger. I aspire to have my life together like the Pioneer Woman and still have time to blog funny stories about the happenings in my life. But lets be honest, my life is not nearly as fun or interesting as hers.

ALTHOUGH...

I got married!!! Yup, I married my best friend. Let me just say it's been a crazy year. He's been one of my very best friends since I was 16. We had dated in the past and it usually (always) ended in me freaking out and running from commitment. However, we always found ourselves hanging out again and again because we had so much fun together. So...this past February/March we started "dating", come July we got engaged...

And 3 months later on October 15th we got married. It was BY FAR the BEST day of my LIFE!!!

The location was at the Blue Dress Barn and it was my dream wedding.

So needless to say this has been the craziest year of my life. I went from my one bedroom apartment to living with and being married to a BOY... but I love him so much!

So, Pioneer woman, I know you cook and clean and home school your four kids and run a farm and still have one of the most popular blogs on the internet... but I planned a wedding in 3 months!!!

Here's to more consistent blogs despite how crazy my life is!

one day you will

I listen to country.

I do. So bite me!

I'm so glad I got that off my chest!

I recently downloaded the new Lady Antebellum album. And I love it.

There's one song in particular that relly caught my ears. I just like it. It's kinda depressing (well some of it), but I really like the chorus, it gives me hope. Makes me happy.

I've copied the lyrics below:

You feel like you're falling backwards
Like you're slippin' through the cracks
Like no one would even notice
If you left this town and never came back
You walk outside and all you see is rain
You look inside and all you feel is pain
And you can't see it now

[Chorus]
But down the road the sun is shining
In every cloud there's a silver lining
Just keep holding on
And every heartache makes you stronger
But it won't be much longer
You'll find love, you'll find peace
And the you you're meant to be
I know right now that's not the way you feel
But one day you will

That's all for now I guess :-)

Alone

The thing about living alone is, well, it sometimes gets lonely.

Unless I make a conscious effort to hang out with people and have community in my life, it just wouldn't happen.

I'm beginning to learn that this is not a bad thing.

You see, the thing is, when I'm surrounded by people on a regular basis they become my support system, which in most cases is a good thing.

But people aren't always going to be there...not always.

So I find myself relying so heavily on them for support, whether that be emotionally or spiritually or even sometimes physically, that I tend to forget about the most important support system.

My Savior Jesus Christ.

How silly of me to think that earthly things and people could replace Him.

Another thing about living alone. Well, I have a lot of free time to think. So I think, a lot. Maybe its more of like a pondering. Either way, I ponder a lot.

And here is something I've been pondering.

Do you ever feel like where you are is the place you are supposed to be, but you aren't actually supposed to stay there, like maybe it's just a stepping stone to where you are supposed to end up. And if that's the case, how do you know when you are supposed to move on, and to where?

I love Grand Rapids. I love my job, I love my friends, but somewhere, something deep within me isn't content with this life. It's like I was made for something more purposeful, more selfless, not as much about me, but more of other people...something with very little gain for myself.

And yet I have no idea what that is.

I have ideas of what I would like it to be. I picture myself in a rural village in Africa or South America, cute little orphans all around me, sweat dripping from my forehead from a long days toil of delivering babies and saving lives. But even then I'm bringing this back to myself.

So how do I know figure out the fine line between being content but not complacent. How do I know when I'm supposed to just be happy where I'm at and when I'm supposed to be looking for whats ahead.

I guess I'll just have to trust the man with the road map :-)

It takes two...

I don't ever watch TV. No really, I don't. I don't even own a TV, let alone pay for cable or whatnot. But I find when I do catch a few minutes of it here or there, whether in the break-room at work or while waiting for my oil to get changed, I find myself almost appalled by what I see. First of all, all the political jargon...I could definitely live without watching that. It's like there are constantly two forces fighting against each other. Republicans and Democrats. I mean, really, can't we just agree on something? Then you see all the celebrities who are supposed to have this glamerous lifestyle but end up being ruined by fame. John and Kate for instance...now splitting up, because fame has left them discontent with who they are and what they are, and now 8 kids have to go through a really messy divorce.

It just gets me all depressed.

So I don't watch.

It's not like I'm in denial. Like I put on my rose tinted glasses and go through life as a Pollyanna. No. I know its out there. I know there's a constant battle between good and evil, between democrats and republicans, I know that fame and fortune can ruin anyone.

I just don't need to watch it.


None of that stuff should change who I am or how I live my life. The only thing it might do is distract me from the stuff that is really important. Some statistic said that on average American's spend 5 hours a day watching TV. 5 hours? Really?

Imagine if those 5 hours a day were spent cleaning up the cities, or helping the homeless, or even playing with your kids.

Just imagine that.

I'm not judging. Really the main reason I don't have a TV is because I know how easy it would be for me to spend 5 hours a day in front of it.

So I find myself wondering tonight...why we are so infatuated with turmoil? Why can't we keep our eyes off all the miss-happenings of this world?

Is it because we were created to help fix it?

And if we were created to help make sense and order out of all the mess in our world why do we find ourselves as mere "gawkers" and spectators? Are we paralyzed by fear? Fear of failure? Fear of not having the right resources or not knowing what to do?

What's keeping us from playing the game?

A new beginning

I can't believe it's been over a year since my last blog post, although, I guess I can believe it.  Time flies.  And as much as I would like at times for time to stop in it's tracks, it doesn't. It just keeps ticking and flying by.

Sounds like life to me. One constant flow of chaos.  Sometimes I feel like a chaos magnet. 

Something that has been hardest for me as of late is the lack of rhythm to my life.

Does life ever get rhythmic? And if it does... is that really what I want?

Is a rhythmic life a good thing, or is it something that appears good on the surface but really is harmful to us?

It's so easy to get comfortable with rhythm. 

Like right now I find myself wide awake at 4:30 in the morning.  Only because I worked til 7am the night before, got 3 hours of sleep before starting my day at 1pm and then crashed at 7pm, only to awaken at 3am WIDE AWAKE.

There is nothing rhythmic about that.  

It's not that I really mind chaos. In fact there are times that I crave it. I mean, I work in an ER and there is NOTHING "non-chaotic" about an ER. 

Sometimes I just wonder if amidst the chaos you lose or forget something vital to life. I wonder if the small little details that often get forgotten in the chaos aren't really just details, but are intricate parts of what makes us tick, what makes us come alive.  

And so begins my quest. Not a quest of perfection, but of balance. A balance between chaos and rhythm, between complex and simple, between what is unnecessary and what is essential.  

A quest to find what makes me tick and what makes me come alive.

But it's not really about me, is it?

Couldn't resist showing off my adorable nieces

the faith of a child

Testing... I guess that's what I would call it, no maybe more like challenging me...either way God has been doing a lot in my heart lately. I can't say that I have always responded to this the right way.

I sat in church on Sunday listening to a sermon on Mark 6. You know the one where Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray and leaves the disciples to cross the sea of Galilee in a storm. They of course are freaking out and Jesus proceeds to spend like 7-10 hours up there praying. Then he has the nerve to walk on by them while they are freaking out and be like "hey guys, whats up?". probably more like "what are you worried about, it's not like I ever left you. I was up on the mountain watching over you the whole time."

Most days I feel a lot like those disciples. It seems nearly impossible to get my arms around the fact that EVERYTHING is in God's hands. From the job I get when I graduate to where I am 5 years down the road from now. Why is it that I tend to focus so much on the future and actually spend time worrying if the future will turn out the way it's supposed to. Doesn't God specifically tell us not to worry about tomorrow? He has given us today, the very present, and we are responsible to live and seek His will to the fullest...TODAY. And yes, if he chooses to give us tomorrow then we will do that with tomorrow also, but to spend time and energy worrying about the future, well that is just taking away from what He has given us right here and right now.

Oh to have the faith of a child...I watch my niece live today to the fullest. She wants to do EVERYTHING today....waiting until tomorrow is just unheard of, why would we wait to do something tomorrow when we could do it today?

My life these days is somewhere between a cry and a laugh...and yet I realize regardless of how much crying or laughing I do....

It's all in His hands...