My, Oh My

It's August 15th. 

Summer is over. 

My, oh my, where'd the months go?

My younger sister started her dual enrollment at the local technical college this morning. My younger brother starts his freshman year at the Citadel this weekend. I start my senior year next week. 

My, oh my, where'd the years go? 

I guess all we can do is honor God with our hours, and trust Him in the moments, because He sees the years behind us and the years before us. 

Those years are made of months, weeks, days, hours, and moments. 

Live them well.

Waiting.

I will be the first to admit it: patience is not one of my strengths.

It's not easy being patient.

And something's occurred to me lately that I thought I should share.

Shouldn't it be (theoretically) easier to be patient on God?

That's not to make Him sound slow or anything, just our perception of time.

I mean, we know He's promised to provide for us.

We know He'll bless us.

And we know He has our best at heart and in mind.

So why are we so antsy?

We know the answer, but just in case you don't want to own to it, I will:

we want what we want when we want it.

I do. And I'll bet you do, too.

And nothing's wrong with wanting something (assuming it's a good thing).

But when we let that get in the way of trusting God, we end up making the thing we want - or sometimes even the wanting itself - an idol.

If God wants us to have it, we'll have it.

If He doesn't, we won't.

Waiting's hard.

I know it is.

But if you're waiting in God's time with a good attitude . . . it'll be worth it.

Always.

What are you waiting for?

Be Still and Know

Psalm 46:10

"Be still and know that I am God. . ."

Sunday, one of the songs we sang in church had to do with trusting God and being still in His presence. 

Monday, a dear family at our church buried their three month old daughter. One of the songs at the funeral was about being still and worshiping God. 

The funeral shook me up quite a bit, and afterwards I went for a drive, just to think and pray alone. 

I ended up at a beach, just staring at the waves. 

And that's when I realized (again) what being still with God really is.

You know when you're with that friend and you don't need to say anything to fill in the silence because it's a comfortable one? I think that's what being still is. It's sort of like a lull in the conversation, where you've poured out your heart, and you're just waiting on Him to speak to you.

It's really nice. And very comforting. 

And it isn't something you only do when things are hard.

It's something we should be doing all the time. 

It's hard. I know it is. There are so many distractions, from school, work, friends, obligations, technology (hey, I admit this freely, and I love my gadgets).

But God gave us the time we have . . . shouldn't we "spare" some for Him . . . ?

A Loooooooooooooong Day

Well, I got my work out today . . . at work.
I was asked to come in an hour early to install some blinds.
The instructions said it would take 15 minutes.
Remember that. That's important.
I told my boss it would probably take about half an hour.
. . .
Right . . .
So, the instructions were very poorly written . . . I was given two different types of screws and they never said which screws were for what, so I had to take an educated guess. I think I was right . . .
Anyhow, I had to drill holes before putting in the screws, and I followed the directions which said to use a 1/16 bit. That seemed to be way too small, but only after we forced about five screws into the holes.
Once we got the holder-thingys up, we tried getting the actual blinds in.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh my goshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
These kinds of blinds are cut to your specific needs in Lowe's. Apparently my boss asked for 62". She got 62 3/4".
Doesn't sound like much, but when you're trying to slide a metal box into a fixed space . . . IT MATTERS.
So she says that somebody needs to go back to Lowe's and have it recut. I'm the only one not really needed at the office, so I volunteered. She was fine with it until we remembered my car's still in the shop. She then decided I could use hers, but then she was like "Hey, no, wait, you had that really bad accident a while ago!"
(It was actually three years ago, but I understand her reluctance.)
She made me promise to be very careful and then gave me the keys.
Hahaha, POWER!!!
So, I go to Lowe's and just as I pull up . . . it starts raining.
Great.
I end up lugging this huge, heavy thing into Lowe's, holding it for like half an hour while somebody else's blinds are being cut (which is totally fine; they were there first) and I finally get it cut.
I go back to work and TA-DA! it slides right in.
PRAISE. THE LORD.
So, once the blinds are up, I tried to lower them.
And tried.
And tried . . .
After 20 minutes of messing with it (including taking it down again), we finally got it working.
This whole process took like three and a half HOURS.
Fifteen minutes . . .
Pfft, yeah, right!