This week...

This week has been CRAZY!!! Full of activity, blessings, good stuff and, well, I won't say bad stuff but very HEAVY stuff!

To start with, I have been working a different shift than what I'm used to and let me just say, I hate it. It's been a LOOOOONNNNNGGGG week! I did it to avoid being involved in VBS and that part has been good. But my afternoons are almost unbearably boring! But only two more days of that and then everything is back to normal, praise God!

Speaking of Him, how great is God? Let me tell you! I went from having NO job prospects whatsoever to having three interviews in one week and a fourth scheduled on Monday!!! All the interviews so far have went very well. I know the job I want but it scares me at the same time. I don't want to get in over my head but I am ready for a challenge at the same time. Just pray that if this is where God wants me He will make it abundantly clear and that He will also provide me the tools, the gifts and the strength to see it through. You guys know me, I'm so freakin' competitive, I want to always be the very best at whatever I'm doing. If I'm teaching, I feel like I have to be the BEST teacher. If I'm writing, I want my stories on the front page! If I'm homeschooling, I want my kids to be the smartest! If I'm doing Zumba, I want to be on the front row, not missing a beat while everyone thinks, "wow, wish I could do that!"

That's not to say I don't accept the fact that I have weaknesses and flaws and that sometimes I don't come out on top and when I don't, I'm not devastated. But I still strive to be the best. I don't know why and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good. I just don't like to do things half-***!

I have also been struggling with some issues lately. They are really not new issues--ones that I have had my entire life. And here's where my writer's block comes in as I don't really know how to put into words what these issues are...I don't understand them and I don't like feeling so intense about them. I have been doing a lot of reading lately on dealing with your past, confronting people and issues, analyzing childhood memories and just doing a lot of soul-searching.

Psychology has always fascinated me. I don't want to be psychologist for others, although I do think I'm a good listener and compassionate and don't mind when others confide in me--if I can help anyone anyway, I will. But it's always interesting to me what makes people the way they are. It's so complex and so astonishing. I don't like when people use it as an excuse necessarily but it is usually valid reasoning.

For the most part, I have to say that I like the person I am. I have a lot of memories and experiences that I treasure, even some of the bad ones because they served to teach me something and make me who I am and like I said, I like me. I just am always wanting to dig deeper into why I AM me...if that makes any sense at all.

But these past few days have also been convicting...as I know it's time for ME to stop asking God to bail me out of the jams I get myself into, whether it's financial, physical, emotional or spiritual. I need to draw closer to Him.

I learned something very important this week. Actually two things:

1) I used to think that the less I sinned, the closer I would be to God when it's actually the other way around. The closer to God I am, the less likely I am to sin.

2) Being close to God is not an immunization to sin. The devil hates us even worse the closer we are to God. That's why the unsaved or the backslidden seem to prosper--the devil already has them so he has no reason to mess with them. The rest of us, though, he has to go after and prevent us from showing God's love to others.

That is why the devil makes sin so appealing and why the lines sometimes get blurred. He makes wrong things seem right or even sometimes "okay" as long as they make us feel good about ourselves. We need to stop looking to our own feelings for validation and understand that God loves us already and dangit, that needs to be enough! Why does it sometimes feel like it isn't?

Grace can be very confusing. I get the concept, I understand it and oh how I am so glad we live under grace and not law. But I think sometimes we take it TOO for granted and think of it as a license to do those appealing things because we know God will forgive us. And He will. But we will still be disciplined!

I have found myself at times searching God's word for "permission" to do what I'm doing or feel what I'm feeling. How absurd is that? It's like I'm looking for a loophole or something. I love that God holds in high regard broken people--Abraham lied, Noah got drunk, David committed adultery--and yet God loved these people enough to not only help them but to prosper them. But sometimes we look at those examples and think, "well they did it and God still loved them, why not?" Because losing Gods love and favor isn't something we ever have to worry about, we think it's ok to act on our own selfishness.

But the thing is, we forget that even though God will still love and forgive us, we still will endure the consequences to the choices we make and they will not always be pleasant. God loves us SO MUCH that He doesn't want us to have to go through that.

I guess it can best be explained through the example of when my son was a little boy, he LOVED to jump on the bed. I would tell him over and over again not to, that I wish he wouldn't, he would break the bed or worse--fall and break something of his. Well, he kept doing it of course and one day he did fall. He didn't break any bones (thank God) but it did hurt. Did I still love him? Absolutely! But I hated seeing him in paiin, even though it was his own fault. If he'd only listened to me and been obedient, he would have been spared that pain.

And most of the time, I think we DO recognize this and want to be obedient. It's just so appealing sometimes to do the opposite. We have to recognize that and recognize that we are flawed and guard ourselves as much as we can. Surround ourselves with safe friends and good influences. And pray pray pray for the strength to resist temptation, the courage to take the necessary preventative steps and the humility and courage to admit when we need help.

Thanks so much for your prayers! Thank you, those of you who love me unconditionally the way that I am--flawed and screwed up, competitive and cocky, prideful and impatient but always, always always wanting to do better and loving you for loving me!