They That Wait...

Lately I've been ... working. I get up and go to work and come home and sleep and get up and do it all over again.
While I love my job and am very happy to be getting all the hours I'm getting, it still gets rather monotonous.
Today on my way home I was driving along and thinking, something I do a lot of between the commute to and from Bend each day, and started feeling the monotony creeping in a little. I started feeling a bit impatient. Impatient for what? For the rest of my life.
I know this is where God has me at the moment, and in most ways I'm really happy with that. But it's hard to be content sometimes when I get stuck in a rut and feel like I'm doing the same thing every day, and the sin nature in me starts telling me that there is no purpose in it.
So then I get impatient with God and want the next chapter to begin. I start struggling, my spirit at war with itself over whether to calmly let God play the scenes of my life His way or not. It makes me tired.
Today I was sensing the struggle going on inside me (a lot of times this happens and goes on for some time before I become aware of it) and prayed.
Novel concept, right?? =]
Just a short, cry sort of a prayer. A, "PLEASE GOD!" sort of a prayer. And immediately, I mean, IMMEDIATELY, the verse, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount on wings as eagles; they shall walk and not grow weary, they shall run and not faint." floated through my mind like a whisper. I just contemplated it, and started, without realizing I was even doing it, to meditate on it. I went through the verse as a whole, then took it piece by piece. I got to "upon the Lord" before I realized He'd magnificently answered my prayer.
It was amazing. I thanked Him and continued mediating on the verse and peace just washed over me.
I have a purpose, I'm fulfilling it right now. It's called waiting upon the Lord. God promises that they that do shall renew their strength. I'm not sure what it means to mount on wings as eagles and I don't think I've ever felt like I could run a marathon, but I know God is renewing my strength because I'm not fretting anymore. It's a wonderful feeling!
I'm still tired and I still don't like being single and I still have to get up at six thirty and go to work tomorrow morning. But it's okay. God's got it and He KNOWS. He knows what He's doing and He has this amazing purpose in mind and it's got my name on it. And I'm okay with that.

Life Happening

I am twenty-five now... and it's a very sobering thought.

All my life I thought that by the time I was twenty I'd be married, with some children... and that my life would be entirely different.

I also assumed that by being married my life would automatically be fulfilled and that I'd be perfectly happy and content.

Consequently I spent many years in "waiting for my life to start."

Since then I have realized that being married does not and will not and CANNOT fix things that are wrong or broken to start with. Marriage will only amplify any problems or areas of discontent that I now carry.

But it's sobering to wake up on the morning of one's twenty-fifth birthday and to realize that one is halfway to fifty... and on top of that to realize that one has not accomplished things that one thought would be accomplished long before now. Yes, I am one.

But I am also very thankful for lots of things in my life now. I am very thankful that I am where the Lord has me and I'm thankful that I'm busy and not waiting.

I'm thankful I didn't get married before realizing the things I have come to realize, and that God has taught me so much that will eventually be useful to marriage some day.

I'm thankful that God is always teaching me and growing me into the person He wants me to become. I'm so thankful that I have waked up and am listening to His beautiful voice and am learning how to become a beautiful person.

So if I reach my thirtieth birthday and am still (God forbid!! =) unmarried, I will know that it's because I had more to learn and that I needed to become more beautiful. And perhaps that is all that God wants for me. And that will be okay, once I become more of the person I'm supposed to be.

I am very thankful for my twenty-five single years. I hope the next twenty-five will be even better spent in growing in my Lord and Savior: Jesus Christ.

A Few Things...

I have decided that there are a lot of things that I do because I want to or because I feel like it. I have also decided that feeling like it and wanting to are not very good reasons for doing things, in and of themselves.

For example, I have been writing posts on this blog of mine at whim, whenever I feel like it and want to. I'm not sure what to do about that. I don't think that's a very good reason for blog-writing, at least... when I started this blog I had a clear purpose in mind for it, and to write on it for such reasons as "feeling like it" and "cuz I wanna" defeats that purpose.

I have also decided that I really need some organization in my life... News-flash moment, yes?? =]
No, to be serious, organization is an area I'm extremely lacking in, whether from laziness or ... I don't know what.

I have also decided that I've been decidedly in the habit of, sort of just drifting along... through life... as though... I were an apple blossom... caught in a gentle, Spring breeze...

BLECK. I'm TIRED OF IT. I am tired of feeling aimless and blown about. That's part of the reason why I moved to Redmond in the first place, and here I am falling into my old pattern of behavior.

I guess it's not that surprising, seeing as what human nature IS after all... but I'M TIRED OF BEING HUMAN!
I feel like being a bit SUPER-human for once. I know a lot of people whom I would classify as seeming super-human. I am not one of them. Me-thinks it's time for a change.

...oof.
So. What does THAT look like??
Abraham, Joseph, Joshuah, Gideon, Daniel, Esther, the Proverbs 31 woman... I could go on. Again, "Oof."
Well, guess what's on my agenda? Try: Revamping Entire Self. For starters.

The Blessing Of Friendship

I have so many wonderful friends... God has blessed my life richly.

I have one particular friend who is rather more like a sister to me. Her name is Ronni (Riri, Ron, Ronaldo, or *gasp* her actual name: Rianna).

Ronni calls me periodically and I never answer my phone. So then she leaves a wonderfully enchanting, rambling and sometimes fairly garbled, but always very long, message on my voicemail. Then I'll call her back or sometimes she calls me several more times and anyway, eventually either I call and she answers or she'll call me for like the third time and I'll answer.

We talk. We talk for hours and hours and hours, unless she's on a fifteen-minute break or driving to a class. She tells me all the funny sories she's saved up for the past month or so (I never have any funny stories for her) and then we talk about our lives and what God's doing, or our frustrations.

I always try to fix all her problems, because that's what big sisters DO, right?? And I always come away feeling blessed by our discussion. We never small talk. She's too busy, for one thing, and we have way too much real stuff to talk about. She thinks about everything a LOT and I think about everything quite a bit, so we always have a lot of philosophizing to do with each other.

We always ask each other questions. Questions for the other person and questions we're struggling with ourselves. She is not at all afraid of REALLY HARD, SCARY, and sometimes yucky questions that nobody likes to deal with. I'm usually game for them, too, even if I don't always go searching them out and so we ask each other all these questions.

It's really hard to ask yourself hard questions without doing a lot of thinking about them and soul-searching and I find that having a discussion with Ronni helps clear out some of the cob-webs and a lot of the time it helps get me back on track or at least motivated to move in my walk with God.

Anyway, so that's Ronni.

Then there is the Mazur family. They are amazing. They have been friends with my family since I was like 8 or 9; we did homeschool together and piano lessons and AWANAs for like two minutes... anyway. This summer they invited me to come live with them.

So now I live in Redmond with the Mazurs. They have a dairy goat farm and Erin has Angora goats. I help milk two goats every morning and every evening and today I helped Mrs. Mazur clean out a stall in their barn and level it with dirt. Last month they put a lawn in in their back yard and we worked on it together for weeks getting it level, raking dirt, leveling some more, raking more dirt... yeah. It's been fun!

I had been living at home with my parents in the the middle of town in Cottage Grove; we had just moved the year before from Elkton where our church family was so we weren't going to a church. I kept the house clean and fixed dinner and did laundry and that was pretty much it. I stayed home while Mom went to work all day and Dad stayed in his office because that's what Daddy does.

Now I live with a family that is pretty much always around me; I attend their fellowship every Sunday (when we're home); there's always so much to do around the house and farm so I'm always busy/occupied with something. There's pretty much always someon to talk to so I'm not left to think to myself all day long.

I can't believe how much the Lord has blessed me with good friends.

I do get homesick, but that's nice in a way. It just means that I have a good life here and I have a family somewhere besides here that loves me a lot and whom I love, too.

If I Stand, Let Me Stand On The Promise...

"If I stand, let me stand on the promise: You have brought me through; and if I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You. If I sing, let me sing for the joy that has born in me this song; and if I weep, let it be as a man who is longing for his home." ~Rich Mullins

Lately I feel like I'm spending way more time falling on God's grace than I am standing on His promises. So, I guess, it's really good He's provided that loving platform for me.

But why can't I get my act together???

Wouldn't it be nice to stand bold, with confidence, claiming and living the promises of God? Instead I feel like a weak and miserable worm - constantly mooching off the grace, love and goodness of my Savior.

I really think the problem is a lack of spending time in the Word, coupled with tiredness. Or possibly, the tiredness is caused, or at least exascerbated, by the lack of time spent in communion with my Lord... either way the case is clear: Lela is being lazy and stupid and needs a kick in her fanny.

I'm tired of falling on the grace; I want to start standing on the promises of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I'm tired of weeping and moaning within myself and basically spending most of my days in a vague and mist-filled sort of pity-party; I want to sing for the joy that has born in me songs of worship, love and adoration of my Savior.

He has done it. He did it on the cross, so that I could live.

September Closes

I have a bunch of jumbled thoughts all tumbling together in my head and I'm not even sure if I can get them out to make sense of...
But the month is coming to a close and I realize that I have only two posts for the month of September, which saddens me.

Now, there are several very logical, satisfying, judicial reasons... but it simply saddens me that I haven't the time to post at least once a week anymore. It causes me to question my motives for not posting: Am I really busy, or is it just a lack of in-depth thought-provoking substance of thought on my part?

Am I not posting out of laziness, or am I really justified in not taking the time to think about something long enough for my soul to need the outlet of writing it and posting it in it's conclusion?

Today is the last day of September. What do I have to show for it? Have I done nothing of substance? I think the answer to that is no. So let's examine.

I have been contemplating a lot of things of great substance but I'm not sure I've been able to carry them to any sort of conclusion in my mind. I've been struggling with the trial of living away from home and combining my biological family with my tangible family.

I call the Mazurs my tangible family simply because they are now the family I interact with on a daily basis. I'm not saying my biological family are not REAL family, or tangible, I just have removed myself from them - about a two-and-a-half hour drive away. So as you can see, I don't see them very often as of late.

I've talked with Erin on several occasions about how I feel like I'm on a raft floating out in the middle of the sea, miles away from anything. And we debate about how her family's raft plays a role with my little one-seater. We've decided I'm sort of floating away from my parents' raft and kind of looking back wistfully, and the Mazurs have tossed me a line and I've caught it and tied it to my mast, so they are tugging me along behind them, and now the slack has gone and I'm being shunted along and wondering what's happening(??!!).

I've shared with her how I feel like I'm in a sort of limbo.
I really do think I'm in a limbo state. It's not a state of having nothing to do, or being discontented, or even waiting for my life to start... exactly. I'm just in a state of unsettled-ness. It's not stemming from being away from my parents... being with my parents simply masks the restlessness of my spirit.

No, I feel that God has me in this state for a good reason and a purpose. I feel like the next step of my life will be marriage and the process of making my OWN family. Constructing a multi-seater family raft that will be mine and my husbands and nobody else's.

Again, I must state that this restlessness does NOT equate discontent, or having nothing to do until the next phase begins. I just simply am aware of what's going on and my own feeling of restlessness.

Now, lest anyone get excited: I am NOT in courtship with anyone; nor do I have any reason to believe that that will be happening anytime in the near future. I have no reason to believe that there is the prospect of that happening at this time. I just feel that it will be the next phase of my life, whether that be within the next year, or the next ten years.

I will not attempt to sound holier than I am... I WANT IT TO HAPPEN NOW!!!! My soul cries out in anguish of spirit of the wrenching desire to BE MARRIED. I find myself fighting with my knowledge of God and that His timing is perfect and find myself wondering if He has forgotten me.

At the same time, I am very busy and sometimes get so caught up in my busyness that I forget entirely that I have a wrenching pain in my gut. I like this condition much better. Busyness is such a gift from God.

I will also not try to sound like I'm in more anguish of spirit, or wandering away from God in my own consuming desires. This is not the case. Yes I struggle. But I DO have knowledge of who God is, and I'm so thankful to be able to rest in Him at the same time as I pour out my desires into His lap.

I know that He sees me and hears me; I am confident that He knows the plans that He has for me... plans to build me up and not to tear me down; to give me a hope and a future.

And, so far, I'm quietly confident that those plans include a husband, for whom I will be an good help meet.

Thinking...

Well, I'm thinking about writing a book.
Not really a new thought for me, I have about four books started and am still slogging my way through most of them.

But this book would be different. This book would be about me, AND be fictional at the same time. I have started a few fiction books, and have a work in progress that is about me, but not a fictional book about me...

I guess this blog is about discovering why this book frightens and excites me at the same time.

If I start this book, I don't want to just get a few chapters written and then shelve it. Once I start this book I intend to follow it through to completion. That's a big step for me. I am great at starting things, but I'm the master at leaving them unfinished and going off to start the next new thing that interests me.

I can't even count the multitude of projects begun, some mostly done some barely even started, and then left to mildew and become moth-eaten on a shelf or stuffed into a closet or packed away into a drawer and forgotten.

But this book can't go like that. I have decided that I have way too many unfinished projects to simply start another with the same attitude of whim and abandon.

One of the reasons this book frightens me is that it means putting myself into a character that can be read on a page. I pride myself on knowing "me" pretty well... but do I? I fancy I know myself a lot better than most people know themselves, but is that enough to enable me to characterize myself? Am I really honest enough with myself to put myself on a page and make people really be able to identify with this character? And if I CAN do that... can I make people love me?

I guess I'm frightened of being so absolutely transparent.

Why is it so different from the non-fiction books I've started that are about me? I would think that would feel pretty transparent... but for some reason it's quite a different thing.

Ah well, we shall see. Thanks for joining me on this ramble!