Thoughts for the Week

I am no better than anyone else for having a new car and I won't be any better than anyone if I have an e-reader, laptop, new shoes, a clean room, or decorations on the wall. I'm not better than anyone else for having a job in the government. Many may judge me for having a government job, but I don't want to worry about what others are thinking about me.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men" Colossians 3:23.

I want to only care about what God thinks of me, because He's the one who judges every heart and who paid for my life. I choose to do what I see him pointing me to do, love in ways that I see Him loving others, and encourage others to follow God in that close, personal way, too. And I find myself still so often not knowing what in the world He wants me to do. Although, I do hear Him saying

"...'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' " Matthew 25:21.

Maybe not in these exact words, but I remember this verse quite often. Something sounds really good about just taking the seemingly small steps first, not striving to do some huge task that looks really important to others. Why not try to do some "small" things that may not be received well or looked upon as "amazing"?

I am blessed to have what I have, but even more blessed to have such a great family full of colorful personalities, jobs and histories. We all have our faults, we are not perfect or always kind to one another, but I know I'm loved by them. I wish I knew my family members better than I do. Maybe I'll never know them as well as I imagine I could, but I just want to know them as well as I can in this short life I have. It sounds very overwhelming, though, trying to get to know ALL of them. I don't HAVE to know all of them and they may not all want to be known. I don't know where to start and I don't have to live near them to know them well. "Why do I want to know who they are?", I ask myself. Well, I might know how to pray for them more specifically and have a better idea of what may or may not bless them. I just feel so overwhelmed at the thought of trying to do anything good on my own, God help me love my family members the way that touches them the most! I just spent time with my family in Carlsbad and Phoenix and it was great, but it was cut short due mistakes on the planning side, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it because we'll coordinate better next time, I pray. I'm just glad I got to spend the time I did with them...so glad!

I got to celebrate my Dad's birthday with him, see my sisters' playful cats, play Upwords with my Mom, meet up with Katie, catch up with Laci and Gil in Hobbs, drive to Phoenix safely, see family for Thanksgiving, and celebrate my cousin's marriage. Not to mention run/walk a 5K and help make side dishes. I loved it and the enjoyed weather in the warmer states :). I'm sad my rommate, Sequiyah, couldn't spend time with her family because of appendicitis, but glad she got to spend it with friends and got to talk with her family on Thanksgiving. Living with two others is something that is stressing me out a bit even though they're wonderful roommates. I'm not used to living with people and finding messes that I didn't create, haha.

Thank you, God, that you are with us and You are what we need. It becomes more apparent when we don't have the materials we think we need. I don't need a laptop, but I'm grateful I have one, even if it's six years old and runs slowly. As long as I have God, I've got what I need. I don't need the food I have, but I have it and good health so I'm thankful for that. I don't need legs and arms that move and operate just fine, but I have them so I'm going to take care of them and use them for good because I'm blessed with them! I choose to use the brain and body that God gave me - to love, not to judge or harm. I will fail along the way, but God has grace and mercy enough for me to get back up and praise Him even when I don't feel like it.

Who knew we would ever have to protect/"keep watch over" things that aren't even tangible? I'm tempted to stress about keeping my personal information safe, but I suppose all I can do is ask the questions I have and pray that the steps I take to protect my personal info is all that I can do. And then I can try to help others protect their info as soon as I find out how to protect my own. Let the information I absorb be used to bring glory to God, not be used to puff myself up. I am very hesitant to get a Kindle or a new laptop even though I've been thinking about it for so long. I don't hear  a "no" from God. I don't hear a "yes" and I don't hear a "wait", either. I'm just tired of stressing out about whether or not I should get one. Honestly, I don't want to hide in my room or go to the gym with an e-reader, trying to avoid any form of responsibility or contact with others. I know that's not the way to live, but it just sounds enticing.  I shouldn't have told the customer service guy that I planned to come back today. God, please give me wisdom and peace. I love learning new things, but I don't want to absorb a bunch of info and forget to LIVE! I need to clean my room since that's what I planned on doing today.

Fear and frustrations...I'm full of them as the human being I am. I find joy in knowing God and experiencing his love for me and sharing it with others. I feel like I don't share as much as I can, usually wondering if I've missed something God's asked me to do. But I'd rather trust He's leading me, step by step.

Fear, Be Gone!

I find myself so prone to focusing on the negative things. I'm also confused. Maybe because I tend to think too much, maybe because I don't talk to people enough about how I really feel, and maybe because I just don't trust God to give me what I need. Many times I find myself smiling and laughing when later on I realize something wasn't funny, but instead I disagreed with what was said or done. I hate that. I'm most likely in the middle of learning a hard lesson (or several) about what it means to truly live for God. I don't want to live for God out of obligation. Believing in Him is my choice, not something I "should do, or else". This God I believe in loves me so much. I confess it because I look back over time and see His hand in my life. There were hard times and there were good times, but even in the hard times, I learned good, life-giving ways and I have come to realize that those hard times are God's way of saying He loves me. So why am I still afraid of those times?

It's so easy for me to have self-pity, to be sorry for myself, to make a big deal out of something like buying a car. Goodness, I'm blessed to have enough money to get a car in the first place, and here I am complaining about how long it's taking because I'm trying to make a wise decision and complaining that I don't love every aspect of the car. A car is a bunch of pieces of material put together (in a complex way) to get someone from point A to point B, so why do I care so much what color it is or how pleasing it is to my eyes. I've heard several times that I am investing in the car, so of course I should care how good it looks to me. I'm trying to have fun buying the car, which isn't easy for some unknown reason. It's a big responsibility and I have some kind of fear that God's going to come along and allow something bad to happen. But that's up to Him...as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to get the car and trust that He's going to do what He wants to do, whether it's keep me from harm or not. I'm still going to obey the rules of the road and try to maintain the new car better than I did my current one, haha. And if gas is dwindled down to nothing worldwide by 2014, then I'll still be okay.

I find myself wanting a lot of things. Is this selfish? I feel guilty for wanting things, yet what I think is important is the motive behind wanting them. Is it for God's glory, for the benefit of others? When I want an iPod so I don't have to listen to the music at Gold's Gym, but instead sing praise and worship to the God who's given me legs and arms that work well, I don't see what's wrong with getting an iPod. I have a better attitude when I've been praising God and I'm more willing to serve Him. I still feel guilty that I want to tune out people's conversations a lot because many make me angry. Also, I've realized that I've gotten angry at so many people for having iPods, judging them for being disconnected from people, hurting their ears with loud music, and spending too much time and money on their electronics. Not everyone that has an iPod does these things, but I've judged them for it.

Do not judge, or you too will be judged (Matthew 7:1). God has definitely convicted me of how much I judge naturally. I may not say it out loud, but it shows itself, oh it shows itself. And  no matter how hard I try not to judge someone, I still find myself doing it...oh boy. That's where I remembered God's goodness to change me from the inside out as I confess those judgments to him. It's not easy, but I'm willing to put up a fight against our enemy because I hate seeing the pain Satan's caused through judgments and I'm not going to be a passive participant in it.

So now I find myself caring too much about how many might view me if I were to have an iPod. I'm living in fear of people and I'm sick of it! God knows this and I will keep praying He strips that fear away and gives me faith in place of it. I want to have faith in Him and to put action to it. I'm so thankful, God, that you see my heart for what it really is and see me as worthy of love and acceptance because of Jesus' sacrifice, even with a heart that has plenty of that ugly sin -

"...The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

And I have come to believe that God's judgment of men's hearts is the judgment that matters above any other. That's how the gospel applies to my life today, at least in one aspect. Maybe I mentioned God "too much" for some, but I believe He's that involved with my life and I love Him for it!

Off to do laundry and clean and move stuff around. I'll have a roommate and her 13-year old daughter moving in within the next two weeks :).

In Georgia

I am happy to be here in Georgia,visiting my sister and then I'll see my uncle, hopefully his sons, and my grandparents, along with a few relatives-to-be. Most of all, I like just being with my sister, Allison.

Right now I'm struggling with anger and the fact that I have a hard time with anger and I hold in so many of my frustrations. So many things make me angry and yet I don't share those with anyone because...well, I figure that only God needs to hear it. But so many times I don't even tell God. Then, when I do tell God, I feel like I need to talk to someone else about it, but I insist on mulling it around in my head until it makes me confused and frustrated. I just want to be able to voice my anger and then trust that God will give me good counsel. And then part of this whole problem I feel like I'm having is the fact that I will mess up. "Yes, you will mess up Gail, and yet God is good to redeem situations and will help you be humble enough to confess your wrongs to those you hurt".

I've said it multiple times recently, just not to anyone, but I am not going to isolate myself from people in order to avoid hurting them or in order to avoid me getting hurt. This scares me, but it's better than living selfishly by myself and not know and share the love of God through relationships. This may seem like something simple to others, but it's big and exciting for me.

Some of the things I'm thankful for lately:
A safe flight to Georgia and making it to the airport on time.
Allison's dog, Tink, is a dog that doesn't bark much. Yes, she loves to lick you, but her breath doesn't stink so I let her lick my face. I knew I was taking a shower later, anyways :).
My mom is healing slowly but surely from her surgery that happened on Tuesday night.
I got to use Allison's treadmill to do some exercise this morning!

Peace During the Flood

I've been thinking about updating this blog for quite a while. I used to have a blog when I was in middle school. Then I realized I was sharing information that maybe not everyone needed to know. So I stopped blogging and whenever I blogged since then, I'm very weary of what I put on these "pages". Now, I'd like to start blogging because I just want to share what's going on in my life and getting my thoughts typed out may still be beneficial.

I find more and more joy every day in knowing God and the peace he gives me. For example: just yesterday, I woke up to a loud knocking on my apartment door (my roommate moved out yesterday afternoon). As I go down the hall to get the door, "squish, squish" went my feet in the carpet...which started me thinking something certainly was wrong. It was the maintenance manager, Don. He's a really helpful guy who said "I think your water heater's broke". So he goes over to the closet, looked, and opened the door to the hall bathroom. It was actually the toilet that overflowed for 3 to 4 hours overnight! Apparently the neighbor below us has a lot of damage to his ceiling and walls...not good news. Nothing of mine got damaged, except for maybe the bottom of my wooden bookshelf, so thankful! But, an hour later a carpet restorer came and sucked up the liquid out of our carpets and we currently have fans blowing underneath the affected areas along with a dehumidifier. These should be out tomorrow. I thought of how my mom would appreciate having the fan going all night :).

So, given the circumstances while waiting for the restoration service to come, I am so thankful God reminded me that I could talk to Him instead of think of all sorts of ugly scenarios about what the guy below us could yell at me when I apologize, or how much it would cost to help him pay for the damages, or mold growing in the wooden floors and walls. No thanks, I'd rather talk calmly to Don about what's going on and what the next step is because God has taken care of mishaps before and He'll be by my side and give me wisdom in this situation, too. And He has. I asked for peace and wisdom and God gave me both because He is faithful. I love to remember that He loves me no matter what someone else may do (like shut a door in my face or speak poorly of me). It's what God says that's true!

I still need to talk to the man who lives downstairs, but I can't seem to catch him at a decent hour. I wonder if Don knows when is a good time. I hope he has renter's insurance. And this is one of the reasons why it's good to meet neighbors within the first week of moving into a new place. And what have I done, though, procrastinated...it's been maybe eight weeks now. And why...because I wanted to think of a healthy alternate to cookies to give to my neighbors. I will soon be making a slightly healthier cookie (zucchini) because I like baking cookies even though I don't like eating them as much. And more importantly, I'll meet the neighbors and give them the cookies. But maybe they won't eat any of the cookies in the future if the first cookies I give them aren't tasty. Maybe I should just make pudding chocolate chip cookies that they'll be more likely to enjoy. And then my coworkers can eat the rest of them! I don't mind taste-testing them, though :D. Who says my neighbors should like my baking, though?

And the funny thing is (not that flooding is funny at all) but this happened the day after hurricane Irene came through.

Hurricane = no flooding, no damage; busted toilet/pipe = flooding/hopefully no long-term damage.

Oh, and then we got sent home early from work since they were without power for the most part. And Lifegroup started up again at Josh and Chelsea's house which I'm quite happy about :). And it's so good to see Mandy and Brandon's littlest one pulling through ( mandypelton.blogspot.com ).

First thoughts

I live in Fredericksburg...first thing I thought when I got off the exit ramp off of I-95: "I hope the rest of the city isn't as packed full of hotels and strip malls like this". Haha...well, not all of it is, thankfully, but there are more than enough strip malls and mega shopping centers out here. I don't have to go far to find a grocery store or restaurant chain. Judgment didn't take long to show up but I trust as I give those judgments up to God, in time He will deal with it.

I still am not sure what to think about gas usage, but I came to the conclusion that I'm going to do my part in lowering pollution by first trying to consolidate shopping trips and find a carpool to work. Ugh, my "o" key is missing so my hand is hurting already. I'll have to write later when I find a better keyboard/computer!