Birthday Blues

Every year around this time I go through a fight with myself.... my birthday!

I have a lot of insecurities and doubt when it comes to knowing that people (my friends and family) really do love me. I take what people say and do as well as  don't say and do to me very personal, even if I seem like I don't. I have had so many friends over the years love me one minute and then talk nasty about me the next and this doubt has just followed me. Even now with the friends that I am in college, when my friendship are based on more than just liking the same movie, music, boy etc but are rooted deep in Christ. 

 Ever since I can remember I have always associated how much the Lord and other people love me with the way I get treated me on my birthday. It is not accurate at all but it is how my mind works. This year is no different. As my birthday approaches I find myself thinking about this and wondering where this association comes from. Over this last weekend, while I was at home, I got some great one on one time with my Mother! Through the conversation we had, I learned a lot about myself and came to the realization that a lot of how I view things now stems from the foundations I laid in middle school and high school and not walking with the Lord at the time as well as the influence that my girl friends had on me.

Lessons from Mother
1) I have put God in a box over the years: God is only good if the things in my box happen.
2) God wants to bless and love me in ways that I don't see (outside the box).
3) If everyone else failed me... God is still my hope.
4)My frame of reference is filtered through how I was treated and grew in high school.
5) Habakkuk 3:17-19
"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights."

 It really makes me grateful that I have grown so much in the Lord and the person that He has changed me into is nothing like who I was in high school!! I know that God has a plan for my life and as I contiune to learn from Him and grow, He is going to use the things from my past to benefit others.
The Lord is my hope and even when "everyone" else forgets me, He is still by my side, loving me!

Where has the time gone??

This year has just flown by!! I really can't believe this semester is almost over. I don't even want to talk about the fact that college went by faster then lighting. Just a few stats:

17 days until my 23rd Birthday
52 days until Christmas Break starts
83 days until I start my last semester of college
145 days until my last chance for Spring Break
199 days until I graduate for college

Yeah less then 200 days and I will be done with my undergraduate career. How crazy is that!! I cannot wait until I get my diploma and walk across that stage. BUT when I dwell on my future it scares the ever-living out of me and I just want to stay in school forever haha. I know there is a perfect place and job out there for me. I need to take the time to pray for it.

 I really have grown up over the last five years and it has been such a blessing to walk with God through it all and continually count on him for the means to get by. I think about where I was when I started my freshman year and wonder "What was I thinking?" I knew there was so much for me to grow in and learn from but now looking back four years later I had no idea what God was going to bring into my life.

I seem to have come full circle again and now that I am looking to my future and making decisions not only about a job but also where the location of that job will be. I have no idea!! I keep telling myself "Anna just pray about it." But I don't even know what exactly to be praying about at this point, I just don't have a whole lot of direction. I guess that I the best place to start if any.

Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
    and my hope is in you all day long. Psalms 25:5

Praise be to the Lord,
for he has heard my cry for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him. Psalms 28:6-7

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, 
but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. Psalms 19:21
 

 

It is not His fault

God is the god of peace and understanding.

This is a phrase that I have been hearing a lot over the last few weeks.

It is not His fault that I have gotten my hopes up.

I am just having a hard time understanding the purpose of it all.

Did I make the wrong decision?

God, did I hear wrong?

Was I listening to my heart more then your voice?

What is your plan for me Lord, now that I don't have one?

I am so numb to the whole thing right now and I am having a hard time grasping what is going on. What is suppose to happen over the next five months?

I never would have thought that...

I never would have thought that I would have such a love for Southeast Asia.

I never would have thought that I would want to spend my summer there.
I never would have thought that I would be here today

I never would have thought that this would be a possibility for me.

I never would have thought that God would bless me in this way. 
I never would have thought that my life would end up this way
I never would have thought that God would have giving me a desire to help those in need.
I never would have thought that my major would be environmental engineering.
I never would have thought that I would be who I am today.
:-)

A God Ordained Meeting

The coolest thing happened to me yesterday!! I mean the most random but most exciting thing ever! I don't know how else to explain it then... GOD!!

I went to dinner before work with Whitney and her boyfriend Chris. I have not seen Chris since freshman year of college when Whitney and I lived together. So it was really fun to catch up with him and see them together. They have been together going on four years! So we are sitting at Cafe Plaid talking. asking questions about school and what not. Well Chris asks me about my Christmas trip. So I tell him a little about it, but get the idea that because he is an engineer like me he would appreciate hearing about RDI. Resource Development International has been working actively on water, sanitation, education, and community development projects since 2000 in countries all over the world. I heard about them while I was in Cambodia and just got really excited about the opportunities that could arise with working for them some day. A friend that lives in Cambodia full time was telling me that they take volunteer interns all the time and I could come out and work for them in the future. It was one of the most encouraging conversation just for the simple fact that RDI does exactly what I want to do in my future! Well as I am telling Chris about this a lady in the booth behind us turns around and starts telling me that her and her husband were just working with RDI over Christmas break in... get this... Cambodia. I almost peed my pants. I told her that I was just there over break too and we figured out that we were there at the exact same time. Now how stinking cool is that. Noralea told me that her and her husband work with Cru (another Christian ministry) here on the Norman campus She asked me my name and ended up friending me on facebook right then and there. She asked me if I would have time to get coffee sometime in the future and I jumped on that like no ones business haha. As I was leaving to head to work I got to meet her husband, Ryan who had come in earlier. I shared with them that I was environmental engr. and they really liked that lol and I told them that RDI is doing the exact thing that I want to do some day!!

It truly blows my mind at how God is continually working things out in my life. The day before this happened I had sent in my application to go back overseas over the summer and the next day I meet husband and wife who are doing what I want to do someday!! That is not some coincidence. God really is working and pointing me in a direction for life. I am so excited to get coffee with Noralea soon. This meeting was just the thing that I needed. It was a great reminder that God has a plan for me. I might not even know what I am doing this summer but I am trust that whatever it is, it will be exactly what God wants from me! I love the way Jesus works in our lives and just getting to see the connections made through Jesus is awesome. There is no other way to explain the randomness of meeting Noralea then to say it was Jesus that put us at Cafe Plaid in booths right next to each other at the same time. My mind is blown each time I think about it. How God works and how big He is!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God knows what He is doing! And I will Wait.

Wait
by Russell Kelfer

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.
I plead and I wept for a clue to my fate . . .
And the Master so gently said, "Wait."

"Wait? you say wait?" my indignant reply.
"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming your Word.

"My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait?
I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign,
Or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

"You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I've been asking, and this is my cry:
I'm weary of asking! I need a reply."

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,
As my Master replied again, "Wait."
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting for what?"

He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine . . .
and He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.

"I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.
You'd have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me.
You'd not know the depth of my love for each saint.
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.

"You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.
You'd not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.

"You'd never experience the fullness of love
When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

"The glow of my comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God who makes what you have last.

"You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I'm doing in you.

"So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to truly know me.
And though oft My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still . . . Wait."

This poem really opened up my eyes to what God is doing in my life. Which is having me WAIT. Waiting for a man, waiting for a career, even waiting on summer palns. The first time I read this Iw as really strugglind with the stage of life I was in which was singleness. Then I dated a great guy and the Lord really taught me a lot through that and now I am single again. One thing I have learned about myself is that waiting is not something I do well. I like action, I like planning. I have had a hard time over the last few months wrapping my mind around the plan that God has for me. Since it seems like there really is no plan at this point in my life. I ahve been struggling because I think I know what should be happening in my life and I want this or that to be true of myself. As always I want things to go my way and I think I know what needs to be happening in my life. Who needs to be in my life, the job that I need to have once I graduate. But this is not how the Lord works and He has been showing me this ever since I got back from Christmas break. This last Thursday Smoky said something that hit home for me. He said "You must be willing to stay single for a life time instead of settling for far less then God's best for you." Now he was talking about marriage and this is important to wait on the Lord for a husband and that is something I am continually giving to the Lord. But I took this to apple to so much more then just marriage. I need to be willing to wait on a job, wait on a career, wait on a family, wait on going overseas etc instead of rushing my plans and it not being what God has for me!!

Psalm 19:21 "Many are the plans in a man's heart,
but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."

I have many desires for my life but this verse makes it very clear that the Lord's will is going to trump anything that I have in mind. If what I want and what the Lord has planned don't line up then He is going to make me wait. I pray that my desires will line up with the will of God for me life!! THis is soemthing that I must be striving for.

 

Three Months Have Passed

Wow... More than three months have passed since I last typed. God has done so much in my life and I can't go another three months without telling people. It is just too awesome!

As I look back there is only one reason why I quit... I felt very distant from Jesus last semester. I never meant for our relationship to be put on the back burner but it did. School became my focus and I lost the desire to spend time with Him. It is funny because I had one of my best semesters in school (in a long time) but it had a cost. I did not balance my time well at all. There is no excuse for why I let this happen I just did, and at the time I seemed to be ok with it, which is almost the saddest part. Even though I really had a rough time God was still faithfully by my side, loving me, and taking care of me. During what I call a dry time in our relationship he really did speak to me. Which I was not really excepting but I am sure glad it did!!

To understand that I have to say this... As an engineering major going on a trip overseas for the summer to serve God was something I thought I never had time for (with internships and summer school etc). So because of this fact I really felt like a short term trip over Christmas break was something that I needed to do. So after praying about it and not really getting a NO from God I went to Cambodia this Christmas break (I got back a week ago today and that trip is a whole nother blog in itself so just wait for it).

Well in the middle of the semester as I was raising money for my trip and really just trying to figure out my life God gave me a really hard couple of days. All within a three day period I owed $300 for my trip, I couldn't enroll for my classed in the spring due to owing OU money, I had gotten messed up in my degree track and might have to go yet another year. So needless to say I was freaking out and I cried, something I don't really do A LOT. As I am going through I am not trusting that the Lord has a plan for me and I really start to doubt his goodness. But man, did God show me how small I was... Each of the situations I was facing ended up working out for my good!! How silly am I to think that each thing God brings into my life he is not going to help me through and use to my benefit. I really was putting limitations on the creator of the universe.

And yet God still continued to work in my life. The day after God worked out all my issues one of my friends, Tom, asked me if I was going to be considering going on a team over the summer or if that was out of the question since I was going on the Christmas team. Well not really thinking much about it due to the fact that I HAD to get an internship this summer (within my classes people kept telling me that having an internship would make or break if you got a good job in the future and I truly did believe them) I told Tom that unless God really did call me to go on a team over the summer it wasn't looking very good. So that was that!

Well at Paradigm (my campus ministry's weekly service) that night I was sitting with Beth, one of my Cambodia teammates, not really listening but journaling. When I heard the speaker say "Do you trust God enough to give up your summer for him?" And BAM God spoke to me "Anna do you trust me enough to give up a summer internship for a trip overseas and still believe that I can get you a great job after graduation?" What a conviction!!! It was not a coincidence that I had talked to Tom that morning and he had asked me about the summer. God knows what he is doing!!!

All that to say... I don't know what God is going to do with my summer but I am more open to his will then I was in the past few months. I am in the process of applying for a summer team. I want to keep open ever door possible for God to work in my life. I am super excited to see what he is going to do in the next few months as summer gets closer! All I can do it wait, trust and pray! That is all I want to do :-)