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 :-)

HOW??

How? So much goes into such a small three letter word.

It is almost as powerful as another three letter word... Why?

How can such things happen?

Why can such things happen?

How can people do this or that?

Why do people do this or that?

How am I where I am today?

Why am I where I am today?

For me the "why" questions in life seem so much easier to answer. I think that knowing the God of the universe makes it easier to answer them. Why does something happen, because God allowed it to happen that way. But a "how" question has more of a human element to it just do to the fact that we do this or that here on earth and it is our own response to life that leaves others with the how.

I don't know if any of that makes sense but as I write this I am only really thinking of one thing and that is suicide. Not that I would do that myself but just about the concept in general. It seems like I have known so many people affected by suicide in the last few years. Not only have these other people been affected by it but these people who have taken there own life I know them, not on a personal level but I have met them before. I have never experienced this first hand but it just blows my mind. A girl from my high school, who I knew fairly well, has just recently gone through the pain of losing her boyfriend due to suicide. She has a blog that I read and just from reading her blog I never want to put someone through that and I hope I never have to go through it either.

I have always wondered HOW can someone do that to themselves and to others around them?? This is ultimately where my post is stemming from. Just from seeing the affect that committing suicide can have on the ones you leave behind I truly believe that doing so is a very selfish act.

Jesus has a plan for each and every person on earth.
How could you just give up on that??
It breaks my heart to read about the after effects of peoples decisions..
RUN TO THE LORD!!!! 

I need sleep!!!

Man, was I convicted today at church!

I went home for OU/Texas weekend and was able to go to my home church in Fort Worth this morning. The sermon was about time and this just really hit home for me. Over the last month or so I have just felt very very busy, and because of that I have had to pick and choose where I spend my time. Which I would say I have not been picking well. This is something that has always been a struggle for me and I have been working on it since coming to college. I have gone through periods of life where my time has not been an issue and where it has. When it has been an issue in the past it has lead to some very not so fun this happening in life.

One this that Harold talk about this morning was that we waste so much of our time. There were a few things that he mentioned that waste our time and I am guilty of all of them: anger, malice, lust, guilt, depression, the pursuit of entertainment and pleasure. There are so many times when I should be studying for a test or perparing for a lesson that something like anger over something silly or a tv show end of taking up that time. Entertainment is a big one for me, we have Netflix at my house and that has been the end of me. I have been WASTING so much time watching Law and Order: SUV or some other show that I end up stressing out over school.

Harold gave us tips for finding "more" time and they sure were helpful.

1. Do not be vague or thoughtless; do not be on autopiolt

Instead, evaluate occasionally (Areas where you are drifting rather than progressing and what things are coming up)

2. Understand what the will of the Lord is for the facets of my life

3.Use vacant time
4. Do things "off peak"

5. Trafe entertainment for progress

The hard part for me is going to put into practice the things that I need to do in order to use my time wisely and not waste it on thoughtless, unimportant things!! I see the importants for this the older and older that I get and things really start to pile up in your days. I know that there is never going to be a season in life where I am perfect at this but I do know that I can continue to learn and grow in my time use and hold on the to Lord for help!!

My Desires

"Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

There is so much that I desire, so much that I ask the Lord for. Not only is it part of who we are as humans (to have desires for things, to want things in life) but as a girl I feel like it is just worse for us. Am I right ladies?? There are so many things that I want for my life: More than anything, I desire to get married, I would love to live overseas for sometime in life, I desire to help other people, I desire to have my own kids as well as adopt, and so much more. I am having a hard time laying those desires down at the throne and waiting on the Lord right now. I know he has my best interest at heart BUT (why is there always a but, why can't the Lord just be enough for me??) waiting is awlays been hard for me. Just like the verse says, I really need to take delight in the Lord its just that some seasons in life are easier then other.

But back to the question "Why is the Lord not enough for me at times?" I get so frustrated with myself when this question comes up in my life. This is a question that is always been a pain for me because I don't always know how to answer it. I know that my journey with Christ is just that a journey, that I am not going to just poof to the end of my life where everything is hunky dory, if only it were easy. I go through these seasons of life where God is all I need and I am content as can be. Waiting on God!!! Even though it is hard to wait on God's timing, waiting has brought me closer to Him, which I would not change for the world. I am very thankful for all the that God has taught me through my waiting but I don't always want to :-)