The Bottom Line is Peace

It's past midnight, Michigan time. I'm listening to Sara Evans and we're on Severe Thunderstorm watch. I've got my eyes open. In more ways than one, I guess.

I think usually the times when we're most lost are those when we think we know what's going on. I don't think it can ever really be pounded into our heads enough that God's ways aren't our ways and we can never really comprehend the vastness of His plan.

I feel that recently I've cursed the fall more than usual. More than is probably healthy. Cursed the wickedness that is ingrained in me. Fretted about how amazingly difficult it is to do what I should. Wondered about the future and what it holds. Worried about how God will use me in the scheme of things to make His plan come about. Worried?! Why not felt the honor of the fact that God would possibly want to do that. Frail and fallible, but never forgotten.

And God still has Romans as an integral part of my life- so I know what to look out for at least... He sure makes some patterns abundantly clear.

I guess I'm just nervous because I believe everything that happens has reason behind it. There are no coincidences- no things that just happen. So, that should mean that my every tiny little action has an effect- what is that effect? Am I affecting people for good or for ill.

I pray so hard that it's for the good. That I don't mislead people- that somehow, by the grace of God, my life reflects the infinite mercy He has bestowed upon me, and the gift of joy and peace that has come from it.

"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." Jude 24, 25.

Happy Place or Not, Praises.

There's a point, at the third day of rain and a week out of communication, that you find the grey sky and the fog to be an actual wall- barring sight, progress, hope. Depression seems to be settling on my skin like a sticky veil. Light, but present enough to be irritating. I can't find anything on earth strong enough to cleanse myself. How often that is true. I cannot find a way to put myself, or rather my heart, on a mountaintop or a sunny meadow, when I am physically being drenched by huge, angry raindrops. It's amazing that my imagination fails so completely when I actually need it, and never when there isn't anything on the line.

Not to say that there is anything on the line right now. There are just a lot of things to miss, and even more schoolwork to replace it with, which isn't really a fair trade. On the up side, I guess, I know I'm supposed to be here.

Even though... sometimes... if I try hard enough- when I close my eyes- I can feel the stark heat of California's summer on my skin, with the lightest of cool breezes making it bearable, on the hillside where I've hiked to hear the voice of God, clearly calling to me in the wilderness.

The sweet part is, God can call to me, and all of us, from wherever we are. Praises.