Waiting to Hatch

More Lessons Learned (and a fun picture)

I wanted to share on my blog some thoughts thave (that+have=thave...sometimes I like to leave in my typos) been going through my head the past couple of days. Saturday, I went to visit some friends at North Greenville, which was wonderful because I have some amazing/fun friends friends there. One of them, Anna, asked me at one point how I had been doing spiritually since Seesalt. Now, you'd think that coming off a summer where you taught God's word and sang praises and saw kids come to Christ all the time would leave you on a spiritual cloud/mountaintop/high for weeks and weeks afterwards. What catches you offguard, and I'm sure most staffers could back me up on this, is the withdrawal. It's hard to go from Seesalt to home. And the usual Seesalt withdrawal challenges were definitely there, but God has been God (who else would he be?) and graciously still taught me lessons since Seesalt. I told Anna about how I was learning more and more to live in God and his will, and about how I'm realizing that a relationship with God can be so incredibly beautiful. And so I kind of want to share a little of that now. I'm learning more and more that things are not going to happen according to my plan. And just because something's doesn't go how I planned, doesn't mean it's bad and I have to fight it with all my might. I think sometimes we get in our head that if something doesn't go the way we planned, it must be because of some huge sin in our lives that's so deep down only God can see it. And then we waste our time trying to plunge something out of us that isn't necessarily there just so that things can turn out how we like. (Sorry if that was a really strange use of words, it is 1:53am) When instead we just need to realize that if obey God and put his desires over ours, his plans will be fulfilled. And His plans are the best. Not ours. Really. John 15 says that if we remain in God, our joy will be complete. I don't know why those verses are so hard for us to believe and grasp sometimes, but it really seems to be. Ok, I kind of went in a direction I hadn't intended to and have now lost my train of thought. So I'm gonna scan really quickly to get back to where I meant to be.

Oh right! The beautiful relationship. On my way home from NGU I started to think about who I imagined I would be at the age of 18 when I was in elementary school. Just to give you a little view into 9-year old Shari's mind, I thought I was going to be be in the top 20 of my graduating class, have long straight hair (I actually had stick straight hair until like 8th or 9th grade - who knew hair could change it's natural texture for no good reason!), have a wonderful boyfriend that adored me, have tons of friends at both school and church, be a track star, and play trumpet. Pretty much none of those are true. But I was actually really pleasantly surprised. When I was 9, I could have never predicted that my relationship with God could be so precious and dear to me. There's no way I can accuragely describe and when I try, I just get a huge smile on my face. And I still have a great life, even without the trumpet and boyfriend. It just deepened my realization that it's ok for things to not turn out the way I plan, and in many cases it's God's will. And praise God for it! I mean, really. Would my life be nearly as much fun or wonderful if I were a track-running genius with beautiful straight hair, but someone with a minimal relationship with God? I don't think so. I think it might be possible that I write these things more so for my benefit than of those who read this. It's good to get this stuff written down I think. But if you did make it throught this long thing, I applaud you because I don't think I even have the focus to even proof-read it. Hope you enjoyed!


I put this in here because cowbells are brass like trumpets. It's a picture to satisfy my inner 9-year old :)

posted by Shari @ 10:28 PM