i know the plans You have for me.

Last week at church, my preacher was talking about the importance of being willing. He said that God will take a willing person and turn them into a worshiping servant, but the key is being willing, completely, totally giving your life over to Him.

This is something that in the past I have struggled with. I'm a little bit of a control freak, especially when it comes to my life. I like to know where I am going and what I'm doing. There's a comfort in that for me, as for most people. However, it's because of that very reason that God has found it beneficial to keep me from knowing such plans. I'm now nearing a very important crossroad in my life. I'm about to graduate college. That's just crazy. I can't believe this day that I've had down in my plans on paper my whole life is just 3 months away. I can barely grasp that in my mind. It is at this point in my journey where everyone asks me what I'm going to do and where I am going to go from here, and in my ignorance all I can say is "I have no idea, but I still have a little time."

Sadly, that time is quickly vanishing. However, I think I have an idea and a vague direction. Everyone tells you to find a job/career that you love and you'll never work a day in your life. So after much deliberation I came to one conclusion. The only job at which I could find myself happy with every day is in the concept of ministry. Yes, I love to write, and I may still get to do that. And yes, I love to cheer and teach cheer and gymnastics and all of that, and I may still get to do that too. That's what's great about ministry is that there are opportunities for so many different vocations within it. But the one place in which I could be happy all of my days is in sharing my wonderful Lord and beautiful Savior with people. That's really what it's all about.

People have told me before that they had seen me moving that direction with my life one day, and I think I knew it too. I just didn't want to take the steps necessary to be that person yet. I ran away from chances to do just that, and sometimes I still regret that. But I also know that I needed that time away to find myself and to find out that where I was going was exactly where I belonged. And last week, I heard that sermon about being willing, and at the end the preacher asked us to think and pray on it and to stand with him if we were, in fact, willing to be transformed into worshiping servants of God. And I did, and I am.

So that being said, I'm applying to seminary for the fall. The decision actually came quite easily to me, which if you knew me would surprise you. So for now it's out of my hands and solely in His, but that's where it should be. After all, it's not my life anyway, it's His.

a choice.

"If you want to be happy, be." --Leo Tolstoy

i've decided something today. i think that happiness is a choice, and from now on i'm going to choose it. i can't make others happy, they have to want to be happy, and i have to want to be happy in order to receive it. if i go into everyday thinking that someone or something else can make me happy, then i won't ever find it. i find joy in the Lord and happiness in myself, and i'm going to try to live by that from now on. i'm choosing happy, and i hope you do as well.

-lovingly-
k

definitely not like garth brooks.

It may seem a funny title, but right now it fits. Here's how. There's a song Garth Brooks sings that practically everyone knows, and rightfully so, it's a good song. It's called "The Dance." My favorite part is the piano at the beginning of the song, but that's a little off topic. The part I'm referring to is when he says, "And now I'm glad I didn't know / The way it all would end / the way it all would go / Our lives are better left to chance / I could have missed the pain / But I'd of had to miss the dance." He's saying that if even if he knew how it all would have turned out, even the fact that it failed and it hurt, he would have done it anyway.

Now me, I'm not that way. I rarely try things that I know I'll be bad at, and I definitely don't do things that I know I'm bad at (which is why I stay away from bowling and softball and basketball and golf and many more things generally). Occasionally there will be an exception to this rule, but it's very rare. I don't like failure. I don't like embarrassment. And I definitely don't like pain. Most things I do in my life are really to avoid these particular circumstances. I think that's a big part of my shyness. What if I say something wrong, or what if they don't like me? Thoughts that frighten me from speaking to just about anyone that I don't know without them speaking first. And believe me, this tendency is usually misinterpreted as snobbery, but in reality it's the opposite, just plain fear.

After many years, I have been able to conquer small parts of this fear. I can be outgoing when I have to be. Let's face it, you can't be a very good journalist without some kind of ability to talk to people and ask questions. So I can do it, but it still scares me. I have to write out every question I can think of and every follow up question and have them sitting right in front of me the whole time, or I forget them all. I often wonder how it's possible I've met anyone throughout my life, but God has been good to me. I know some fabulous people.

So you can only imagine that taking chances is not really a part of my personality. If I can't count on it being a good thing or being successful, then I won't even try to count on it. Why waste the energy worrying about it when I can be certain. However, certainty eludes me quite often. I can probably count 3 decisions that I've made as decisions that I was certain about when I made them, and they all happened within a year of each other.

Making decisions is something I loathe doing. I just can't take the "will it bother someone," "will they agree," "is this really the right thing to do" fight that goes on in my head day after day, moment after moment. Pile that on top of 1,000 other thoughts that are flying through my head at any given second (what can I say, I'm a multi-tasker), and it's enough to make anyone goes crazy.

The problem is that in life, you always have to take chances. Most of them are small, and you don't think twice about them. You probably don't even know you're taking them. You don't notice until the big ones come up. It's in those that you find, at least I do, a capacity for worry you didn't know you had. I don't put myself out there for people or for circumstances, and that also makes life difficult.

So the trouble with chances is that you have to take them, and that means taking the hurt and embarrassment and failure with them sometimes. In the end, all things work to the good of my life. If it were not some of those chances I wouldn't be here at this desk, or know you, or be the person I am today. Being human means messing up sometimes, and it can mean experiencing pain sometimes too. But I know that the pain is really where some of the most beautiful moments come from. So instead of looking forward to the possible hurt, I'm going to look forward to the beauty of life on either side of chance.