i have so much to write and not enough time to write it. i’m caught in the whelming flood that is finals and senior thesis. no need for pity though, i have time and time again chosen irresponsibility. something snapped this summer and i found myself caring more for the people around me than my impending school work. thankfully, my grades have not yet suffered, but i guess we will know for sure come mid-december when grades are posted.
i am beyond thankful for where i am in life right now. and i’m wondering how life will move forward without the people that i know and love so dearly. i know that some of them will always be in my life in some way, shape, or form. but i want to, no, have to, soak up every minute with these people.
this morning, in all its beautiful weatherful glory, i needed to walk. i love to walk. it’s a time of silence and receiving. i find it so much easier to commune with God because although my body is not still, my heart can be.
there are so many things going on in my head and i wonder how i am to handle them. how i should physically and internally respond to the thoughts and the circumstances in which i find myself.
it used to be SO easy. from late august to the beginning of november there was nothing that i could do except hope and trust that God was working all things for my good. there were no words i could say, no actions i could do, to change or manipulate anything. there was no confusion as to where my heart should be.
this morning, like many mornings before it, i woke up frustrated and anxious about the day. many anxieties have been coming back. this morning i layed in bed for almost an hour praying and trying to ask God what i should do. how i should act, what i should say, and where my heart should be. i asked Him how i was going to make it through. this place of waiting is almost too much for me. some days i feel that i cant handle it, and i don’t handle it well. i have recently spent entire days just worrying. and doing nothing more. those 24 hour periods have been filled with wondering and anger at God and not understanding how long He will have me here.
i feel like now i have been taken to a deeper level of faith. i can’t really describe why i feel that way, i just do. now that i am no longer in a place of having nothing and only being able to head in an upward direction, the faith required is deeper. but maybe that is on purpose. maybe this is a path of growth.
this morning while i was asking God what I am supposed to do while i wait, i felt like He was telling me that He will get me through. that i must totally depend on him. i wondered if i was just making that up.
then i opened up to 1 corinthians, completely unintentional, but just feeling like reading it, i like the corinthians. and this is what i read:
so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end.
and that as far as my words and actions are concerned:
that in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge.
and so i am grateful that despite everything, despite my worries, and intense anger at Him yesterday, He still speaks to me. how loved we are.
as time has progressed, and as life has moved forward- everything isnt so neat. my emotions and thoughts and feelings are tangled up in a ball of yarn. my anxieties are pouring forth from that. i felt so sure of all the workings of the Lord and now that life has gotten more complicated and has taken longer than i thought or wanted- i have started to doubt that the Lord was ever working. i start to worry that i have been manipulating. that it is not the Lord working. that i, in all my imperfect impatience, have messed it up.
i know this shouldn’t be the truth, but a part of me really wonders. maybe this is just me fearing that the Lord isnt working and that He isnt taking care of me. either way, its really hard.
and so on my walk, i was trying to ask God what to do. how my heart should be positioned before Him. how to get through the days. i told Him that i need Him, i need Him to work out the tangles because i surely can’t. that i need Him to move, to love, to hold, to shape, to encourage, to lead. i want more of Him and i want to rest more in Him. i need to. and that’s it.
but as He showed me this morning, He will see me through until the end. and let me not forget that He holds all things together. and that He is always working for my good. i think maybe i have forgotten that in the past few weeks. and that i want the comfort and security of seeing the Lord working and changing in my life and the lives of my loved ones.
perhaps if i just look to Him and his word every morning, and talk to Him throughout the day, i will know what to do.
needless to say, when i trust in Him, my anxieties begin to retreat and peace washes over.
Tahni – this is a beautiful and honest post. What is interesting is that I was praying for you today about life after school and everything that “life” entails. I don’t share this to say I am so great, but to tell you that God is even watching and walking with you through the people who love you.
There is no way you would have known that I would be praying for you and for these things and then you wrote about it.
I wish I had the answers for some of these things, but I have learned that God just has to bring you through it. But all the things that you have said are true, He is there, He cares for us, He walks with us and so on.
I have such a different view of it this Christmas season as I find myself teaching Nadia songs and telling her about Jesus and His birth. In putting out the Nativity set with her and doing the advent calendar with her. And BAM! I am reminded that God did all of this for her and for us. That He cared so much and from the beginning of time He knew our names and that we would know Him. It’s mind boggling, but so awesome.
I love you!
tahni joy,
like louanne said, thank you for your honesty. but tahni, remember the lord has been working in you no doubt, i have seen it all the way from argentina this semester, and it has been absolutely beautiful. please don´t doubt that.
and he is still working. like you said, i believe this is just a time of deepening of your faith, and teaching you that it is a daily battle, and sometimes different seasons are harder and you have to fight more each day, like you are doing right now.
you are a beautiful new creation, please believe that. i can´t wait to see you face to face for the first time in months.