Thursday, December 30, 2010

Jesus Calling

My sweet friend Marita gave me a little daily devotional book for my birthday called Jesus Calling.  I love it because the daily readings are as if Jesus is talking straight to the reader, then it gives you scripture that coordinates with that days reading.

Today's was especially good and I have a feeling several of these things are going to hit me right when I need them.  I thought I would share today's devo with you.

"I am leading you along a way that is uniquely right for you.  The closer to Me you grow, the more fully you become your true self - the one I designed you to be.  Because you are one of a kind, the path you are traveling with Me diverges increasingly from that of other people.  However, in My mysterious wisdom and ways, I enable you to follow this solitary path while staying in close contact with others.  In fact, the more completely you devote yourself to Me, the more freely you can love people.
Marvel at the beauty of a life intertwined with My Presence.  Rejoice as we journey together in intimate communion.  Enjoy the adventure of finding yourself through losing yourself in Me."
2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.
Ephesians 2:10 - For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.
1John 4:7-8 - Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
John 15:4 - Remain in Me, and I in you.  Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Mid Thirties

Tomorrow, I will officially be 35 - mid thirties.  Not that I haven't been in the "mid" stage for a while, but...

I remember growing up, I used to think that someone that was 35 was really, truly a grown up.

So according to my child-self, tomorrow I will really, truly be a grown up.

And I have to renew my driver's license.  I know.  Jealous, aren't you?

Saturday, December 11, 2010

A New Job

It's been a sweet forever since I blogged.  However, I have a pretty good excuse... sort of.

I have a new full time job.  I'm the Director of Preschool Ministries at Cross Church Fayetteville.  Now, our campus hasn't opened yet.  We're still in the building stages, but there is so much prep involved - it's crazy!  Plus, I'm still working Kids Day Out as well as Friday Night Out until the end of this next week.  It's been a wee bit stressful, but it's also been super exciting!

To back up a bit, I interviewed for the job in September.  September 21st, to be exact, was my first interview.  I remember because I was praying for God to give me some sort of confirmation on what I needed to do for sure.  I was torn in so many ways over this opportunity.  I had some time before I was to meet for the interview, so I grabbed my Bible and sat down to read.  Not having anything in particular that I needed to read, I just went to Proverbs as is my habit if I don't have a reading plan that I'm following - cause, you know, there's wisdom in that there book. :)  I usually go to the chapter that corresponds to the day of the month.  Which was my intention that day.  But all morning long, I kept thinking it was the 22nd.... which is what chapter I turned to.  I began to read and got to verse 6.  I read it and it was, like my sweet friend Marita described to me, like a neon light blazing off the page at me.  It reads, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." I just wept.  Literally.  It still brings tears to my eyes to think about it.  I was so humbled and so overwhelmed that the God who created the universe chose that moment to speak to me.  He cares enough about me, about the details of my life, to lead me to that verse... on the "wrong" day... that was exactly the scripture I needed to read. That was to be my job - to help in training a child in the way he should go...and to help build truths in the hearts of these precious tiny humans that would be with them forever.  I stayed on that verse and couldn't move past it for a long time.  Then Satan started talking to me again, as he has a habit of doing.  How in the world was I going to pull this off?  Wasn't "so and so" better for the job?  I would probably get in trouble a bunch for just not doing a good enough job (which I hate, nay LOATHE being in trouble).  How was I ever going to be successful in this?  Oh, but then.  But then.... I was able to get past verse 6 and read on through that chapter.  And God did it again.  He spoke loud and clear through verse 19 and said straight to my heart, "I have instructed you today - even you - so that your confidence my be in the Lord."  He instructed me that day - EVEN ME - that I shouldn't worry about what I could do on my own and that my confidence didn't need to be in my abilities, or lack thereof.  My confidence that I would do a good job in the position that God was leading me to should be in the Lord.  If He would choose to put me in that place, He surely would equip me to do the job and if I do a good job, it's only because of Christ and the gifts He has given me - certainly not of myself and of anything coming from me.  By the end of that day of my first interview, I realized that I'd read the "wrong" chapter and was even more overwhelmed that God didn't let me read chapter 21, as was according to the date.  He led me to the perfect thing I was to read.  And God led me to be hired in that position.

And then Satan went to work IMMEDIATELY.  I got the job.  I was on such a spiritual high.  A couple things happened that just completely made my week.  And then BAM!!  Satan was on the attack in a hurry!  Less than 24 hours after it became public info that I was the person for this job, I got slammed to my knees.  For three days, I was in hell.  I literally felt like I was doing battle with the devil.  I felt stripped of anything good in me.  I was miserable.  But God used that time to draw me so close to him.  I remember at one point just closing my eyes, putting my head in my hands, and imagining crawling up into the arms of God and letting His wings cover me with His peace.  Occasionally Rachel will do that with Mike - just crawl up in his arms and let him hold her.  What a sense of peace and belonging to be a small child, covered and protected in your daddy's arms.  That's what my God did for me during those days.  He let me be covered and protected in my Daddy's arms.  Satan was eventually defeated in that battle (to which I totally stuck my tongue out at him over it!) and things went forward from there.  But the whole experience reminded me that the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.  He is good.  All the time.  Regardless of our circumstances.

soooo much!!  My prayer daily is that God will use me.  However I need to be used.  That He will lead the right people to come alongside and help teach and lead these tiny humans.  I can't wait to see lives changed and people come to know Jesus!  I'm so excited!!

"But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14