Time Out

When I was in middle school one of my classmates used to practice catching the basketball and calling time out before he went out of bounds. He practiced this every single day after regular practice. I used to playfully mock him because I thought he would never get a chance to do that in a game. Lucky for him, I was there to witness it when he finally got his chance. Fifteen years later I am taking the advice I gleaned from his efforts: "Take care of a situation while you are still in control of it". Looks like I'm going to be calling a few "time outs" this season.

Marco...

My life, in many areas, is sailing into unknown territory, which totally freaks me out. I like to know “what kind, which one, how many” (Shurley Method) to everything. So, I don’t care for uncharted waters. There has been one situation, a situation with God, that has occurred this week that I did not know how to handle. However, considering past experiences, I know one way “how not to handle it”. This time around I want to handle it in accordance with God’s plan for my life. I want His grace and presence to be “all over it”. So I implement the best plan I know, Marco Polo with God. I keep crying out to Him and I keep trying to find Him and I stop when I find Him. It’s not the kind of plan that authors write “step by step” books about but it is my best plan. Jeremiah 29:11 reads, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.(NIV)” Best I can tell that is a game of Holy Marco Polo. So I continue to cry out with all my heart until I find Him and His agenda. So… Marco!!!

Quote of the Day: 12.16.10

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
-Albert Camus

Seeking a Fresh Start

It occurred to me that I have never written the meaning behind the title of my blog. A few months before I graduated I read a descripton on a friend’s Facebook that really got my attention. He referred to himself as a “born again Christian”. Even though I am in fact a “born again Christian” I never refer to myself as that. There is no explanation as to why I don’t but none the less I don’t. As I read those words something deep within me jerked my heart strings. I wanted to feel “born again”… again. I became a Christian when I was a child. I had one defining moment as a “tween” that verified my salvation for me. I also had a major life transformation in 2001. During that time God changed my life in a miraculous way. However, sometime between January 2006 and March 2010 my life became unrecognizable to me. I was so busy and exhausted from my graduate studies that I don’t really know when I stopped doing the things I loved and became the person who I stumbled upon in the mirror this Spring . Not to say that I am not pleased at the many positive changes that came with the maturity brought about by the hardships of that time but part of me was in hibernation and needed to be awakened.
As I read those words on Facebook I began to cry out to God. I knew I needed a fresh start in order to began to feel new in Christ, to really feel “born again”. I wanted to go through a period of time in which I would decide to what parts of my life I would keep and throw away from the last four and a half years. The journey has not been as easy as I had hoped but none the less I am still “trudging through the mud” and searching for the sheer joy of the Lord that I knew before. I just keep Jeremiah 29:13 as the banner on the front lines, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

Thankful...

Today I am thankful for Dayquil and Jesus' redeeming plans.

Momma loves her babies.

Game Day 10.13.10