getting ahead of the game

I kind of feel like a fish out of water or a person just in over their head. Which ever one you prefer. I feel like if one thing isn't bothering me it's something else. When school slows down for just a second I flashback to whats at home and how I haven't seen it in over a month. I think how much my family needs me and how much I need them. I feel like I'm not doing enough and that I'm just away enjoying my life. Truth is I want to be home, I can't wait for Thanksgiving, I can't wait to be surrounded with those I love and that love me unconditionally. I can't wait to see the smiles, I can't wait to hear the pain, and have even more of a reason to celebrate that we can get through it together. The memories that wait with cleaning out a house that sits empty but full of stuff and memories. The hardest part is that I'm leaving my childhood and growing up to an adult.

For years I've never known what I want to do. I know that I want to be in the sports arena. I've picked a place that can get me there and it feels so right. It also scares me to death. Every where I go I here about long hours and all the work you have to put in. As I get older things that never popped into my head are starting to make an appearance. The fact that if I end up in this arena am I going to be able to have a family? Will I be able to enjoy the holidays with my friends and family or will I be forced to be at work? With everything else accounted for who says I can even have a family? Knowing that God has a plan for me doesn't settle my heart. The fear of the unknown is scary. Knowing the something is so right but not completely trusting it makes it feel so wrong.

So much is running through my head. Who is going to be around in a couple of years? What am I going to be doing? Who will I be? Am I making all the right moves and choices right now or am I looking out too much for me? My mind doesn't stop. If its not school or my friends or how to make up for the mistakes I've made its the future, its the problems I can't fix. I know I'm getting ahead of the game. I know these are questions that God already has the answers to but at the same time my heart is burrdened, hurt, and worst of all fearful.

finding what matters

AFter this summer I was high on life, high on God, and did want to do anything but glorify his kingdom. Nothing else made sense. I didn't understand why other people didn't see that and why this reality of not living every second for him was acceptable. Its called reality, where we get caught up in the things that don't matter. Those things like school, job, money, sometimes even people, or the materalistic things that don't matter. We get hurt, we question why things happen and why people do the things they do. We call people out without knowing the circumstances. We see our brothers and sisters struggling but are too scared to care. We are too worried and too caught up in our own world to see into somebody elses.

I cared about other people this summer. I care about other people now. My God is still the same God. However, I've come down from this high and am looking for the person that loved harder than I could imagine, that served according to the Word and the Word alone, that lived for the smile of an innocent child, and feared God. I'm looking for the things that matter, the people, the lost, the hurt, I'm looking to go Beyond Infinity and into the world. The hardest part is finding not who you were but you want to be.

thankful

It's been a little over a month since I've been home last. For some that seems normal but for me its not. I think it would be ok except for the fact that I know I'm not going home for another 2.5 weeks, Thanksgiving. I was driving back to my apartment last night and it just hit me. How thankful I should be for what I have and whom I've become. So many things get in the way of my gratefulness. We so often see what we don't have or see what hurts instead of what we should rejoice in. The fact that we have a God that is so merciful and full of grace. Something that we, as humans find it so hard to give. We are not God but trying to live like God is a daily struggle.

I have been worried about what was in my life and how it slowly seems to be disappearing. I've been lost in this state of confusion. I wonder why I do what I do for the people that I do it for. Then I realized that I was raised right. Although my immediate family doesn't have many rags to riches stories my family as a whole does. My mom's parents giving up everything they have, and what little they had to serve in Africa. My dad's parents serving the community around in them in more ways than I know and can explain. God has big plans for me and that scares me. He has big plans for all of us. The thing is that I just want to be half the person my ancestors have been. I want to do what God has in store for me. My prayer is that I can get past my own selfish desires and do what I love, serve. I love seeing the smile that comes from little things in life. However, I hate doing things and then being turned on. However, living a life like Christ that shouldn't bother me. My prayer is that I don't do it for me but for Christ and what that bigger picture is.

I'm thankful that my parents have let me be the person I am. I'm thankful for the hearts I've been raised around. I love my life even though it has some bumps and rocky roads. The friends that are thankful and my family that never quits, and the God that is always forgiving makes everything okay and completely worth it all.