Receiving

Every other Friday night, Husband and I get together with some of the coolest people from our church to have small group.

It's been interesting for me- I have had issues about whether or not I actualy feel connected and if I truly have a place to belong. I've often felt cared about, but still felt as if something were missing. Most likely it was me being issue-full, but it's how I felt.

The last few months, though, things have started to change, and I've either begun to get over myself or the group dynamic has changed.... or most likely, a bit of both. We've finished telling our personal stories and have now moved into a time of sharing what God is doing in our lives.

This past Friday my beautiful and sassy and hilarious and insanely deep friend Carly got us all thinking about how we receive God. We had this visual of God throwing footballs at us and us being totally non-receptive and the footballs just bouncing off of us, whether it be because we weren't looking or we had a "shield" of pride or insecurity or who knows what. And we got into talking about what "posture" we need to have to really receive God. Our task is to come back in two weeks and hopefully have thought about what that personally means for us.

How do I, then, receive God? What are the reasons I'm not catching the footballs? What would my "posture" of receiving look like?

I don't know quite yet, but I'll be thinking about it.

That same night, my friend Dawn and I were talking about the b-word. You know, busy. It's kind of a ridiculous word, because we're always busy.... but right now, it's like we're super ultra crazy busy. She even wrote a post about it, which you can read here.

I've been thinking about the b-word and the receiving-word in conjunction with each other. Let's face facts. I'm always busy. Some times I'm beyond busy and can barely sleep, let alone blog (like the last two weeks), but most of the time, I'm just regular busy, and I blog when I'm procrastinating from doing something else I should be doing. My life is go-g0-g0, and I don't think it's going to change any time soon- I'm just a busy person. I may never be a woman able to find several hours at one time to sit and listen to God.... but that doesn't mean I can't be in a posture to receive him.

In fact, it means that it is imperative that, whatever it looks like, I do take time to be receiving. The only way to have any purpose in my life, in the midst of the busyness, is to receive.

Still working on what this looks like, but know I'm on the right track.

To Have a Plan

Having a plan is something I think I do well.

Or at least, I thought I did well.

Let me back up.

This weekend I went with our church's youth group on our annual retreat, High Altitude. You can read what my initial post before we left here, or read my good friend Kerri's post about what happened here. Hopefully I'll get some pictures soon (I didn't have my camera, so I'll be facebook stealing them as soon as others post.)

It was everything and more than I expected.

Highlight- one of my favorite high school friends, whom I've known for about four years, decided to accept Christ as her Savior and Lord!!!!! She's been pursuing God for a couple years, but on this retreat acknowledged that she'd never actually given her life to Him and she wanted to put aside her fears, questions, and doubts, and do it. It was beyond awesome!

(Sidenote- I've never been the person to pray for new life with anyone before this time- I wanted to run out of the room we were in whooping and hollering and dancing with excitement- but of course I didn't since she wasn't really quite ready for me to do that- but the next day she let me share it with everyone at our last chapel, and you bet there was some cheering then!!!)

Anyway, the retreat was great- we played, talked, ate, and learned, and did it all some more. But I digress. My point is about on planning.

See, our new Senior Pastor came up on Saturday to talk to the us about three things:

1. growing (by being in the Word)
2. connecting (to others in our circle)
3. serving (those outside our circle)

And with each step, he reminded us that we need to have a plan when it comes to each of these things.

Now, I'm a planner and an organizer and I like to be in control (see my recent revelation on that topic - our pastor is really challenging me- here). I have schedules and order and when I wake up in the morning, I immediately am planning the day.

But when it comes to growing by reading the Word, when it comes to connecting to other people in ways that I need, well, I don't plan that so very well. I'll say, "I need to read more," and that's that. Or I'll say, "I wish my friend so-and-so would call me because I could use some connection time," but I don't call her. Or I'll complain, "There's nowhere for me to really connect at my church," but I won't go to a Bible Study..... well, it turns out folks, I need a plan.

A plan will help me figure out what I really need and want to do.
A plan will help me decide what I most need in my life.
A plan will help me actually follow through on making the necessary changes.

So today, as I'm unwrapping the gift of planning and linking up over at Tuesdays Unwrapped, I'll be thinking about how THESE plans are pretty much way more important than the what's on the menu for this week or how I'll get my grading done.

These plans are going to help my heart.

High Altitude Awesomeness

Good morning, ladies! Now that I'm back to "real life," my coffee company time is minutes stolen between classes..... but I always look forward to catching up with you on how your weeks have been!

Sadly, this week I'll have to wait until Monday night to really get a chance to "chat." I'll be joining 6 other adults and 49 students at our church at about 5 this afternoon to head up into the mountains for our youth group's annual retreat, High Altitude.

I doubt there will be this much snow there right now (it's been warm the last few days- in the 40s!) , but this is indeed a mountain in the background we might see - and we'd defintely see the trees.

I haven't been working with the youth group as much as I used to because I took Sunday nights (when they have regular meetings) off to work on grad school. I still went to special events and had the girls over for dinner once a month (a tradition called Taco Tuesday), but it's been different not being there every week. I'm not sure I feel called to go back to being a full-time sponsor, but I do LOVE the kids and know I want to stay involved in the youth ministry at our church in some way.

This weekend (from about 5 today till about 12 on Monday) will be spent hanging out with the kids, having chapel and worship, leading fun little ice-breakers throughout the trip, playing indoor, outdoor, and everywhere else games, drinking lots of coffee at breakfast to energize me from the late nights, growing, praying, singing, laughing, talking, and lots of other -ings, and much more. Should be fun!

If you think of it, I have a few prayer requests.

1. that our kids would make connections with the Lord and with each other

2. that their faith would be strengenthed for coming back to a world determined to weaken it

3. that they would get out of their comfort zones and learn to love each other

4. that sponsors would be able to be intentional with the kids

5. that we would be healthy (we've had lots of issues with illness on retreats)

6. that we would be safe

Hope your weekend is as incredible as I know mine is going to be!