Fears…

God has helped me overcome a lot of fears that have come up, but every once in a while, I get a little too…ahem…”concerned” about certain aspects of the future.

Nathan and I will be taking the proper precautions, but since we’re not going to be using the Pill (for various reasons), it scares me a little to think of the possibility of getting pregnant right away by some act of God.

I wonder “How will we manage? What if I get really sick during pregnancy, like my mom? What if Nathan can’t finish school, or we don’t even move to LA? What if I can’t work and we need the money?”

Or I worry about our finances, especially since I’ll be the primary breadwinner while Nathan goes through the program at LA Recording School…”Will I find a good enough job? Will we find a decently priced apartment? Will we have enough money with only one income?”

It scares the crap out of me sometimes, but I just remind myself that God is in control and that HE will provide for all our needs. We may have to make sacrifices, at least short-term, but He will take care of what we truly need. When I truly give it all up to Him, He gives me peace. I have seen Him provide before, so why would He suddenly stop providing now?

I have a few little “Godly Truths” on a sheet of paper that I put up at work and at home. They are basically Bible verses in my own words….. I need to remind myself of this one…

God cares about me and what goes on in my life. I can trust Him to provide what I need, protect me, and do what is best for me.

 

15 Pounds!

My rate of weight loss has been slowing a little lately. I’ve been going up 1 lb, then dropping 2, then going up. There’s been a lot going on, plus I started the weight training program (Buff Brides) recently, so that might have to do with it also. At least I’m losing weight, though!

Nathan bought me a new scale, so now I can keep track of my weight at home, too! So sweet of him to do that for me

In other news, being engaged is CRAZINESS! No wonder so many brides go postal about wedding stuff. They’re just using it as an outlet for all the emotional stress involved in preparing for marriage.

Nathan and I just started pre-marital counseling and it’s gonna be AWESOME, but it’s also gonna be a tough process. There’s a lot of spiritual crap that we need to get rid of to really be ready for marriage. The spiritual effects of being engaged are very interesting. A friend of mine told me that when you’re dating, Satan’s scheme is to try to push the couple together in unhealthy ways (physically, emotionally, etc), but when you get engaged, it shifts. Now that there’s a commitment and movement towards a lifetime commitment, he tries to pull a couple apart. We are definitely feeling that full-force and it’s quite the spiritual battle.

I know that with prayer from our friends and family and prayer times together, we’ll be able to persevere through all the difficult moments and become even stronger as a couple. I’m excited about what God’s gonna do in our lives, as freaked out as I am sometimes about the exact process of how that’s gonna happen.

I’m so glad to know that I can trust God in all this and that He has our best interests in mind! He’s on our side, so we can conquer anything that comes in our path!

 

My thoughts on life

Lately I’ve been thinking about life and what really matters.

I wrote out my life purpose for the money map thing and I realized that a lot of the things that our culture values aren’t necessary to fulfill what I believe my purpose during the short period of time that is my life.

Here is my life purpose:

My Life purpose is to glorify God through my relationship with Him (through prayer, worship, reading my Bible, and acting on the things that He calls me to do), through loving and serving my family and friends and giving them the grace that God gives me, and through serving and ministering to people by using the gifts that God has given me.

I feel that all the details of my life with work out for the best as long as I live with that purpose in mind, because I know that wherever God leads me is the perfect and best place for me to be. My life so far has been nowhere near what I expected, but I love it, because I know that I am right where God wants me and there are good and wonderful things happening!

A lot of people lately have been telling me what they think I should do with my life. I realize that it’s out of love and caring, but it’s frustrating to me sometimes. The things they mention (education, finances, etc) are important to me, but whatever it is that GOD has for me is much more important. I know that God will give me the education I need (whether it’s at a University, or whether it’s through reading my Bible and living life), the finances I need (whether it’s a lot or a little) and everything else. I would really like to finish my education and get a degree, but if I don’t, that’s not the end of the world. My degree isn’t going to matter in heaven, and it doesn’t even matter on earth if that’s not something I need.

What is important to me is that at the end of my life, I can look back and see that I was faithful with what God entrusted me with…my life, my mind, my talents, my family, my friends, the people in the circle of influence. If getting my degree means missing out on something better that GOD has planned for me, I don’t want it.

What I’ve said won’t make sense to a lot of people, I would imagine. But I don’t want to make sense to the world, I want to follow God’s leading in my life.

A lot of these thoughts are prompted by people who are pressuring me and Nathan to wait to get married (we’re planning on next summer, probably August) because Nathan’s parents will pay for his education, but not if we’re married, so the last two years of his education (the most expensive years) will be our responsibility financially. I understand this concern, but I think that if we manage our money well, we will be able to handle it with no problem. It is a worthy investment into our future.

The other issue is about my own education…I am taking a break right now for financial reasons (I haven’t been able to get financial aid, since my parents wouldn’t fill out the FAFSA), and assuming Nathan and I get married next summer, we will stay in Santa Barbara and work for about a year before going down to LA for his education, at which point I would work fulltime and Nathan parttime while he finishes his education. This makes the most sense because of my experience in the insurance field allows me to get a better job.

I feel very strongly that next year is the right time for us to get married. Also, it is important to both Nathan and I that we be together wherever we go, and I would not want to move down to LA without being able to come home to him, as my husband. It doesn’t make sense for me to follow him without that commitment of marriage. Plus, on a practical level, it would be a pain for each of us to find apartments and all that by ourselves, and probably have to find roommates, or get used to new roommates. And for me, I don’t want to uproot myself from Santa Barbara where all my friends and family are, without knowing that Nathan and I are joined together as husband and wife. And finally, if we did wait till Nathan was done with his education before getting married, we wouldn’t end up starting a family until I’m about 27 or 28 because we both agree it’s best to wait a couple years after getting married to have kids.

So, those are my thoughts on everything. And I feel very much at peace about it all. I feel that God is leading us to get married next year, and I know that He will provide for all our needs.

~M

 

*Collapse* I think my ability to deal with all th…

*Collapse*

I think my ability to deal with all that life is throwing me at the moment is becoming less and less.

I feel like I have so many things coming at me that I may crumple. Thankfully, God’s grace sustains me and He also has given me a wonderful man who is there for me when I really need him to be.

All this is teaching me the importance of spending good time with God, no matter how busy I am, because I simply can’t survive without His guidance and help. I’m not necessarily doing so great, but I continue to improve.

The funny thing is, I think the more I grow and learn, the more I realize how far away from perfection I truly am. I know so many people, myself included, who feel like they are moving backwards in their relationship with God. I don’t think it’s so much that, as I growing realization of how far from perfection we are, and how much we really need God. I think that the more we realize how far we are from God, the more we want to pursue Him and get closer to Him, and the more He works in our lives, whether we realize it or not.

I have a feeling that God is doing things in my life that I don’t realize at all. Thankfully, it doesn’t all fall on my shoulders, really. All I have to do is obey Him and let him do the rest.

I read the August 1st entry in “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers and it really spoke about this matter:

Learning About His Ways

When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples . . . He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities
—Matthew 11:1

He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, “I know that He told me to go, but my duty is here,” it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.

He teaches where He instructs us not to teach. “Master . . . let us make three tabernacles . . .” ( Luke 9:33 ).

Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God’s role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.

He works where He sends us to wait. “. . . tarry . . . until . . .” ( Luke 24:49 ). “Wait on the Lord” and He will work ( Psalm 37:34 ). But don’t wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can’t see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to “wait patiently for Him”? ( Psalm 37:7 ). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.

These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.

~M