What to do???

I’ve got a whole lot on my mind tonight….it’s gonna be a sleepless night. I am at a crossroads and I have some decisions that really need to be made. I have felt for a while that the Lord was guiding my heart to moving elsewhere. For a long time I thought He was leading me out of Louisville, but then when I had no real peace about where to move to and the doors were not opening up for anything else, I started to think about staying in Louisville and maybe just moving across town. So, I started heading down that road…I started looking at houses on the other side of town and I put my house up for sale. My house has been on the market (this time) for just over a week and there have been quite a few hits on it. Already there have been three different people look at it. My realtor is hopeful that an offer is just around the corner. All signs seem to be pointing to a move across town. The Lord has kept opening the doors toward this. Before, when I had my house on the market (last summer/fall), I had not one single person come look. Now I’ve had three look in 8 days! I have been praying that if the Lord wants me to move across town that He would continue to open all the doors and they have been opening one after another. But even through this, I am just questioning if this is really what God is telling me to do or if He is just opening the doors for other reasons. Does He really want me to move across town? Or should I just stay in a holding pattern for a while and live with a friend until I figure things out? Or should I still consider looking into other cities? I have had such a peace about everything until tonight. I’m not sure what to do. Is this uneasiness a closed door to moving across town? Let me take you back a little bit in my journey. For the past couple years I have been doing a lot of soul-searching. A lot of thinking. A lot of just figuring out who God really made me to be and if I am really being that person and fulfilling His purpose for me. Some days I feel very content in life, but more often than not, I just feel like I was made for something else. I honestly don’t feel like I am an unhappy person. On the contrary, I actually thoroughly enjoy life and get a lot of joy out of it. I am able to find fun and satisfaction in the most simplest of things. But I have come to a point in my life where I know that God really can do whatever He wants with me. I have no reason that I can’t go anywhere & do anything He asks of me. I’m not saying that God is going to do something really big through me; I’m not trying to expect something unrealistic. But I also know that I wouldn’t be feeling so restless for no reason either. I know that nothing is coincidence. There is a reason why we go through what we go through and I feel like there’s a reason I’m still single and maybe it’s because I’m supposed to be completely willing to do something as crazy as move away to somewhere TBD for some reason yet to be discovered. All I know is that I want to be open to it. I want to be crazy enough for it. I want to be used by the Lord for the purpose He has created me for. No matter what. So, one big reason for me wanting to sell my house in the first place was so that I could literally be free to move when God said to move. So my dilemma now is, should I just move across town, live with a friend for a while or keep looking at other cities? I feel like if I just move across town I am settling. Not really seeing what the Lord might do if I just gave Him a chance. I feel like I’d be rowing a boat around a swimming pool...able to see where I should be going, but not able to get there because I’m stuck in the pool (or in my case, a mortgage). I had a thought for a while about selling my house and then moving in with a friend while I sorted things out and waited to see what the Lord would provide. Somewhere along the way, I think I got my head in the clouds about a certain house I like and I let it carry me away. And I think in doing so, I forgot my original purpose for putting my house up for sale. The “problem” in thinking about moving out of Louisville is that I have no direction about where to go, what to do, how to get there, etc… I have no idea where to even begin thinking about it. I have no idea where I might get money to do whatever it is I might do. I have no idea if I would be able to get a job wherever it might be. I have so many unknowns when heading down this road. I have no idea how long the Lord might have me wait before clueing me in on the details (and I know I couldn’t stay in a holding pattern forever). I have so many question marks. So many practical reasons not to do it. So many signs pointing to failure. But that is where the really crazy part comes in. That is where I just expect God to do something crazy and provide everything just at the right time and in exactly the way He set it all up to work out. It is in this endless realm of possibilities and unknowns that complete excitement starts for me. In my Sunday School class this past week, we talked about Abraham and Isaac and how Abraham literally had the knife in the air ready to sacrifice Isaac, simply because the Lord had told him too. That sounds so crazy and irrational!! Why would the Lord tell Abraham to kill his own son – his own son that the Lord had promised him many, many descendants through? I love Abraham’s view of it all. He reckoned that the Lord would just have to bring Isaac back from the dead to fulfill the promise He had made. He was willing to going all the way with what the Lord had told him to do. He didn’t know why. He didn’t understand, for sure. He didn’t want to by any means. But he did it. He did it even though it sounded crazy to him, to Isaac, to the servants that traveled to the mountain with him. And at exactly the right time, the Lord provided a ram to sacrifice instead of Isaac. Proving that we don’t have to have all the answers…we just have to do what God tells us. So that is why I am so torn tonight. I want to have enough faith to know that the Lord can and will provide all the details when I need to know them. I just don’t want to give up on his plan in the process, so I’m trying to decide if buying a home across town is giving up on His plan or if I should just sell mine, but hold off on buying another one…? What to do???

New Tunes and New Thoughts

Okay, so I decided that I wanted to try and keep my blog up to date on more of a daily basis.....nothing special, but just writing about some of my day to day activities and stuff......just so I can look back one day and see where I was and what I was up to and maybe see how I've grown (hopefully). :)

I got two new Cd's in the mail last week.....it was a pre-buy deal that 268generation.com was offering. For $25 you got three Cd's.....David Crowder Band's "Remedy" (which also includes a live DVD), Charlie Hall's "The Bright Sadness" and Chris Tomlin's "Hello Love." The first two arrived last week and I absolutely love them. The third will arrive next week. Charlie Hall is edging his way up my list of favorite artists.

I especially love Charlie's song "My Brightness"

It goes....

"Well I've been hit from every corner, I've been thrown from side to side and I'm cracked up on the inside so I come to you for life.

Your presence always heals me so I want to drink it in and you know where we're going, God, and you know where I've been.

And your love is like a rock when I'm spinning around.

Yesterday I felt so angry and today so insecure and I hate it that I wrestle with the God that I adore.

And your love is like a rock when I'm spinning around.

I know less about you but my heart loves you so much more. You're the bright in sadness, you're my brightness.

I wish this thing could pass from me but I'm wanting what you want. So bring me high or bring me low just hold me in your love.

And your love is like a rock when I'm spinning around."

Something just hits me in that song....and says what I want to say. As long as I'm here the Lord's not through with me yet and I know in time I'll figure out just what His purpose for me might be. As I look into the unknown that is my future, my prayer and my hope is simply that last line of the last verse...."bring me high or bring me low just hold me in your love." And I know He will. That's what makes all of this so scarily exciting. Part of the unknown is very scary because it is just that...unknown. But the other part is so exciting and I just get crazy with anticipation waiting for whatever it might be. I really want to be open to whatever it is the Lord is preparing me for. Whether He takes me across town, across the country or across seas, my heart just wants to please Him and live for Him and I don't want to do it half-heartedly. I want Him to have it all.

Until the Lord makes it clear in my life what is coming next, I want to continue to serve Him and make Him famous in the here and now. So that means working faithfully at my job and loving my co-workers the way He would. It means hanging out with friends and figuring out together what life is all about and pouring my life into theirs in hopes that they see Jesus in me. It means loving people just because they are people (even when they cancel appointments to look at my house!) because after all.....it's all in God's timing. And I can't do anything to hurry Him along just because I'm ready for it now. And I've said this to a good friend before and I remind myself now, that God didn't teach me patience for no reason. And part of learning patience is having to practice it.

I'm really tired of practicing patience, but it's where the Lord has me right now. So, I wait expectantly and with hope and a smile on my face because I know that following Him and being patient even when I don't want to be is the only place I really want to be anyway.

For Sale By Owner

Tonight marks a milestone for me. I have put a For Sale sign in the front yard of my first home. It's been quite emotional actually. My parents came over and we had a little sign hoisting ceremony in the front yard (okay so it was more just sticking little metal rods in the ground than it was actually hoisting, but I like to exaggerate for effect). Then they prayed for me and that God would clearly direct me in the next steps of my life and that my house would sell. I think they think I'm a little crazy and I guess I am to sell my house with no real plan of action to follow. But one thing I don't mind being crazy about and consider it quite a compliment actually is when it comes to following the Lord. I want to be so crazy for Him that I will not hesitate to do what He asks of me, even if it means selling my little house. I think there is a lot of wonder and excitement in the unknown. Just knowing that God is moving and working in my life and growing me (and those around me) and asking us to do bigger and bigger things for Him....not even knowing the outcome. How amazing is that? That God in Heaven cares about our lives!! But I believe wholeheartedly and without reservation that if I will truly give my entire life to the Lord that He will not let me down. He knows that some things may cause me pain for a moment, but will bring much joy, growth, purpose, etc... at a later point. He knows that when I cry or feel pain or don't understand that He can see the bigger picture and that He really DOES have a plan for little ole me. I just pray that I will always follow Him. I pray that He keep me close to Him and that His voice is very recognizable to me. I pray that as I follow Him, that He would humble me and use me to show Him to others so that they would know His amazing, wonderful, awesome peace in their lives. So, this is the reason that I am putting my house up for sale. Because God asked me to and I want to do what He says, because my life serves a greater purpose than just whats going on in my own little world and how it's affecting me. And this will be the reason that I do whatever comes next, because He will have spoken it to me. If my life is lived for nothing more than to show others more and more of Christ, then I will be one joyful & fulfilled woman. I'll add some pictures tomorrow of my house. ...just in case anyone out there is interested. :) But for now, I'm heading off to bed and hoping for sweet dreams.