Focus.

That word popped into my brain as I was driving into town for the what seemed like the fifteenth time today.

But more on that later.

You see, my computer died. After spending a good amount of two days trying to get it to work; restarting it and troubleshooting like it was my only goal in life (because at the time it was), after taking it into Geek Squad and having it miraculously work on the cold black countertop and having the dude look at me like I was crazy, I went back home to have the same grey folder and white screen blinking at me yet again. I called tech support at Apple, only to have them tell me the same things I already tried. Props to the guy I talked too though. At least I had a fun fifteen minute phone conversation despite not getting the problem solved. I was informed I should come work for Apple since I seem to be quite tech savvy.

Now, back to driving in the car.

So I decided to just take it into Geek Squad once again…hoping to God that it wouldn’t work once I sat it on the holy grail of black countertops. Kind of a weird thing to hope for but I was about ready to throw my computer out of the moving car. I was that fed up. Plus, I didn’t want to look like a crazy person again.

Focus.

After some deep soul searching and praying over my laptop for it to work, I came to the realization rather quickly that I’m not focusing on the right things in my life.

You wouldn’t think a MacBook Pro would drive a wedge between you and God but I tell ya, we had it out these past couple of days. Not only with the laptop situation but with other things in life that just haven’t been working out as I have hoped.

I realized that I need to focus on what’s important and maybe God took the ultimate time consumer in my life away for a reason. I very good reason.

So I could focus on the important parts of my life; the most important being Jesus.

God demands our attention. Months can go by with me getting too caught up in myself, until one day everything stops and I’m picking up the pieces, crying cause I just don’t understand why God can be so uncaring.

Silly.

I know.

It takes me a bit to realize how uncaring I am toward the One who cares so much for me. What right do I have to be angry at how unfair life is?

Is it really that bad?

I asked myself this question tonight as a few tears slowly drew a line down my cheeks.

Part of me wants to say yes while the other part of me wants to say no.

I isolate myself in pathetic solitude. I let my worries and doubts encompass my feelings. I don’t trust people and sadly…I’ve begun to not trust Jesus. I think my anxieties are high priority and everything that relates to personal gain. But maybe if I just stop.

Yes. Just stop for a moment and realize the goodness in my life.

To realize the goodness despite.

Despite. The key word in my intricate personal battle of feelings.

I know I can’t justify my feelings because they are just that…feelings.

To just stop and focus.

To stop focusing on myself so much.

Jesus does so much for me. He gives and He takes away. Not because He loves me less, but because He loves me so much and gave me a life that only I could handle. A life so small in retrospect when it’s compared to all the other lives being lived, but it’s mine nonetheless, and still just as important and worth living.

So, I am humbled. Will tomorrow come with another new set of struggles and lessons to learn? Of course. But if I just focus on Jesus and the goodness, everything will be okay. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end obviously.

Okay, so my life lesson came in the form of a broken computer and hundreds of dollars worth of repair fees…and if that’s what it takes to bring me to my knees, then so be it.

le libre arbitre

Life comes in perspective every time a tragedy like the one seen in Paris happens. My memory becomes a bit hazy when it comes to 9/11…seeing as I was only 5 when it happened, but I still remember the cold hand of fear grasping at me. It comes over me right now…but it’s matured enough to not send me into a flood of hysteric tears. I don’t feel safe tonight. I don’t feel safe in the United States, nor anywhere else in the world…not even in my own little awkward corner, where most of the events that shake my little world are bad grades, indecisions and college tuition. How pointless are those things? When Paris was suppose to be safe, but it’s not anymore. Paris is suppose to be the city of romance and champagne, but instead of champagne there is blood spilled on the cobbled stone streets.

For what? It’s nonsensical, and it never will be make sense.

Many scholars speak of the problem of evil and try to find an answer to it. Tony Judt worried how we as a people will become desensitized to evil over the course of time; like the Holocaust and when the generation who remembered are no longer in existence, and the those who only read about it in history textbooks are left, we are distend to repeat history. We must ask how a human can mercilessly kill another helpless human being. The problem of evil is how to reconcile its existence with that of a God who is all loving and all good.

As Christians we look at the Bible and see the very beginning: God created the world and everything in it, including the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. He created the Garden of Eden and also the tree of good and evil. How can God, who is not evil, allow evil to exist? God could have made a world where evil didn’t exist, but then as Billy Graham puts it “it would have been one of robots and puppets–creatures that could not love Him or anyone else.” In order to love, we must have the freedom to so do. In order to be good, we must be morally free. In order to choose God, we must have the free will to make that choice.

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” – Isaiah 45:7

God created evil for a purpose, and in the end it will bring Him glory in that of His plan of salvation. Jesus was glorified in His death and in His resurrection, and will be again in His second coming. God is the Author of our salvation and in Him we have hope for eternity in Heaven. But He demands to be chosen and that is why He gave us the freedom to choose.

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can’t. If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they’ve got to be free.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (…) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.” – C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

I love how C.S Lewis states that God thought our free will worth the risk of going right or wrong. Because it makes our redemption so much sweeter and glorifying to Him.

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

“You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety.” – Job 11:18

Tonight we pray for Paris, for the families of the victims and the state as a whole, and all the other countries effected by this evil.

“It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the Lord will be broken. The Most High will thunder from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.” – 1 Samuel 2:10

A Bit of Musings From Me to You

Hello! Did you miss me? Should I dare ask that question? Partly because I feel like my little corner has been forgotten about because it’s been left vacant for too long. I’ve tried to sit down and write something deep and thoughtful, but honestly? I feel like every thought that I try to spill out onto this blank white sheet of computer space doesn’t sound right. I feel like everything I write is just a bunch of empty, scattered words.

Summer break has come to a sad goodbye because school has finally begun. Funny how three months feels like a long stretch of time but once it’s over with you wonder where summer went and why didn’t you enjoy it more? I spent my last couple weeks of break in Colorado. My entire summer I felt had been centered around going to Summit, a Christian worldview conference in Manitou Springs. When the day finally arrived to go…I honestly didn’t want to. Maybe my nerves were getting to me. I mean, seriously, I’m the type of person who needs motivation just to get out of her PJs in the morning or anything that has socializing involved.

I arrived at Summit and knew absolutely no one. I looked at the heavy schedule they placed in front of us and felt like two weeks was going to be an eternity before I could go back home. Because home is familiar. I know what to do and where to go and who my people are. Mealtime was especially stressful since you had to pick a table to sit at and you didn’t know the people sitting there. My introverted side was getting the best of me, but then I got to know my roommates. Suddenly the people in the cafeteria became my classmates. We were all here for one thing and that was to grow in Christ. I never before have been surrounded by such brilliant minded students, speakers and staff. By graduation, I didn’t want to leave the old hotel in Manitou. Even now, it seems like an entirely different world, a small corner where you can just feel Jesus in every corner and crevice of it’s old structure.

I know it sounds a little cheesy to say this…but I felt like I lost myself over the course of two years. I graduated high school and started college; I went from one major to the next; tried all sorts of different classes; landed new jobs…I forgot who I was in Christ.

It’s such a terrible thing to be lost…but it’s so-so sweet to be found.

It’s not about the majors, the jobs…goodness, it’s not even about yourself. Life is such a generalized series of events. We grow up, we graduate high school, we choose a major, we graduate college, we get a job that we kind of sorta like, have a family, retire…then die.

At least that was the conversation I overheard by two students today while waiting for class to start. “Who cares how long your in college, heck, people go and get there masters and then change their minds. You might as well stay in college as long as you can because then after that you have to start real life, get a job and then die.”

Ah, how wrong is this person behind me? I thought. How pointless. How dumb. Why on earth are we here if we are just meant to die and turn to dust?

The sad fact is, I fell into this lie. It’s a strange thing, we pay all this money to go to college and get a bachelors, then a masters, and keep extending our time in college to avoid “real life”, as if college is a safety net that we cling to before we are forced to fall into reality. I fell into the lie that life is about these series of events where death is the ultimate outcome. I look back on my life and it isn’t so simple, it never was intended to be, nor will it ever be.

Death is the ultimate outcome.

But it’s not our eternity.

My eternity is in Heaven. What I do on this earth should be a reflection of Christ; my entire mindset should be only to glorify Him in all that I do. Sadly though, I get blinded by my own desires and personal gain. I kept choosing majors that I hoped would give me security and stability. Why do I seek comfort from this world when it only greets me with empty words and promises? Here is the finer things in life, where all of your troubles will be solved. But I find that the higher I step on the ladder, it gives me more burdens then the previous steps.

But then I went to Summit. I realized that I don’t want stability and comfort that the world has to offer, but that I want the stability and comfort that can only be found in Christ.

I want truth.

I want Jesus.

I have this unsatisfied curiosity now that I don’t know how, nor do I want, to quench, thanks to Summit.

Someone once told me that there is no point in trying to change the world because people don’t change.

But then, what is the point in anything? What is the point in healing the sick when we are just going to die? What is the point in fixing anything when it’s inevitably going to break again?

What I’m saying is this…

Death is not our eternity (which I stated earlier).

That is why we should care…we should care about the souls inside the bodies. The sick, the poor, the world and all of the souls it contains. We should fight for the lives of the innocent. We should stand up against controversial issues and laws made that go against our Christian morals and beliefs.

As Christians we are called to be the light in the dark, and to lead others to Christ. In the end, it does matter.

Ah, to my fellow student, who will sit behind me in class for this entire semester, who thinks that death is nothing but an end.

Let me tell you, it’s only the beginning.

Maybe, It’s Me.

My mind keeps wondering so many places, that I can’t concentrate.

Sometimes I feel so in control, like everything is in my hands and I know exactly where I can place everything and then suddenly everything just falls to the floor, and I’m forced to pick up the pieces again.

My heart just wants to wonder everywhere…and it feels like it’s caught on something. No matter how hard I yank and pull, I can never be completely free.

And maybe that’s my problem.

I keep thinking about wiping the dirt of this crummy old town off my feet, that I forget that I can’t wipe away who I am deep down.

I can’t wipe away all my insecurities and doubts; I can’t pass the blame onto everyone and everything else.

I can run, but I can’t hide away from myself.

If I’m so dissatisfied with my life, maybe it’s not the scenery or the major or the friends or enemies that I need to change or runaway from…maybe it’s me.

I don’t like the scene I’m living in, but that’s just the now, not forever.

I’ve changed my college major so many times I’ve lost count, and I’ve found that each one holds it’s own set of doubts. I’m not afraid of trying; I’m afraid of the aftermath of failing.

I’ve disassociated myself from certain people but I’ve found that they weren’t the root of my unhappiness. Granted, some of these people are better off not being in my life, but if I can’t forgive, then that is another form of my own unhappiness.

I could blame my unhappiness on lack of relationships and the age old saying that “nobody cares about little old me”.

But I’m the one who makes my bed and has to lie in it each night.

It’s like blaming the sky for bringing rain and soaking me wet, but when it boils down to it, I’m the one who didn’t bring an umbrella.

At the beginning of this year, I said the only person I can change is myself.

This is how I feel about life right now, I’m so busy fighting off the weeds in my garden, that I don’t even notice the flowers in my life.

And that’s sad.

Because the entire point I made about last year is that I spent too much time picking weeds and trying to be more “successful”, that I forgot to have any moments. I didn’t stop and smell the roses is what I’m trying to say.

And I’m tired of the circle I keep going round-n-round in.

It’s like, I’m picking this weed and that weed and I’m going to get through college, and I’m going to move out and I’m going to get an amazing job and explore the world and oh, then I’ll be satisfied and happy with my life.

And that’s not how life should be.

Clearly, satisfaction doesn’t exist. The world has made success so distorted that we don’t even know when to be satisfied or if we should be.

Happiness is like candy, you eat it and then it’s gone.

So I’m just going to enjoy life. I’m going to sing at the top of my lungs to the radio while sitting at stop lights, maybe I’ll roll the windows down. Because who cares what people think.

I’m going to finish college, but I’m going to enjoy it while it’s here.

I’m going to live at home with my parents, and yeah, that sounds so completely uncool, but life is just like that right now. It’s not always going to be this way. So I’m going to enjoy the evenings I spend talking to my parents about my day and hearing about theirs. I’m going to enjoy how loud the house is when Ru is on the a rampage while I’m trying to study, because someday it’s going to be quiet, and I know I’m going to miss it.

It’s not complete satisfaction, because the kind I’m searching for doesn’t exist until I get to Heaven, but it’s a content kind of satisfaction none the less; to have a family that is there when you get home, who heats up the leftovers for you when you’ve worked on Christmas Eve, and who will always have a light on for you no matter how far you’ve gone or how long you stayed away.

~ Tru

Just A Thought.

This is probably the awkwardest picture of a jar of paint brushes you will ever see. One day, a long time ago, I thought I was going to be an artist. The dream died but I still like to look at my brushes because I think they are more pretty then my paintings. PS: Setting them on a bookshelf was suppose to be artistic. Oh and Nancy Drew for the win.

Some days everything is alright. The sun is shining; the long day’s worth of school is cut short with a sudden cancelation of your night class, and before you know it the semester will be over and you will walk out of class with the birds chirping and 60 degree weather that feels oh so good.
Life is messy most of the time but sometimes it’s okay.
You look forward to the future but sometimes you have to stop focusing on the big things. Like college graduation, finding a job, and going through all the phases of adulthood that plummet towards you as you leave the past self of term papers and tests behind.
Instead sometimes you just need to focus on today and what little bits of joy it will bring you.
When you look too long at the big picture you start worrying and fretting over how incomplete it looks.
We forget sometimes that tomorrow is just another stroke of the brush. You paint flowers in your garden and you make minor details to your clouds of possibilities.
Sometimes the colors are just completely wrong and you have to tear off the page and start again. Sometimes you make a wrong stroke and your forced to repair the mistake, and even once it’s fixed and barely noticeable, you know it’s there and it bothers you to the point that you think you have to start again when you really don’t.
To be honest, life is kind of like painting with your eyes closed sometimes. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out. You just have to trust God to keep your hand steady as you paint.
But trust me…once you open them, it will be a beautiful masterpiece.

Crumbs.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a crumb still sticking to the cake pan, or the leftover soup that couldn’t quite make it into the ladle. I’m always on my own. I’m in the “average and that is all I can be” crowd of people…which is desperately lonely sometimes. I’m nothing special other then the fact that there is only one of me in this big world and yet that means…everyone is special then…so I guess I’m still average.

I realize that maybe everyone feels like they are left out or whatever. But why is that when we are left out we feel sad…but uncomfortable when pulled in?

Why is it that everyone wants to live the word of greatness but only a selected few actually get to do this?

Is it born into circumstances or is it some sort of messed up fate?

Because when I think about my life so far…it’s nothing great. It’s just average. Even my life goals fall into the average because I’m lazy.

I’m just trying to figure this whole thing out…why is it that sometimes life just works out for certain people in the best possible way and then there is us?

We have to work through school and pay off our college debt as we work and work and work. We don’t ever get to go anywhere. We are cemented to the ground…

But it’s not like the cement was always there…somehow it poured on our feet, which were once standing on green grass soaked in possibilities.

I begin to wonder if maybe the reason we are the crumbs still sticking to the cake pane isn’t because our fate made it impossible for us to form onto the lovely cake with all the special people….but because we simply can’t let go and fall off when the cake forms.

If you understand what I’m saying…

Maybe the reason we are held back is because we are ones holding ourselves back.

You want something? Go out and get it. I’m not saying that it’s a meant to be. Only God knows that. If you are meant to live out greatness (which I’m sure all of us are), then you will. I don’t think any life has no purpose. But sometimes greatness can only be seen by small numbers, and oh my, when will we realize that affirmation from others is pointless?

And when will we realize that greatness is not the point?

The point is Love. Loving Jesus and others and doing works that will give God the glory, not ourselves.

I feel like I harp on this subject way too often, and maybe that is because I haven’t been able to get it into my thick skull yet that it doesn’t matter if I aspire to be all that I can be, because what I need to become is a servant.

A servant you say? My goodness, you must think I’m crazy.

You thought we were reaching for greatness?

No, we aren’t reaching for greatness. We are reaching for humbleness, servitude, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

And yes, I know that this post has become a jumble of words and incomplete thoughts…

But maybe I can save it somehow, huh? Maybe I can get a well rounded thought out of this head of mine.

If we are all so lonely, aren’t we together in our loneliness? If you get what I’m saying. If we all feel the same, then we really aren’t so alone in our feelings.

I’m pretty sure all of us feel like crumbs once in a while…

We are always last. We are always waiting to be pulled in.

But we shouldn’t have to wait to be pulled in, because we are already pulled in close to a loving Savior, who knows all our dreams and hopes for the future. Who forgives us and consistently humbles us when we let the so called worldly greatness and popularity get to our heads, where we take all the glory and keep it to ourselves.

You can look down the road of has beens. The ones with all the awards. The ones with all the magazine covers. The ones that large and loud crowds boast of their greatness.

And then there is you. The precious gem that wakes up day to day and goes to school full time and works, who is known by name by a very small island of people.

Maybe you won’t make a gigantic leap in the world of sparkling photographers who wanted to know what you ate for lunch…

It’s not about being special. It’s not about being born into a certain circumstance where you are automatically “great” or whatever.

It’s about the ones that don’t have much and yet still don’t think of themselves. It’s about the ones that can wake up day to day and crack the cement around their feet and go out and chase the “average” and sometimes reach above it.

We aren’t reaching for greatness.

We are reaching for Jesus and with that we achieve the greatest of all greatness.

~ Tru

Threshold

Another year is coming to a close.

How can everything be so different yet so much the same?

As much that has happened this year, there really isn’t much to say about it.

365 days have gone by and yet…I am still me. Socially awkward and temperamental Trudi.

I feel like as soon as the clock strikes midnight I will lose something.

The sense of security, perhaps? You get so comfortable in the year that you are in that before you know it, it’s time to say goodbye.

But I can’t say I’ll miss it. The next year is full of such mystery, enticing me to come hither. Maybe that is what makes 2015 (and every other new year) so exciting. The unknown of it all.

It’s a little frightening.

But I know everything will be okay. That is the hope that we cling to. That no matter how screwed up and messy life gets, it will all be okay in the end.

Oh, life is so unutterable sweet sometimes and then it’s in the “depths of despair” and then it’s okay again and then nothing happens and then everything happens at once.

I feel as if I’m on the threshold of something and I don’t know what it is. All the dust is crowding on all the things that I loved. I feel as if adolescence is truly behind me and now I’m an adult. I’m stepping into an empty room and I’m not sure what to put there.

So much hope springs from the unknown. The idea of greatness; the expectation that softens the blow as reality hits.

All these sweet, sad goodbyes are making me nostalgic. All the times I spent mulling over my future plans, I didn’t really enjoy the year as much as I should have. I forgot to make more memories. Instead I was too busy trying to achieve all these goals. Trying to be all impressive when in the end I only ended up straining myself and falling into anxiety and stress.

I guess, as I step over this threshold and the clock strikes midnight…I’m not going to wish for a better year, but a better me. The only thing I can change is myself.

So, I’ll raise my sparkling glass of grape juice to the New Year and I’ll see you all in 2015.

“Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.”- Brad Paisley

For Blue Skies

I realize that most of my deep revelations come while I’m driving in my car. I don’t know why, but my thoughts run rampant at stop lights.

I was driving in my car on my way home from school, there was a lot of traffic, which is kind of annoying, but nevertheless, you see people walking along the streets and sitting in a car beside you and ahead of you and it just hits you like this…

Complete strangers, each with a soul and stories that you will never know about. Each with lives that keep on continuing as they make that turn onto the interstate, driving off to who knows where.

People we don’t know, tend to be thought of as the props in our own personal plays.

We walk among strangers and don’t even glimpse their faces.

And that is sad.

Every week I sit in classes and listen to my teachers talk a mile a minute about our bodies and what they are made of and how they work. Never does it come up that we are more then just skin and bones; made up of multiple systems (each far too complex to not be made by a creator by the way). Don’t even get me started with my Psych class.

Never does anyone say anything about our souls and how they desperately need saving.

Maybe I have come to realize that our hearts beat for many things in this life and how insignificant everything is when our hearts beat for only those things…

Money. Title. Lovers. Worldly belongings. Fame. Approval from our so-called peers. Academic success.

In the end it matters only for who these worn and heavy hearts beat for.

For who do these souls belong too?

When I start thinking about all these souls and hearts…it causes me to search my own and ask myself what my heart is beating for?

Because lately, I have felt lost, worn, tired…and just empty. I feel as if I’m in this ring boxing at air. I’m not sure what I’m fighting against, I just have to keep swinging my arms.

The fact is, I know what my heart is beating for. It’s beating for selfish things. It’s only beating for myself.

It shouldn’t be.

I think about my academic success and career choices and finds myself thinking “which one will give me glory.”

And the fact is, that the more I think about my own personal gain and how I can obtain these things that I want in life…the harder it becomes to achieve them.

I’ve been trying so hard this semester between work and school…and to be honest, bitterness started to set in.

And maybe it all came to a head when the snow started falling and I skidded into the ditch on my way to town one dark Saturday evening and I sat there in the car feasting on all my bitterness; stressing out, and wanting to burst into a flood of angry tears.

Then some guys in a tractor pulled up, hitched my car up with a chain and pulled me out of the ditch then drove away.

I didn’t even have a chance to say thank you.

All these souls…all these hearts beating…

For who do they belong to you?

Jesus.

We can only be saved by a constant, always loving Savior.

Constant. That word has such warmth and safety.

Because no matter what, He will always be there.

Oh, how little it all matters when you strip away all life’s fineries and worldly accomplishments and day to day hardships and you find Jesus in the crowd of regrets, sadness, mistakes and expectations never met.

He’s a light, you know. Shining on all the messes that we make in this life and loving us despite everything.

It’s just crazy.

How much Jesus can love despite all flaws, beyond what you deserve. Loving you endlessly.

And He loves not just one person, but every single soul and heart beating in this world, as if they were the only one person He died for.

Choices

We all have choices to make; everyday. Some choices may be easy, insignificant, and small. Those are the best kind. They don’t change your course in life, one way or another; the choice doesn’t really matter. Your still you, and your still safe from the word change.

The big choices, the important, hard, life changing ones. Now those are difficult. Like what college major you should choose, or deciding to love someone, or deciding if you should move out and be an adult.

These big decisions are painful, and you can’t make them with the most certainty, because there is too much unknown.

I came across this quote a while ago. I thought it was slightly strange at first, but it gave me a new idea. Loving is a choice we make, even accepting love is a choice. We seem to think love is just an overwhelming feeling inside of us. But what happens when that overwhelming feeling ceases?

“He loved her, of course. But better then that, he chose her. Day after day. Choice: that was the thing.” – Sherman Alex

Some choices need to be made everyday. Some choices aren’t just once. It seems like this world keeps making choices less permanent. Like when we love someone, and we marry that person, and then one day you wake up and you think “I just don’t have that feeling anymore, the love is gone between us, we’ve changed.”

Choice…that was the thing.

Everyday we have to keep deciding if we want to keep loving someone when that overwhelming feeling is gone.

Everyday we can make the choice to stay asleep with our dreams or go out and chase them.

Everyday we have so many choices.

I sometimes feel like I’m drowning in an overwhelming ocean of options and I don’t know which to choose. I’m frantically trying to take hold of this ship I’m in and steer myself in the right direction, when I end up on a deserted island most of the time.

But when I give up all my cares to Jesus, I find that it’s really not so hard to figure out what choices I should make in this life.

So, I choose Him above everything else. To be honest, if I only choose Jesus, then every other choice I make will be with confidence. Because I choose Him, everyday. I choose to keep loving Him, even when the road seems long and my shoulders ache with every weight full of choices and too many options.

I choose Him because He loved me when I was unloveable. I choose Him because when I was unreachable, He reached for me.

I choose You today Jesus, because no other choice makes sense, if my choice isn’t You first.

Okay is Okay

I’ve been so busy, that I feel as if my life has become a metronome. Bouncing back and forth in a steady, fast pace. I’m trying to match the rhythm, but I’m not very good at it. It’s boring to be honest and life has been going by too fast. I’m so busy focusing on the rhythm of the metronome that I don’t have time to enjoy the music.

I’m so busy going back and forth I can’t move forward. Time just passes so quick that it’s impossible to step outside the rhythm.

But there are days that step outside the metronome. The high notes interacting with the low ones. The bright sunny days that make you feel as if the world is okay. The days when you accomplish more then you expected. That A on a test that proves to you that you’re smarter then you think. Those moments of unexplainable joy that shout out into the void of monthly payments, minimum wage jobs and piles upon piles of homework, saying “life is more then a constant struggle.” because honestly, it feels that it is sometimes…the constant struggle to be better, think harder, and to be more then you can possibly be.

As sad as I am sometimes, life really isn’t so bad. I didn’t say it was good but its okay. Maybe okay is enough, maybe to be just okay is our whim of hope, maybe it’s our fate. Okay may be all that we are and ever will be. I think it’s alright is we just settle for okay. I know, why not try to settle for wonderful or even plain old good. But let’s be honest, this is a sad world, full of sad people. Being okay is fine. We don’t need to be anything other then that. I think we get so caught up in the act of finding complete and flawless happiness that we don’t realize the tiny bits of it that happen each day. We cry, we laugh, we go through the motions. One day is going to really tick you off and the next day is going to be sunshine and rainbows…and you know what? That’s okay. It’s like I said before, life isn’t perfect but it wasn’t meant to be. God created Adam and Eve and knew they would sin. He knew that He would have to send His ONLY SON to die for us.

Though life at the moment may be a metronome, it’s a grand sweet song. It may not be a number one hit on the Billboard Top 100 but that’s okay. My song is the sighs of a classroom; the clicking of the register at work; the sound of the coffee pot dripping in the morning; my car that makes strange noises, and the silence in the house as I go to sleep. It’s not amazing, nor wonderful…and I know it could be better, but right now it is what it is, and I’m okay with that.