thoughts of the day/week...

So I have this journal, well actually I have had many in these past years that I have filled up and then put onto my shelf. And it's weird to look back at them and sometimes I just read them and remember what what was going on in life when I wrote certain things, but if you catch me on a bit of a cynical day I start to question myself. Like, was I really feeling that happy, or was I really feeling that great, or did I really come to a point where I felt better or was I just trying to make myself feel better. I don't know if this makes sense but that's kinda what I've been feeling like lately. I've been questioning what I've been feeling and getting kinda frazzled and unsettled. And I just don't want to be fake about it and pretend like I struggle with things, but not that hard and in the end I always feel at peace and better, cause I don't. And what is thinking about life and being real, and what is really looking our fears and struggles in the face and fighting for peace and joy? And can you do both? I'd like to think you can and that that is what being authentic is all about. But man, it's a hard balance.

Cause here's the thing, I've been feeling kinda lonely lately. Like I'm pretty sick of doing things by myself. Especially ministry related things. And I spent some time in a prayer room out in Dalmeny and I really spent some time praying about it and was really enocuraged by how Mary must have felt alone when she said yes to having Jesus (that's a whole other post). And I was feeling really good about just living life and going after God and letting Him do it. And then I packed up my stuff from the theater that night and still felt so lonely. And it's gone back and forth all week like this. And so my question is what is being real in a situation like this. Cause I can forget the loneliness and I can go about my life and find joy and learn lessons and just keep going. Or I can talk about these yucky feelings and sit and be sad too. And they are both very real things. So anyway, that's just how I'm feeling right now. Tomorow I could feel 100% different, who really know. I guess the whole thing is just a learning process in how to be authentic. But learning this is sure harder than one would expect.

Wow, how does it do this with only three questions????

Your Personality Is

Idealist (NF) You are a passionate, caring, and unique person. You are good at expressing yourself and sharing your ideals. You are the most compassionate of all types and connect with others easily. Your heart tends to rule you. You can't make decisions without considering feelings. You seek out other empathetic people to befriend. Truth and authenticity matters in your friendships. In love, you give everything you have to relationships. You fall in love easily. At work, you crave personal expression and meaning in your career. With others, you communicate well. You can spend all night talking with someone. As far as your looks go, you've likely taken the time to develop your own personal style. On weekends, you like to be with others. Charity work is also a favorite pastime of yours.

The Three Question Personality Test

Late at night

It’s late at night...again. I know I should be getting to bed, but these times late at night are becoming quite regular for me and there’s something about it I’m kinda liking. I’m realizing how I do need time just to be by myself and unwind from the days activities and all the thoughts that whirl around my mind all day and if it means staying up late when I know I should be going to bed cause I need to get up for work the next morning then I guess I will. Besides, I just cleaned up my kitchen after ignoring it for the week, and my mom has lent me this awesome little Christmas tree she bought and I put lights on it and now it feels very Christmasy in my home. I followed my normal evening at home routine and lit some candles, then put on some soothing background music. After all that you just can’t crawl into bed. One needs to sit on the couch and enjoy this time.

Life is pretty good I have to say. My mind has been feeling like it’s going three billion miles a minute lately and I’ve been running around trying to catch up and I think I’m more tired now than I have been in a very long time. But tonight I feel like God is really blessing me with this life He has given me. To be able to drink tea with friends, and laugh at work, to know that I have a mom who is more than wonderful to me and even goes grocery shopping for me when I’m too busy to get there myself, and a sister who is so precious to me... and kids club, I know I’ve talked about this place already and I’ve only written three posts so this might be overkill on the kids club stuff. But consistently I’m reminded at how beautiful and faithful and what a provider and a source of love God really is through kids club. We just had our Christmas party this last week. There we were in the kids club ready to have this party and 40 kids all of a sudden showed up. It was overwhelming and I’m not going to lie to you it wasn’t the picturesque ‘fun party’ I had imagined in my head. But in the end we were all crammed into the living room and we were playing a rousing game of Simon Says, directed in the most wonderful way by Simon himself and I thought back to last years party. The apartment itself was a completely different place. Very little hung on the stark white walls, we were surrounded by a few toys we had gathered up and watched a very little tv for our Christmas movie. And now what a change. The walls are colourfully painted with hills and a sky, we have toys upon toys and decorations that hang in all sorts of random ways around our little place, we have a feeble little christmas tree that is packed with garland. Now you may walk in and think that it’s really nothing special. In fact you may walk in and think we lack alot, all our toys are second hand and we do with what we’ve got. But I’ve got to tell you that I walk in and see the amazing character of God. I have no idea how He has orchestrated this kids club. But a year later and we have a beautiful servant of Jesus who makes snacks for these kids every week, we have offers of libraries for our club, and a donation of hard earned money that will buy us a couch, we have people asking for our wish lists and offering to get us whatever they can, we have another servant who offers to take home our broken foose-ball table and fix it for the kids, we have the most faithful volunteers that come out and make time even when they don’t have to, who love on the kids despite even when it turns crazy in there, and the list just keeps on going. I don’t know, I get tears in my eyes when I think about it, and I could just keep on going but I’m realizing that I’ve written quiete a bit already and so I better wrap this up. So Merry Christmas, life is good, Jesus is faithful, and good-night...

ramblings of the day

I keep thinking I'll wait until something exciting or profound happens to me and then I'll write something in this blog. But nothing 'news' worthy seems to be happening so I figure I'll start to write something and something should come out of this.

I guess I could write about my friends. I think that's been the biggest thing on my mind lately is how truly cool all my friends are. So it all started at the Bella concert. I stood at the back and watched my two great friends put on a wonderful show, and for some reason I was just so proud of them. Now I know that I have done nothing to add to their musical talent, and 'being proud' is something their parents do, but I was proud of them because of what they have done in life. I started to think of the gang in high school. Specifically the four of us that would go for Thursday night walks, and the rest of us that smoked tea, and hung out late at night at the playground, and I just marvelled at where God has all brought us, and who he has made us to be. Matt and Cam are rock stars :), Dana is married and living in this wonderful little house and making a difference in the town we gre up in, Wendy is also making a difference yet in completely different areas of our little town, Simon has been living by the mountains hiking and just loving the people around him, I heard Brendan has been travelling the world, and I realized that the world is right here in Saskatchewan and I get to live on Broadway and hang out with this world all at the same time. It's amazing to me at how we can all start out in the same little town, doing many of the same day to day things and yet throughout the years we change into very different people than we started as. None of us are the same, and yet how wonderfully creative God has been with our lives. I think it's safe to say that we are all in some part of our life doing something we love. Not one of us has given in to the status quo, we are all still dreaming of what we want, some of us have seen our parts of our dreams come true, some of us are still waiting for the dreams to be revealed. But in the end we know God is working and taking us places that we could never imagine. Cause look at our lives now. Could we have imagined this?

Sometimes when I think about high school and then I think about my friends from high school I wonder how we have come this far. And I think a big part of it was that people took the time during our lives to pour themselves into us. And the biggest example of this I think was Tim Epp. I still think about that guy and wonder how hard it must have been to hang out with a bunch of little, hyper, grade seven and eight kids, but he did it. He threw his all into is and pushed us spiritually. I remember how he took us on a missions trip to BC and during our time out there we went hiking and Dana and I were all tired and we were probably complaining the whole way but he wouldn't let us stop. He made us keep going and we reached this beautiful lake, and then he talked to us about perseverence. Ha, I remember being so annoyed, and yet knew it was quite appropriate. I guess what I'm trying to say is that somewhere deep in my heart there are lessons and learnings that others have poured into me and my friends all these years that we don't even know are in there and we are continually being blessed by the faithfulness of those who have gone before us.

Hmmm, that's funny. I guess I did have something to say. It's weird how you don't even know what you are thinking until you start to write. Anyway, I should get going. I have my staff Christmas party tonight and so I need to make some food for it. Until next time...