Day 11: Prayers

     Today we were praying for Grandpa's surgery to go well. It did and I thank God for that. I was really afraid that his Alzheimer's would make it difficult for him to cope with. I'm still hit or miss with my prayers. I need set up a better routine and be disciplined. There are so many people and things that I should be praying for. I need to do much better at conversing with my Father. Still praying that I won't get sick.

Day 10: Family

    Once again, I'm thankful for my family.  My sister is sick. My aunt is sick. My mom is spending tonight and tomorrow at my grandma's so that she can be there tomorrow for Grandpa's surgery. My other sister and Dad and I went to my other grandma's house for dinner because it's Dad's birthday. Somehow, we all get along and take care of each other. I'm so tired. I'm hoping that I don't get sick next. I'm so glad that even when things get rough I can still have fun with and take care of my family. Thank you, God, so much. Now I'm going to bed.

Day 9: Gotta keep looking

     I haven't seen God yet today. I had a good day. I helped Caitlin finish the Quantum Flier and helped Mom do some work. I just haven't stopped to look at my Creator yet today. So, I will be going to do that now.

Day 8: Loving my family

     My family has been under quite a bit of stress lately. Combine that with staying up late watcing feel-good movies for escapism, and, needless to say, everyone is a little testy. It's been bothering me. Today was the same old stuff. But later my sisters and I had fun building a Quantum Flier 2037, and watched the Spiderwick Chronicles. After seeing that family, mine isn't so bad. I really am thankful for my family. I just don't like dealing with their issues sometimes - usually when I am equally tired and overstressed.
     Lord, Thank you for my family. Please help me to love them like You do. I don't like being upset and annoyed with them. I know it's not right, but I can't help it. It's my old self talking, and I don't like feeling that way. Help me to love with the love that only You can teach me, so that I don't give into my old self. Thank You for giving me a family that I can learn to love and be a part of.

Day 7: It didn't take long...

Dear God,
     I'm sorry that I didn't spend any time with you today. I say that I'm busy; I say that I'm tired; I say that I have to do something else first. Lord, it makes me so thirsty. Not having time with you gives me hunger pains somewhere deep inside. I know that you have already forgiven me. Sometimes things happen that you just can't help and I might not always see you; but today was not like that. Today I didn't give you my all. I didn't look for you that hard. And now I'm tired and internally parched. Lord, be with me tonight and tomorrow as I try to go back into your presence. I do love you. I know that I don't act like it lots of times, but I do. And I miss you when it feels like your not close by. Sorry.

Day 6: Learning from Dogs and Kids

     Tonight while I was taking the dog out, he saw something or heard something that bugged him. He got a little tense and was staring intently into the yard a few houses down watching for whatever it was. I didn't see anything. I squatted down to his level and looked in the direction he was looking but there was nothing there that I could see. While I was looking, he came over and sat between my legs. He was still watching but he started to relax. He looked up at me and licked my neck and did his little anxious foot-stomp if my hand wasn't on him. We just sat there in the moonlight for a second. I'm amazed that dogs ask for you to touch them. Every dog in my family does it. They'll sit next to you (or on you) and look back at you pleading. So you give in and pet them, but, as soon as you take your hand away, they look up at you, stomp their feet anxiously, and nuzzle your hand. When they know you love them, they don't want you to take your hand off of them. Children also are constantly wanting affection. They want to sit in your lap, hold you hand, have you pick them up and carry them around, even if they don't know a lot about you. They don't need to know very much before they start loving you and wanting you to love them back. And when it's time to leave, there are always tears because they didn't have enough time with you.
     It feels so good to have my dog come to me and sit at my feet wanting me to pet him, and to have one of my little cousins curl up in my lap just resting there and wanting to spend time with me. I can't keep my arms from hugging them. Shouldn't this be how it is with God? He loves it so much when we come to Him and rest in His arms just wanting to be with Him and feel Him love us. And shouldn't we come to Him just like children, beginning to love Him and wanting to feel Him love us back? And shouldn't there be sadness when we can't spendenough time with our Father? So many times I feel like I'm living under His shadow, trying to push through my day knowing that He's there watching and wanting this or that for me, not because He's a tyrant but because I know what He expects of me and want to do my best for Him. I need to remember to spend time with my Father just letting Him love me, resting in Him and learning to love Him back.

Day 5: Evidence

     Today was fun but busy. My grandma had put all the family photos, trinkets, recipes, files, memorabilia, newspaper clippings, and crafting supplies in her back room. You could barely walk back there. Today my aunt, mom, sister, and I helped her clean it out, or at least begin to. We began sorting through furniture and personal mementos tossing out brochures, expired coupons, and broken or useless items as we went. There were dozens of boxes of photo albums, old family documents,  and magnetic audio recordings (the kind that have magnetic tape wrapped around a spool which you hook onto the machine). It was hard for me to feel God's amongst all that distraction and busyness. It was more like seeing the evidence of Him - where he had been (or since God doesn't inhabit time...is? 0_o). A fingerprint here, a footprint there, left behind as evidence of a previous work. One box had family Bibles with bookmarks and bulletins in there pages, as well as Bible commentaries and devotionals. Some members of my family wanted to learn about God and bought those books to find out more because it was important to them. It made me feel good looking at the old bulletins and thinking about what might have happened at church that day, whether or not they knew that God was there with them. Someone had also made a book of paper between painted wood planks. Adhered to the pages were envelopes with baby announcements in them going back nearly 70 years. Someone had collected all these cards and made a book to put them in - there were "new arrival" announcements for people who had died before I was born! I got such a weird feeling looking through it. My great-grandma Hatcher had woven dozens of crosses with yarn. I don't know why she did it exactly. Was it because she loved God that much and wanted to share it? I was so young when she died that I didn't get a chance to know her that well. She gave most of them away I think. We only found a bag of ones that she was working on when she died. My great-grandpa, George Haworth, also died while I was young, but I got to know him a little bit better. He didn't go to church that often from what I hear. I'm pretty sure that he was saved, but I guess he just didn't do church that much. My mom remembers when she was very little sitting in church with Grandpa George on Sundays when he did go to church. She would play with his keychain - a silver, jointed fish. Grandma found it today and Mom took it home. She says that it's the only thing of his she's ever wanted and it's the only thing of his she has. God's fingerprints are all over my family. Whether they've seen them or not I don't know. But none of them can deny that He's been there, and I dare them to try.

Day 4: (yawn)

      Today was tough. I was stressed about my lesson tonight. Wednesdays are always really stressful. I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted. I do love Wed. night church, though. I can really see how everyone is growing. I like teaching, although I need to learn how to do it better. I see God working in me and others at church. Sometimes I'm distracted, and I don't see it as much as believe it. But God has shown that He is always there in some way. I hope that people listened tonight and saw that God wants to be there with them. Soooo tired....-.-

Day 3: Where are you?

     I'm liking waking up every morning and wondering where I'll see God and what He will say to me that day. Where was He today? I'm not sure. Maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough. I did think about Him a lot today. I'm teaching tomorrow about the Holy Spirit and the love that He gives us for each other. How can I possibly explain such a thing as perfect love? I don't even understand it properly; I don't know how to love like that. Jesus is the only example we have of a human living God's perfect love. That's why we need help from the Spirit to do it. I'm just praying that the Holy Spirit will speak and keep me on track.
     Also, today I was on a Bible study website and someone had posted a link to their blog. This person is an atheist and, for reasons I do not know, has decided to read the entire Bible in a year. He or she is over halfway through Ezekiel. This person does not understand what he or she is reading and is scoffing and chiding all the way through it because of pre-existing beliefs. Even though comments abound explaining the different passages, this atheist blows each one off. I hope when this atheist gets to the New Testament, everything will come together and make more sense. Reading just a few of this person's posts made me feel sick. Not disgusted sick so much as sad sick. To think that there are so many people like that out there, and I don't know who they are or how to help them. Many of them I can't help. I don't know why they would ever listen to me - about anything. [But perhaps that's a stereotype I should get rid of; it doesn't sound like something the Spirit would say]. I was really upset about it. A little later on, I thought that God must feel the same way - even more so - when people mosey through life thinking that they have it all reasonably figured out, a good handle on things, and sometimes taking pride in the fact that they do. I can't fully imagine what that is like for God. I only know what He indicates in His Word. 
     Although nothing today stood out as being directly of God, He always finds a way to invade my day through my thoughts or other things. It's like that song "Can't Get Away" by Rush of Fools. YouTube it.

Day 2: Your joy is my strength...

     God did not give me a revelation today, but I'm still amazed at how He speaks, sometimes so subtly. In the last several months, the Holy Spirit has spoken little whispers that have brought me to God when I was filled with so much negative. He's spoken before, but I didn't know that it was Him. Then one day when I was really upset and knew that I had done exactly what would keep me from God, I just felt it from inside. From a place so deep inside of me that I'm not even sure where it is, the words came out. Only God could have spoken to me in that way at that time. This must be the still, small voice that the Bible talks about. I have heard Him speak other times as well. When I was guilty and ashamed, He said, "I'm sad because of you; but you are my child and I still want you." When I was discouraged and disappointed, He said, "Rejoice and be happy with Me! I'm still your God, and I will work all things to your good and My glory."
     Today, He spoke into my worry. He offered comfort. He asked for faith and worship instead of anxiety and worry. He reminded me of the blessing of my family. Lord, I hope I never stop hearing You; I hope I never get accustomed to Your voice. His joy really is my strength. He speaks it into me and it makes me rejoice with Him at all kinds of times.

Day 1: The First...

     Today's the day!!! I turn 20 and become a blogger. I had a very good birthday.


So where did I see God today? Not where I thought I would. I thought that at the beginning of this I would see God in trees or clouds or places that He displayed His majesty. But He took a different approach. Conviction. This morning in Sunday school, we discussed the Ten Commandments. While we were talking about keeping the Sabbath holy, I suddenly realized that I don't have a single day in my week that is   holy, set apart for God. I knew that Sundays weren't doing it for me, but I had never stopped to think that I was blatantly disobeying that commandment. No wonder I'm having problems, spiritual and otherwise. On Sundays I work. I teach. I volunteer. Sometimes I'm a fill-in. Sometimes I have a worship team meeting. I haven't figured out how to make this work holy, pointing me to God instead distracting me from Him. Sundays for me are about serving, getting things done, sharing God with others, but do these things make it holy? And what about a day of rest? Sundays are not usually restful for me. So either I need to change the way I treat Sundays or I need to pick a different day to be my Sabbath. Lord, how do I do that? How do I make Your day holy? I can't afford to continue disobeying, and I don't want to. I can't believe I've missed this - and I don't know how to fix it yet. (and while I was sitting here typing, it became no longer my birthday. Rats.)

Cliff Diving

     So here's the gig: I am starting a little project. I'm having trouble keeping God in focus. I've discovered a bunch of things in myself that I don't like. When I measure myself by what I know God wants for me - what He says in His Word - I fee like there's a lot of impurity inside of me. I fear. I worry. I don't love like Christ. I have bad thoughts. These things make me feel distant from God, and I don't like that either. Satan has really been working on me hard to keep me focused on anything but my relationship with my Father. So this blog is what I'm going to do about it. Starting on my birthday, Oct.17, I will begin a year-long project.
I will do three things:
1. I will read the entire Bible. It bothers me that I have not yet read all of God's Word. That needs to change. Now.
2. I will be disciplined in my prayers. I will prayer persistently just as Jesus commanded. I will spend more than 15 minutes everyday in conversation with my Father. Not just, "Hey God, btw..." but serious heart-to-heart talk with my Lord.
3. I will post one way that I see God every day. Whether it be a picture, a thought, an answered prayer, or a revelation. I will seek God with an open heart and share the workings of His Spirit every day. I think that blogging it will help keep me accountable, keep me from forgetting.

     Hopefully, these exercises will help me to focus not just on God but on my relationship with Him, on loving Him, on sharing Him with others, on becoming more like my Savior. It's about time I learned to be disciplined in seeking my Father. God has proved His faithfulness to me over and over. I am the one who is unfaithful. Matthew 7:7 promises that those who seek Him persistently will find Him; and in Jeremiah 29:13, we see that God wants to be found by His children who seek Him with their whole heart. I have no fears at all that God won't be there when I look for Him. However, I do doubt myself. I fear becoming blind because I have failed to pursue my God completely, like 2 Peter warns us. I don't want to create a world for myself where I'm convinced that I'm following an ocean of a God, when really all I'm looking at are the same small, familiar puddles. On Oct.17, I'll be twenty years old. I hate that. I hate that I have to be older, that I have to look at my future and realize that I only have a little while to make these the best years they can be. One day I won't feel this young and hopeful and strong anymore. By the time I turn 21, I want to know that I have given God everything I have, that my life in Him is the one that He meant for me.
     I don't know how many times I've felt like this, cried over this knowing that God wasn't everything to me but that I wanted Him to be. Whether it was the enemy or myself that kept me from giving everything, this time I don't want to give myself the opportunity to back out. This time, I'm throwing myself off a cliff. :)