Faith or Fear? Choose ONE...

This weekend has been a roller coaster of emotions for me.  In all honesty stronger emotions than I have ever felt. I am naturally an emotional person; sometimes I feel that I’m way too emotional. It is something I’ve always struggled with. Crying over anything- when I’m angry, sad, nervous, happy, literally anything. I understand that sometimes it’s totally fine and normal to be emotional but sometimes it’s super inconvenient. So, back to my weekend… I was so relieved to be done with my interview for the internship and felt relief; finally it was over; unfortunately that didn’t last long.  
There are always things you wish you would have said or things you wish you hadn’t and I was talking to my sister about my responses and what I wish I would’ve said and so on. Well, I’m a venter, when there is something bothering me I usually feel better after writing it down and expressing it or talking things through. But for some reason I couldn’t let this go. My mind was constantly replaying everything to the point where I felt tormented and couldn’t sleep. So that night I got up and wrote the post that I did and felt a little better. I got through the work day on Friday very tired and drained from my restless sleep and all that I could think about was the internship, my school, my 2 jobs and how in the world was I going to do it all. My answer, I wasn’t. I had made a huge mistake in applying for that internship. I do struggle with anxiety; I never really paid much attention until one of my family members brought it up to me once about how I internalize a lot of my anxiety until I eventually will get sick, or have real bad stomach aches. I hold it in. Well I could feel the knots in my stomach, and I could feel the fear trying to push its way up. More like shove… it felt like a burning in my stomach and up through my chest. Like, fear just clamped onto my lungs making it hard for me to breath. I realized I absolutely did not want to do the internship; there was no way I could possibly do it at all! I prayed and actually begged God to deny my application. I told him over and over that I couldn’t do it, there is no way I could do it. He was speaking to me that he never gives me more than I could handle and I just told him that it was absolutely more than I could handle.
There was no way. I was so worked up in fact that the whole weekend I avoided Facebook all together because I didn’t want any reminders about church, the internship anything.

Saturday night I was doing my devotionals before bed and I was reading out of a Joyce Meyer’s devotional, “New Day, New You,” The devotion was titled, “Are you living by your emotions? She basically talks about how our carnal, uncrucified emotions will try and move us away from the will of God. “It’s Satan’s plan for us to live by our carnal feelings so we never walk in the spirit.” She also explains that our emotions are complex and not easy to explain and sometimes God wants us to do something but our emotions want nothing to do with what God is asking us to do. They give us no support which makes it harder for us to Listen to God and do what He says!  She concludes the devotion by saying that, “I firmly believe that no person will ever walk in God’s will- and ultimately in victory-if he takes counsel with his emotions.”

Some people may be like okay God I’ll do it. I was not happy when I read it. I literally remember closing the book and saying, “That is not what I wanted to hear!” Another thing God has been speaking to me about is choosing Faith over Fear. A couple weeks ago I found out I was going to have to go back to subbing at my job instead of having a permanent position at one school. I am a shy person so going from school to school where you don’t know anyone every day is nerve-wracking for me. But as I prayed about where they unsettled feeling I had was my nerves or God moving me he told me I needed to serve Faith or Fear. I took a deep breath and said, Faith, of course if this is what you want you’ll help me through it.” And I have really enjoyed being back to work in the couple classes I’ve been in since we started last week.

Saturday night when I was dealing with all the anxiety over this internship I heard him speak to me again, You have to choose faith or fear.” Unfortunately I was not so trusting and said, Fear, I know I can’t do this so please don’t let me get the internship.” I would just like to say that I am so, so, so, incredibly grateful that God is forgiving and patient and loving. It makes me cry how much he loves us. I know this post is long but I need to get it out so please bear with me.
I woke up Sunday tired and not feeling super refreshed, so I lay in bed and was reading a devotion by Joel Osteen. The scripture he used… 1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”  This scripture is one of my constant go to verses I live by and as soon as I read it I was like uh-oh. He talked about casting all our cares on God… “Today, cast all of your anxiety on Him by choosing to trust that He is going to take care of you. Refuse to dwell on your problems and don’t allow them to steal your peace and joy any longer. Instead, choose to meditate on His Word and confess God’s promises over your life. Cast your cares on Him and experience His peace, joy and blessing all the days of your life!”

After Saturday night and this morning I started to think maybe God was trying to tell me something.  I was anxious going to church today just with everything I was feeling but as soon as I walked in the doors I felt a peace. I joked around with one of the Pastors and immediately I thought, I can do this!

My Pastor, Pastor Dave, has been preaching a series this month called the Fast and Furious. Well today he began talking about fear! He actually said, “Choose Faith or Fear, you can’t do both!” I was serving doing the camera but when he was preaching I knew God was talking to me! I knew he had always been talking to me but it had finally reached my heart.
 If God wants me to do the internship he will make a way for me to do it. I can do nothing in my own strength, it has to be only with His help. I don’t want to give in to my fear and walk away from his will for my life and a missed opportunity. I have lived in fear of things in this life for too long and lost great opportunities. I truly believe that God is with me now and that He will be with me through the entire year and beyond…So we'll see what happens :)

Interview Night

So, I wasn’t going to write anything tonight because I was so tired and exhausted from starting full time work again and being stressed about my interview tonight, but since I’ve been tossing and turning for the last 45 minutes I figured maybe I better right down how I was feeling to get it out and hopefully help me to sleep better.

 I am no fan of interviews.  I was so nervous before my interview I was praying for God to give me peace. I honestly thought I was going to throw up. I hadn’t anticipated the number of people involved in this process and when you walk into a room with 5 people you hugely (yes I know not appropriate use of the word but I have no other explanation) respect its mad intimidating! I was a little early and so my nerves were amped up. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s hard to put into words what goes on in an interview. They ask questions and I try to answer them as best as I think possible and pray for the best.

 Afterwards, like right now for example, I replay everything over in my head, whether I want to or not, and cringe at my responses and think of everything that I could have said or done that was infinitely better than what I said or did. Yes I am human; I understand that they understand that, I just wish I could get my brain to understand that. I stuttered and lost my train of thought, completely blanked on the first questions no less (Which should have been no-brainers) and just fumbled and to be fair laughed my way through the half hour. I want this internship because I know that they are amazing People of God and I would be so blessed and honored to serve under them. I have such a desire to go into the ministry and I want to see how the ministry works inside out. All of my Pastors are on-fire Amazing examples of what I want to be like and to serve/work under them would be such an amazing opportunity that I find myself almost aching to be able to have this opportunity. I wish I could have just said that to them 4 ½ hours ago, I do have a lot going on in my life with school and a full and part time job but I really believe that God wanted me to put in an application to do this and so right now I sit here at my computer and wait.

 It’s now ten minutes after midnight and I finally feel a peace. It’s over, now I can relinquish all my pent up anxiety and trust that it doesn’t matter how badly I think I did, if God wants this opportunity for me then I’ll get it. I put myself out there and signed up even though I was absolutely terrified and  I went through the interview trying to be as honest as I could and really express my desire and commitment to be part of the church and their vision. Well now that I got that all off my chest it’s time to get to bed so I can get up early for work in the morning. 

Goodnight All

Waiting...

After 8 days I finally heard from my church about my intern application. I have an interview Thursday at 7:30. I must admit that I started out super excited and then after a few days the doubts and fear began. There are 30 people who applied for a position and only 15 will be chosen. Right now I am just trusting that this is what God wanted me to do and that he will give me peace. I don't feel anxious about it right now but I do feel anxious about other things in my life; School and my job have me really stressed out. I feel unsettled about my job and I honestly don't know if it's because of me being nervous about having to sub and bounce around from school to school again or if God is opening something else up for me. I confess i hope it's the latter but I'm not sure. And school, I'm so close to the finish but I can't seem to bring myself to get through it. I don't know why. I took my content exams last month and didn't pass any of them and that stresses me out because not only did I think I did well but it's an expensive test to take and I have no extra money right now. Sometimes I wonder if taking on an internship will only add more stress to my life right now but then I think about it and it is something I desperately want to do. Anyway I just needed to get all of this off my chest and hopefully I will get some peace of mind and some sleep.

Busy Life- New Journeys

So once again, I have fallen behind in keeping up with this blog. And by falling behind I mean I haven’t actually be on this site in years. But this next year feels like it’s going to be a busy and filled one and for me I wanted to be sure I “documented” everything.  Basically this is my online journal I suppose, to help me vent out all my emotions through the next year and beyond.

        So I’ll just start this with what’s been going on most recently with me. I am working full time at Westlake Special Education Cooperation as a paraprofessional. I’ll have been there a year in September. I also work part time as a cashier at Dollar General. It has been good for me only because it was something I scared to do and it felt great to overcome that fear. No matter how dumb it may seem to some people, working as a cashier and having to deal with money was something that made me nervous.

        I just began my last semester of classes for school before I do my student teaching in January. I have about 5 or 6 classes and a content exam to pass before November/December. I already took my content exams and unfortunately I didn’t pass any of them which stresses me out because they are expensive and I’m on a very tight schedule.

        On top of all that I applied for an internship at my church Road to Life Church. This was something that I thought and prayed about and went back and forth with several times. I know I already have a packed plate for the next year but I have wanted to do this internship and they created a new level that works with adults who have jobs so I decided that I was going to apply. I looked over the application and what I needed and was going to go for it! Well one day turned to two and then I got scared about everything that it would entail and I was afraid. Fear Again!! I know this internship is going to stretch, grow and challenge me in ways I have never been before and I got full on scared.   

         So then I decided I wasn’t going to do it. Well another few days went by and I kept thinking about it and I felt like I really did need to apply. So I prayed about it and felt like I got a confirmation at church that Sunday so I went home and filled out my application and recorded my 1 minute video that Wednesday and sent it all in. It has been 5 days now and interviews are sometime this week.      

Since then it has been a waiting game to see if I get chosen. My emotions have ranged from super excited to complete and utter fear. HAHA. I just trust that if this is what God wanted me to do then he will never give me anything more than I could handle. So I am going to use this blog as a way to document everything that I will be going through this next year and hopefully it will show me how much God has moved in my life throughout everything.

30

Tomorrow is the day... I will be 30... I have mixed feelings about this one. None of the other "milestone" birthdays bothered me. 16, 21, 25... But 30... There was so many thing that I had wanted to have by the time I was 30. A husband, a family(or close to having one), a career. And really none of that has happened yet. No not really, absolutely none of that has happened yet. I am at a point in my life where I am not very happy with how things have turned out. I truly believe God spoke to me that the next ten years will be better than my last ten years and for that I am so grateful. One the one hand I am not sad to say good-bye to my twenties. They were filled with confusion, turmoil, and and lot of wandering. The last couple years I finally began to feel like I was getting my life on track and things were turning around. But of course it's never easy and I feel a certain "attack" as I think about turning 30. I do not like my job. I like what I do but not where I am at. I don't know if it' time to move on or if it's me being tested. That was something else I learned in my twenties... moving when you shouldn't.. I think I am so afraid I am going to made another mistake that I don't do anything, and what if I'm now making a mistake because I was supposed to leave. Well, I don't know where this year will take me but all I can say is I am standing on the promises that God gave me and one was that my next ten years will be better than my last and the other one was that God would send me the one to stand by my side and we would be a mighty team together. So those are the two things I am counting on this year! I am believing that this is the beginning of the best years of my life!!

Indiana Sunrise

I love the sunrises in Indiana! This was driving on the way to church one Sunday Afternoon.

Waiting

           I feel as though I am in a perpetual waiting room…only my number isn’t being called. I watch and wait seeing all these other women step in front of me wearing smiles and basking in the glory of eternal bliss. I still sit... I begin to reflect on why haven’t I had my turn yet. Surely there is someone that is out there that is just right for me. I am not a difficult person to get along with. 

          So as I sit and wait some more I begin to go over… no, not my good point, but all the things I find wrong with myself. Could it be??? Maybe… What about???? I suppose some guys care about that.  When I finish my list which seems to carry on forever I then go and begin to figure out how I can fix myself or change myself… Maybe if I do this then they’ll notice me.. Or if I change that I can get his attention. I bet if I wear a certain color then I’ll definitely catch his eye… but no matter how many times I go over that list, or how many things I want to change about myself the simple fact remains… I see him from afar and how could he notice me within the enormous sea of people. I feel insignificant… unworthy…alone and… still waiting.