My List for His.

For the past couple of months Thursday has quite possibly been my favorite day of the week :)
Here's why: Starbucks+best friends+"The List"+God= well you have it, the best day of the week!
We have been reading through "The List" by Marian Jordan. The book is all about us girls and our "life lists". You know, it kinda goes like this:
-I will go to college and graduate on time.
-I will find Mr. Right durring college and get married before age 25
-I will be a mom before age 30
-I will raise the "model" children and send them off to college eventually
-Later on my children will find their "special someones" and get married
-I will then become the coolest grandma on the block.

Sound familer? I'm guessing so.
Well heres the question, is that list...the one that describes your "perfect life"... God's list for your life?
Thats the main question.
Sure, you can have goals and dream about your future, but are you willing to surrender your list compleatly for God's list?
Thats what I have been contemplating the past few weeks. Am I really willing to give up my list for what God has for my life? I really want to give you a confident YES, of course! I love God, therefore I want what He wants for my life. Oh my, that is so easy to say. But actually believing it, and living that out? Not so easy anymore. Thats not to say thatI still have a firm grip on my list....I just can't honestly tell you that I have compleatly let go of my list and that I'm totally, 100% open to God's list. ................... :/

Heres the thing. As Rick Warren said, "There is a moment of surrender, and there is the practice of surrending, which is moment-by moment and lifelong." Amen and Amen! I can say, yes...I surrender my list to God. But if I'm saying I surrending it to God, I need to be pracicing it...moment-by moment and life long.

I'm going to be compleatly honest, totally surrendering my life list scares me a little bit. I really do want to get married, its something I've dreamed about since I was a little girl. And I really want to have kids...3 sounds nice :) But seriously, the thought that God might not have those things in store for my life really does scare me a little bit. Im working really hard, and asking God to help me compleatly surrender my list. I really really do want what God wants for my life...it would just be nice if that included a husband&kiddos :)

Here is something from todays chapter that I loved! Do you thing Mary had a list? Of course she did. What woman, engaged to be married doesn't have a list? Im sure Marys list didn't include getting pregnant before marriage and raising the son of God. At that time, getting pregnant before marriage was a much bigger deal that it is today. It was not only a public scandal for the woman, but for the man as well. I don't think any of us will be able to grasp the gravity of Mary's decision to exchange her list for God's list. Rather than focusing on the size of the problems before her, Mary chose to trust in the size of her God. Her humble reply was this: 'I am the Lord's servant....May it be to me as you have said" (Luke 1:28. Wooow. What an amazing answer. I can only ask myself, would I be brave enough to answer like that? Not only would Mary be dealing with the public's comments/actions, she had Joseph to deal with. At this point he didn't know how she could be pregnant...but he did know one thing, he was not the father! I can't imagine the feeling that you have finally found the person you love and want to spend forever with, then having an event like this happen that could very possibly whipe that all away. Thank goodness Joseph soon heard everything from an angel and stayed faithfull to Mary. Phew. That was a big rampage. If youre still reading, thank you :) I know this is long! lol

Mary laid down her list for a far higher calling, but she did so because she believed God. She know that he was faithful, loving and good and that he was true to his word. Because of her faith, she trusted him even when the plan didn't make since. She believed him when her logic told her to do otherwise. (You go, Mary!) So often, we (I) refuse to surrender because of our lack of trust. Do we really believe God can handle the details and circumstances of our lives? --Here's a quote from the book in responce to that question that really hit home: "So often we think we need to take back control becuse we don't really trust that God is able to lead our lives the way we think they should go". Bingo. If we compleatly, 100% trusted that what God has planned for us what right, we wouldn't want controll of our lives. So heres to working on trust!

I could go on...and on....and on about more things I learned from this book. But I won't...this post is already super long :)

So if you're looking for a new book, check out "The List" by Marian Jordan.

I'm in a Tornado.

Whew. Latley I keep feeling like Im being swept up in a torado....and its not going to put me down for a while.
Life is crazy. Its going so fast!
Next weekend is Retreat with the youth group. It is going to be such a fun and memorable weekend. D.A. Horton is speaking! He was my favorite speaker from Challenge last summer....I can not wait to hear him speak again.
About one month after retreat, I leave for Haiti. On March 20th myself and 14 others from my youth group are going to Haiti for 8 days. There we will be doing a VBS...and we are expecting a couple hundred kids (about 200 probibly) ages 3-20. This will be very interesting as there will be 15 English speaking Americans and possibly 200 Creol speaking Haitians. It will be an adventure, thats for sure! We will also get to go to 2 orphanages while we are there....and that is what I am most looking forward to! It is going to be an exciting, life changing 8 days.
After Haiti, we have lots of Senior meetings about graduation&such durring the end of May-April.
Then we have prom! I am so excited for my Senior Prom! Ahh how exciting! And its very possible I will go to two Proms...Andover and Heights! :) YAY!
After Prom, ohhhh boy! Time is going to fly by!
After Prom comes the main event: GRADUATION. May 22, 2011, 4:00 p.m. at Centry II to be exact. Oh how I have been wating for this day! And after graduation....its summer time. Ahhhh :)
Except...summer means 3 months left. 3 months of being at home...with my family. 3 months of being familer with everything around me. 3 months of being with the people who will move away at the end of the summer. 3 months of security. 3 months of saving saving saving (money). Ahh. So as I look forward to summer....I also get really nervous. And really excited. Goodness. So many emotions!!
So here's to the next 4 months of being in a "time tornado"!