Kingdom

After church last sunday I tasked myself with trying to find aspects of the kingdom in my everyday life. Brian talked about having your kingdom glasses on, and how we see what we look for. For example if you need your car fixed, you'll start noticing all the repair shops around you where you wouldn't have noticed them before. So we will start out on Sunday.
Thanksgiving food drive. Its true that everyone gets more generous around the holidays but I guess better then than never right? You pick up a box and a list at church, go to the store buy the items, pack the box, and bring it back. Pretty simple. So this year my journey group got a box and we are all going to go shopping together, probably going to get kicked out of Kroger but hey..its for the Kingdom.

My roommate is a gem, seriously we are so compatible and I could not have asked for a better person to live with. I always joke that the best thing she could do for my would be to teach my future husband how to be as awesome to live with as she is. Her strength and compassion inspires me daily, even when I don't see her daily which happens too often. She makes the BEST chocolate chip cookies I've ever eaten, and if you know me you know I've eaten a lot of chocolate chip cookies. She normally leaves me a small dish of cookie dough in the fridge but this time she left me this, she spoils me and I am so very thankful.

I am trying to view myself more in God's image than my own. But that also comes with trying to combat the things that 1. I think about myself and 2. things other people say to me. I was sort of overwhelmed Tuesday by both of those things happening more than usual, and turned on Ocean by Hillsong. The waterworks began soon after as I realized just how vulnerable I was, and also that its good to cry, even if I hate doing it because I feel like "weak" is not something I want to be viewed as. Obviously most of that logic is messed up, I'm working on it. 

I think its super weird that I took a picture of myself crying but I needed to embrace the fact that it was needed. Maybe this could be a new version of a selfie?

Its amazing to me how beautiful new life is. I am often reminded when I'm babysitting just how much God loves us. At least to the best of my ability. It also reminds me of how sometimes, especially new Christians, expect too much of themselves and they are expected to do too much by others. If you think of your spiritual walk in terms of a child. When you accept Jesus, or maybe when you start to see what it would be like to make him Lord of  your life, we are like infants. We can't really do anything on our own and we need almost constant care in terms of our spiritual life. When we get a little farther along we get so frustrated if we mess up even one time, but don't focus on all the times where we did right in the eyes of God or just how much we are growing. Just like when a baby is learning to walk, we rejoice when they take just one step and then fall down. Then two or three. We never focus on the fact that they fell, but that they walked AND that they knew to get back up and keep trying. All that to say, I had a fantastic night watching Karis learn to roll over and just be flat out adorable.

Every year for the Journey Crossroads does some sort of amazing prayer experience. This year it was at City link center.  The day I was planning on going, the first thing that I was just flat out thankful for, was that despite the 20 degree weather, I have a nice winter jacket, hat and scarf to keep warm. I have been very fortunate and I try to not take it for granted. 

 As I entered into City Link for the first time I went to use the restroom before going on the hour long prayer experience, cause you know, a girls gotta pee. I overheard a group of 3 women probably in their 60's talking about how calming the choice of colors in the bathroom were. Now the picture below doesn't do it justice but that filter made the stone on the walls look the coolest :) It was just a light blue paint on the walls, with light grey stalls and this stone on the bottom. I wouldn't have noticed it had these women not be talking about how wonderfully peaceful their trip to the bathroom had been. Finding joy and pointing out something so small like that was the kingdom to me, and as a result I was able to accept the peace these women had been talking about while I peed.

 Now comes the big stuff. Crossroads always does a great job with their interactive experiences.  This one was mostly about praying for other people. But we had to write what the biggest thing in our life that we put on a pedestal before God. After I wrote this on a giant wall I walked into the next room which had triangles on the wall that you could pull off and read. As I was getting toward the wall I heard,

Grab the one on the bottom, because thats where you think you are.

So I did, and the triangle I pulled was,

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. -Psalm 18:19

This stopped me in my tracks and I began to cry (again, twice in one week whats wrong with me) I realized that I do not think that God delights in me, and that he is disappointed in me as I fail him every day. While logically I know this not to be true, its what I believe in my heart to be true.

I was also informed that I get the chance to go back to India at the beginning of next year for my senior capstone project. If you want to know more info about that click here. The people in my life are awesome, thanks for being apart of it. 

There are more days left in this week, to which I hope I'll post again because this was fun. I miss writing about my days. Add it to the list of things I want to do but never continue with.