So...for my blog it's usually me having something to say or something to explain, or a piece of writing that i want to share. I don't think many people read my blog, but I believe at least one person does? I don't know, but this is what i call an SOS blog. It's basically me asking all of my Christian friends to pray for me with a decision i am in the process of making.
it started pretty much last year i guess i'd have to say. i was going to a school where i didn't feel like i was doing any good and after several incidents, it was like God was screaming at me to try and get my attention: STOP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING! my car broke down, i lost friends and i ultimately failed a class due to circumstances out of my control. failing that class really knocked me down, me, perfectionist me, and i just needed to know what was going on what i should do, WHAT SHOULD I DO??! i could retake the class but teaching would most likely be out of my life, an F on a transcript is practically a death sentence for so many things.
at the time, i was doing things for ME and living life for ME. i wasn't really going to church, my excuse was that it was my only time to get the sleep i was missing during the week. towards the end of the year, i could barely concentrate in class and felt like i was missing out on life. i kept asking myself, "why am i here again? why am i putting myself through this??" i was getting frustrated with everything and not sleeping well and not eating hardly at all.
then this last summer, i went and visited my older bro & his fam for about 2 weeks and then came home and pretty much left again for lifest in oshkosh. if you never read my blog about lifest or you don't know what it is, Lifest is a Christian music festival. its a week long occasion and you camp out and go to concerts and fellowship with people. well, this summer, i didn't know it but i really REALLY needed to go. at the time, i only wanted to go because i really wanted to see Skillet, which is my all time favorite band EVER :) and plus i got cheap tix from a friend, only $60 for the entire festival and that was awesome and when i look back now, it was a God thing. my original intentions were to only go the one day...but God had other ideas ;) for the full account, read my Lifest blog which is a ways back, but its got all details.
basically, at Lifest God started to change me radically. i finally gave Him some things that i was holding onto and refusing to forgive myself for, things He had long since forgiven ME for...but i couldn't forgive myself. once i let them go...it was like i opened my heart back up to Him. i was opening up for friendship relationships and people's words of wisdom and such that i hadn't let in my life for so long. towards the end of Lifest, i asked God specifically for a revelation, during the Third Day concert to be precise, and...did He ever give it to me. He told me to NOT go back to the school i attended the year prior and to not go to school at all. my initial reaction was "WHAT?! MY PARENTS ARE GOING TO KILL ME!" but then i settled down and was reading some stuff in my Bible and felt a lot better about it. how appropriate that the day's devotional was on complete trust in God...so i decided to Let Go and Let God. (a phrase i had seen on a shirt that day that seemed utterly appropriate). so i've been trusting and believing, and not really knowing much of anything except the one thing i really felt God press on me then was to get involved in the worship team at my church again...i played flute a few years ago but i've never done anything else really and i let myself just leave the team and i didn't look back. however, i've felt more and more powerfully that i should learn the bass guitar. it really hit me that maybe thats what God wanted me to do the night Cara pretty much told me to go to LLSOW and play bass cuz Kal was apparently looking for bass players. at the time i laughed and said "yeah right i'm not good enough to play bass" but now with what i am feeling and the way God is moving, i am completely reconsidering my original ideas.
anyway, to cut to the chase, i came back from Lifest and talked to the associate pastor at my church, Ben, someone i'm pretty close with, i consider him a great role model & mentor pretty much and i talked to him openly about what happened at Lifest and about the worship team thing (he leads our worship teams at church) and he told me he wasn't surprised that God wanted me in music. he knows music is one of my biggest passions and the fact that he wasn't surprised made me wonder if i wasn't seeing myself very clearly anymore, if i had really let my view of the world and life cloud who i am. (which is for another blog ha!) anywho, Ben mentioned to me that if God was pressing worship and music on my heart, that there were plenty of things in life that involved that path in life, music festivals etc etc. which really got me thinking that maybe, (probably!) i was pursuing the wrong thing in life, maybe teaching wasn't what i was meant to do, maybe there was something bigger planned for me.
basically for the next couple of months, i drifted through life going to church and doing things here or there like babysitting & hanging out with friends. i started getting a friend to come to church and God was everywhere. I began talking frequently, VERY late night chats with an amazing person who likes those Sooners for some reason ;-) [[haha love you missy!]] and i don't know how she feels about the friendship we have but i myself feel like God put us as friends for a reason, we've talked about so many things that we both care about and believe, and of course with the occasional girly stuff thrown in [[GUYS! *facepalm* haha]] but really, she has become such a great friend to me i'll prolly cry when i get to hug her for the first time :) she's been a light to me and such an awesome friend. well anyway back on topic, the things this friend was telling me and saying, even things i don't think she realized, were all pointing to this it seemed. and when she told me she was going to LLSOW, i was excited for her and my exact thoughts were "too bad that's not for me! i would probably love it" and so we talked about it and how nervous she was but how excited too and we talked about how i had no idea what God was up to or wanted from me, but she encouraged me so SO much to stay strong and trust Him completely that she didn't know for a long time what God wanted from her either...so i listened and decided to just trust. sounds easy and simple and well, it IS simple, but it's not easy, especially for me. but i pushed that aside and just trusted.
not too long after, i had a conversation with another person who has meant a lot to me this last year, i'll call her H so her name's not out there LOL, anyway, i explained to her how i just wished i knew what God wanted and she told me we were kind of in a similar point in our lives and we didn't talk in an actual conversation again too soon after that, but on twitter i said something and she replied to me with "yay :) you need some refreshing in your life. go run after jesus." and the last part of it REALLY resounded within me: "go run after jesus" and well...after maybe 2 days, i REALLY just...KNEW that's what i had to do. and i wanted to. badly. i wanted to chase after God more than i wanted anything else. the next day, i went to the church library and i checked out about 15 books. one at least i know is a gold mine that i was unaware existed in our church library... "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer....i literally flipped out when i found it. to me, this book has been an insane life changer already and i haven't even finished it yet. i've been seeking God and praying more and last sunday in church...it was unreal for me, like nothing i've ever experienced within the walls of my church building. i am incredibly happy about it. recently, i wrote a blog about that, about how God is changing me and making me someone new. i'm so happy...like...all the time. i don't have those dark thoughts really anymore...and i'm falling in love with jesus. He saved me and i don't know why i never felt this way before, loving Him so much...but all of that is not the focus of this blog.
after a million words, the purpose of this blog is this: to ask for prayer.
all of the above and God's prompting has led me to believe He wants me to go to LLSOW, Living Light School of Worship. http://www.schoolofworship.us/
i have not told a lot of people about this yet, because i am still praying and unsure, i don't take decisions like this lightly but i know God has something major planned, i can feel it. i KNOW it. someone asked me that tonight, how you can KNOW something God is telling you...the answer i think is that we can never be 100% sure, but that is the faith part, that is when we push our fears aside and believe God, trusting Him to take care of us. so really, please, if you read this, be praying for me and this decision... it's hard for me and right now i do not have the money for it, nor do i currently play the bass lol, but i believe God can do anything. Anything.
side note for 2 peoples:
1. my duck friend-- if you read this, thank you for how awesome you have been to me, you've helped me remember what it's like to have girlfriends. ♥ i CANNOT wait to come visit you.
2. my twinner-- blogging at the same exact time??? i love it =) and you. thanks for being a faithful blog reader, it means the world to me. ♥
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