The last one....

This is it.

The last section of the CPA exam.

Maybe not the last one I'll take, because I haven't gotten the scores back.

But the last "first time" I'll take it.

Preparing for these exams has been an up and down, rough and tumble experience.

I think mostly I've learned what it is to trust in God, what it is to love Him over worrying and what it is to choose joy over my circumstances.

I've been reflecting a lot about how God's plan is just so amazingly better than I could have ever imagined...it humbles me that I see it, yet I still choose to worry and "take control".

From here on out, I am determined to hold fast to God's will and to trust in that completely.

I pretty much can guarantee that I won't be perfect at this all the time, but I want to look to Him when things are hard and I want to choose to abide in Him.

4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
Psalm 43:4-5

Fixing our eyes upon Jesus

These verses have been challenging and encouraging me this morning...especially with my tendency to let my emotions rule over me. Jesus had emotions, it is evident by His prayers in Gethsemane, but His response is the key. He sought the Father's will (Matthew 26). Through that obedience to the Father, He endured the cross and suffered shame...all for the JOY set before Him. Our Abiding in Christ, Our obedience and submission to His will above our own, these things are what will lead to joy. Not a hope that an emotion might change. Emotions can be all over the place, but my joy remains full in Christ.

Matthew 26:36-46

The Garden of Gethsemane

³⁶ Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray."

³⁷And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed.

³⁸Then He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me."

³⁹And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will."

⁴⁰And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?

⁴¹"Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

⁴²He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done."

⁴³Again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.

⁴⁴And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more.

⁴⁵Then He came to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.

⁴⁶"Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!"

Hebrews 12:1-3

Jesus, the Example

¹Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

³For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Abide in Me

My last post was about how I have been struggling with feeling down lately.

I have been praying so much about this in just a raw way. I don't know how to fix it, I don't have strength or will power...I know that I need God's strength. Its the kind of prayer that brings me back to my need for Christ and out of my own illusion of self control.

I want to say this because I want you to know where I was when I wrote that blog post. I was in need and I knew it. About the only thing going for me was the fact that I had a mustard seed of faith and a knowledge that my faith in Christ was the only answer...and so I prayed, not really knowing what to pray, but prayed for help.

It's amazing how faithful God is. The NIGHT after I wrote that blog post, I was digging through my room (at that point there were still a lot of random things scattered around my room) and I found a folder that I had labeled "Bible Studies". I got them off of this website called Lily7 forever ago and I decided to flip through them.

The first was one called 7 days of prayer and I thought "Hmmm, this could be good and helpful since I'm struggling right now", so I kind of put it to the side. The next one was called "Eternity" and I didn't feel really drawn to this one (at least not to do it right now, it looks great). The last one is the one that just took my breathe away...

It was called "Joy". Wow. God, You are AMAZING. And so faithful. I've only just started the study, but its already hit me at the core of my issues...

Getting caught up in my own circumstances and my own self-pity, instead of focusing on the joy that is given through the fruit of the spirit. The core scripture is the following text and it has just hit me SOOOO deep because it is so clear about this subject of joy (and by relation, the feelings of despair and defeat I've been having). It is John 15:1-1...Seriously read this...its so good!

John 15

Jesus Is the Vine--Followers Are Branches

¹"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. ²"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. ³"You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

⁴"ABIDE IN ME, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it ABIDES in the vine, so neither can you unless you ABIDE IN ME. ⁵"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who ABIDES IN ME and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶"If anyone does not ABIDE IN ME, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

⁷"If you ABIDE IN ME, and My words ABIDE in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸"My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. ⁹"Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; ABIDE IN MY LOVE. ¹⁰"If you keep My commandments, you will ABIDE in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and ABIDE in His love. ¹¹These things I have spoken to you so that My JOY may be in you, and that your JOY may be made FULL. (Emphasis mine)

These verses are just so neat...I mean it makes a reference to abiding in Christ 10 times! This relationship between the vine and the vinedresser and the branches is key to how I've been feeling. Jesus talks about life when we do not abide in Him, it is desolate, withered and futile. But it glorifies God that we bear fruit and prove to be His disciples. Abide in Him. Abide in His love. Theses are the directions Jesus has for us.

And the neatest part for me is the last sentence. The reason, the purpose of speaking these things to you is so that His JOY may be in me and that my JOY may be made full. Our joy is in abiding in Christ and not abiding in ourselves...it is in glorifying God, not glorifying the circumstances of life.

Wow...God is so good and so faithful and so sovereign and so compassionate. I have failed over the past month to see that joy is the fruit of the Spirit, it is not a circumstance that I may happen to be in one day and not happen to be in the next.

I am still learning and working through this, but I just wanted to proclaim how faithful God is when we seek Him. He has totally answered my prayer and is healing my heart from my selfishness. He proves over and over, everday that He is a God who is loving and compassionate and always FAITHFUL.

Confession

I need to confess something that has been going on for maybe the last month or so. I mainly want to do this to 1) ask anyone who reads this to pray for me 2) to foster transparency in my life and 3) to remind myself how much I am still daily in need of Jesus' grace.

Lately I've been struggling with depression-like thoughts. I don't think it is really depression, but I have been just stuck in a rut. I'm not always upset, but I'm mostly apathetic to "down" about things. I've found that I feel defeated a lot with life and school and the feelings of sadness as I walk away from College Station.

I've been praying a lot about these feelings and about how to deal with them. When it comes right down to it, I've chosen to settle into these feelings because I've chosen to focus on myself and my circumstances. Mostly the things that I have chosen to get down about are: the CPA exam, feeling like I don't have time to spend with friends, struggling with still being sick with mono and feeling like I'm always doing something without stopping to take a breath.

Life is hard, but I don't think that I should be choosing to feel down. And I know it's a choice I've made and that its going to be hard to conquer. In fact, on my own, impossible to conquer. But I know that God is love and the His Word says that we have a hope and a future.

I have something to have joy about. Maybe I won't be happy all the time, but I have a reason to have a deep down joy. I'm trying to get that right in my heart. I'm trying to let go of dwelling on myself. But I know that in the end, it is only through God's grace that this is accomplished.

Thanks for listening and thanks for praying...I feel hope rising in me, which is so encouraging, but I know this might be longer than an "overnight" thing. God is teaching me something and I know He is faithful...so I'm going to continue to seek Him through this.

I need your HELLLLLP :)

Okay I'm making my wedding playlist right now and I need song requests sooooooo

any ideas?

Busy, Busy Bees

This week is going to be incredibly busy.

Not really for me, but for Reed it is going to be intense. He is working 40 hours a week and on top of that is having to take 2 tests, 3 or so quizzes, revise and add to his poetry portfolio and write a couple papers....oh and study for finals....

Oh and he has his brother's graduation and his own bachelor party this weekend, which leaves next to no time this week for anything but studying.

I literally blocked out his time this week and have a "life planner" as I like to refer to it. But basically every night after work or class he has to stay up until midnight doing homework. And then he has to wake up early just to start it all over again.

I know that a lot of people function like this all the time and you could think, "What's the big deal, my life is that crazy." Well I'd like a different response, I'd like you to think about how hard those weeks are and pray for us.

Pray mostly for Reed that he would persevere and dedicate his work unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-24) and then pray for me as I try on the "strong, encourager and supporter" hat...it's my job from now on, but I know I'm going to stumble around a bit as I practice my role as the helper for Reed.

Today is only the first day and its already been intense. I am now officially our moving committee. By myself. Reed isn't allowed (by me) to think about the moving of all of my stuff into his house this weekend. He isn't allowed to think about any logistics for this weekend's move or for our move in July. His priority is school and trying to not build a heart of fear and anxiety towards his responsibilities with school.

He's done an AMAZING job so far. He's even gotten to see one of the most embarrassing thing I've ever done.....You ready?

I took a drink of Diet Dr. Pepper and like half a drop went down the wrong tube while the rest went down the right tube. It's not that abnormal right? Well naturally my body is coughing to try and get the small half drop out of the wrong tub when, UUUUURP, I spit out the rest of the gulp from the right tube.

Yes....I spit up Diet Dr. Pepper, very similar to how an infant would, on my bed, while Reed was watching me cough.

So poor Reed took a break from studying (which he did about 7ish hours of tonight) and brought me a towel so that it didn't get all over my bed.

He then called me cute about 15 minutes later. I'm sorry but I couldn't help thinking, "ummmmmm, please tell me you remember me just SPITTING UP ON MYSELF".

Oh thank goodness Jesus has a sense of humor...It's those little weird things that get us through these rough weeks.