Psalm 55

These past couple of days I have been working on memorizing these amazing 23 verses of Psalm 55. I read them a few days ago and cried because of the relevance and the promise of being saved and sustained. I am continuously amazed by how God's word is so relevant to every problem, praise and plea that we have. I thank God for the gift of scripture and the privilege that we have in retaining it and memorizing it, and using it for our prayers and lives.

"Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught at the voice of the enemy, at the stares of the wicked; for they bring down suffering upon me and revile me in their anger. My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death assail me. Fear and trembling has beset me; horror has overwhelmed me. I said "Oh that I had wings like a dove! I would fly and be at rest- I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm." Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech, for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night they prowl about on it's walls; malice and abuse are within it. Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave it's streets. If an enemy were insulting me; I could endure it. If a foe were raising himself against me; I could hide from him. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship as we walked with the throng in the house of God. Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the grave, for evil finds lodging among them. But I call to God, and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice. He ransoms me unharmed from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me. God, who is enthroned forever will hear them and afflict them- men who never change their ways and have no fear of God. My companion attacks his friends, he violates his covenant. His speech is smooth as butter, but war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords. Cast your cares upon the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall. But you, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption; bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in you."

Dam Blessings

After a long, hard weekend and day, I decided that I would go to the dam and watch the sun set. I always feel encouraged by it's beauty, and sitting there just gives me a chance to think, reflect and gives me an interesting place to do my homework sometimes. Tonight I was reading some essays for English, occasionally looking up at the sunset. The sun had gone behind some clouds, something that has happened the past couple of times I have gone. I got a little frustrated, and being silly I thought, "is God trying to tell me something? I just need some encouragement and the sun went behind the stinkin clouds, there is no hope." I went back to reading and about 5 minutes later a silver PT Cruiser pulls up beside my truck, 2 little girls and a little boy jump out, their dad gets a cooler and a fold up chair out of the trunk and sits down to drink a beer while the kids run around. One of the little girls, who has the blondest hair I have ever seen with big pretty blue eyes and a pink dress on comes over to my truck and climbs up into the bed where I was reading and asks "can I sit here?" I said sure, and went back to reading. Her dad yells from across the way ''Kayden leave her along, she's busy reading'' I tell him that it's aright and she isn't bothering me. To her satisfaction, she yells back ''yeah daddy, she WANTS to talk to me.'' I look at her and smile and tell her that she has a pretty name, her response: "I know. K-A-Y-D-E-N, Kayden.'' We went on to talk about how she is 5 and a quarter years old and for her birthday party last year she had a princess cake. After talking about princesses and frogs and birthday parties, she says something strange, "I need some advice". I laughed a little thinking, uh, okay, about what episode of barney you should watch next? She looked at me crossly ''it's NOT funny.'' I said ''I know, I'm sorry, what do you need advice about?''. She says ''NOO I don't need advice, I need to give you advice...'' I said ''alright, what is it??'' She responds with ''I hope you know that God loves you.'' I teared up a little and looked up at the sunset to try to stop my tears, and to my surprise, the sun which had gone behind the clouds was shooting beams of light up into the top of the sky. It was beautiful, her words were beautiful. Kayden, the little blonde haired, blue eyed 5 and a quarter year old messenger changed my outlook on what has been going on. Yes, things stink right now, bad. But the Lord of creation, my Father loves me. I needed to be reminded of that.

Thank you Lord for showing me in the most interesting of ways that you are here, you love me, and are on my side.

When battle lines become unclear, and the waging war is all I hear, Lord, sustain me with Your voice and the choice to walk in truth. That I might see this day, this waging war might go away and be no more. That I might see His face and hear Him say daughter welcome home, the war is over.

BIKE!

I got a bike. It's pretty exciting.


Let's see, what else is happening? Work is going really well. I'm a lot more comfortable and confident now, so it's much more enjoyable. I'm working quite a lot, but it's good. The only issue is figuring out how to manage school and work in a way where I'm not doing ALL of my homework in one night.

I, for a change, don't have much else to say. Except that when I was driving to work yesterday I saw a clown driving a car, it was great.

Mysterious ways? How about absolutely amazing ways.

What a day. I am so tired that I think I might fall asleep on my computer while typing this, but this story is so neat, that I just can't help but tell...

Well, it doesn't start out so neat, in fact it starts out with me being so exhausted and thoughtless that while I was putting gas in my car on the way back from Waco tonight, I locked my keys in there. The second that I realized what I had done, after the day that I had, I felt like slamming my head against the glass and retrieving my keys after I regained consciousness. But I used a few of the deep breathing exercises I learned in speech the other day and regained some composure. After I called home and the ones nearest and dearest to my heart got me squared away with a locksmith, I got a cup of coffee and a ''Troy daily newspaper''. I sat down in the little Exxon diner and began reading the helpful hints column, which reminded me so much of Peggy Hill, and well, it was just awesome. The attendant working, who I had briefly spoken with before about my situation came over and started cleaning the already clean tables around me. I asked her how her day had been. She just looked at me and went back to wiping down the tables. I sat there slightly confused, but just figured that she wasn't the 'small talk type' or something. I continued with the helpful hints column for a couple minutes and noticed she was still wiping down the same table. I looked up to see her standing there cleaning with tears rolling down her cheeks. I said ''do you wanna talk?'' She nodded and I invited her to sit with me. She told me a story about all of these unfortunate events, her mom had passed away a couple of months ago and she has been forced to stay with her step dad and 3 younger siblings, which has been a really abusive, horrible situation for her. While she was telling me this, I held her hand, looked her in the eyes and just listened. When she got done, I smiled, not intentionally, but just because I knew at that moment that maybe it wasn't my sheer stupidity that made me lock my keys in the car, it was something greater. I told her what I thought about this, and tried to encourage her by telling her a little bit of my story. We were interrupted by Mr. Pop-a-lock's arrival, but after he released my keys from captivity, I went back in to finish up our conversation. When I walked in she was still sitting in the spot that she was when I left. I had accidentally left my purse sitting in the diner seat, I had my wallet so I wasn't worried, but as I got closer I noticed she was reading a bible that looked just like mine!! Being way tired it didn't click until I got to the table and saw my bookmark laying there, it WAS mine! I have been memorizing 2 Timothy 4:16-18, so that's what I had underlined and bookmarked. She asked me ''do you really think this is true?'' I said ''I know it is.'' I quoted the part that says ''I was delivered from the lions mouth (you will be too). The Lord will rescue me (and you) from every evil attack and will bring us safely into his heavenly kingdom.'' Her reply: the biggest hug I have ever received from someone I had only known for 30 minutes. I prayed over her, and told her that I would continue to do so. She said that she was going to pray for me too. I got in my truck and started to drive away, the moment that I thought about what had just happened I had to pull over and just cry and turn up Shane & Shane. I was blessed beyond words tonight, just by locking my keys in my car. The Lord put me there, I believe to just listen, encourage and show His love to this lost, hurt and confused girl. It's times like these when I'm grateful for what I have endured, but more so, grateful for His rescuing me.

''At my first defense no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them! But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.'' -2 Tim. 4:16-18

''We, the people of Cotton Patch Cafe...''

Yup, I got it! :D I passed the dreaded menu test, and am now considered an employee. I'm excited about it, I think it will be a really neat experience. My first day of training is tomorrow, I'm a little bit nervous, but mostly excited.

Today was such a full, busy day. I'm tired, and I have a bad headache. I'm kind of wondering why I'm sitting here typing this, but since I have already started, I will finish. I had my first lab for A&P today and my goodness, there are TONS of things to memorize! I'm not sure my brain can handle this. Lab got out a little bit early and I made myself sit down and do ALL of my homework. 2 1/2 hours later I stopped because What Not to Wear was on, and well, you know. BUT-I did get the majority of it done. (pat on the back). Lauren and I went to the dam again this evening to watch the sunset. The sun was hiding behind some rainclouds almost the whole time, but it was still gorgeous, the sun made the edge of the clouds glow a light pinkish gold color and turned the rest of that side of the sky pink and purple, ahhh. Then on the way back to school we saw some lightning in the distance, and that added to the greatness of the evening.

Now I've to to start trying to do the rough draft of my essay due on Friday. This topic has got me a little stumped, I'm not sure what to do. It's interesting though because some parts of the topic are a little bit of what I am struggling with and were in a book that I read this summer. Maybe this will help me work through some things and get my thoughts straight. God is good.

How do I really feel about this?

I'm alone tonight in the dorm. Not necessarily a bad thing, just something that I haven't experienced yet. Because I have nobody here keeping me busy in conversation or just with company, I have some time to think, and feel a little more. I haven't really thought about this whole experience, being in college, growing up, starting a new journey. It's weird to be here on a Saturday night knowing that I won't wake up in the morning and go to FBC Keller and sit on the front row by my favorite people in the world. It's also neat though that I'm getting the opportunity to meet new people, explore new places, and learn new things, and I'm excited about that. I'm just having some difficulty truly seeing the neat-ness of it yet. It's hard for me to see past missing the people I love. I know it will get easier, once I get used to this new life a little more. I'm just questioning if this was the right decision for me to make. I'm honestly not sure. I'm trusting that if it isn't, then I will know. I have a lot to overcome, a lot to get past, a lot to heal from, and I feel that being here might be hindering that. I also feel like this is a HUGE transition and it's just hard now, and maybe once I get used to things I'll be able to start dealing with the other things.
I just don't know.
That's all.