let's try this again.

I'm afraid the end of last semester got swallowed up by my senior honors project, and then the majority of Christmas break got eaten alive by getting Tristan ready for Ghana. Now that's he's safely there and I'm back in Greenville...there's been a little more time to reflect.

With Tristan in a country five time zones ahead, I haven't had him around to talk to at night, and so, I've been journaling this week...just like before I met Tristan. It was years ago, but I remember praying about him and praying for him, and wondering if the timing was right yet, and then knowing that it was. Of course I remember praying about other things too. It is such an amazing thing that we can open up our lips or minds or notebooks and just communicate. The Life You've Always Wanted calls it 'interrupting heaven." Speaking to the Lord and hearing him speak back...and gosh it has been a long time since I've allowed myself the luxury of journaling regularly. God has already answered so many prayers this week!

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land" (isaiah 1:18-19).

I think I've been a little scared of it...scared of God...scared of being vulnerable and naked in front of him. Scared I was wasting opportunities and scared he wasn't proud of me. But how can I know what he feels toward me if I won't look at him? I can't sit around being afraid anymore...it's true that I probably have let opportunities to love people pass by. I probably have missed conversations that could have been turned toward him...but I can't pay for that or change it. I have to keep moving forward. I have to start looking for the opportunites tomorrow, and let God's mercies be new again then.

"I do not mean that I am already as God wants me to be. I have not yet reached that goal, but I continue trying to reach it and to make it mine. Christ wants me to do that, which is the reason he made me his.... I know that I have not yet reached that goal, but there is one thing I always do. Forgetting the past and straining toward what is ahead, I keep trying to reach the goal and get the prize for which God called me through Christ to the life above" (philippians 3:12-14).

Daddy, please continue to speak in my life this week. Please open my ears to what you're saying. Help my heart to be soft. Help my mind to be clear. Make my hands willing. I love you.