There's This Line...

That I'm still working on finding.  It's the line between trusting in God and being proactive in fulfilling His will.  Where is it?  I so often mistake it, thinking that there must be SOMETHING I can do to make the right things happen.  I find myself wondering what I'm missing, where are the perfect words I can say to that person to make it clear.  I've never thought of myself as much of a leader, but somehow I can't sit back and let everything happen without trying to do something to help it along.

It seems that to some extent we all struggle with letting things go.  One night in our church community group we went around telling whether we were laid-back people or more controlling.  Most people said they were more controlling, but even those who considered themselves laid-back had things that they wanted control over.  The latter is more my area - I am a laid-back person....until I feel like I can do something or that I'll go crazy if I don't.  One of the hardest things for me to be laid-back about is struggling friends.  If someone is hurting, I am rearing to go, ready to beat anyone I have to or stitch up their wounds.  This also applies if one of my relationships is struggling.  As much as I hate confrontation, I will initiate it if I believe it to be necessary.  I am a strong believer in communication, even though I'm not near as gifted in it as I would wish.

I've found that being useless scares me.  I think that's another thing that most people have in common as well; we hate to think of ourselves as adding nothing to the world around us.  So for God to call us to "Be still" - we find that very difficult indeed.  Yes, we trust God, but is there nothing we can do to make everything better??  God tells us to do all things for His glory, but sometimes that includes sitting back and watching, as much as it may pain us to do so.  I typically consider myself a patient person as well, but the list of things I am patient about is not a universal list - there are a few exceptions. 

Another thing I have found is that when I finally do calm down and be still, God does amazing things.  Not that He doesn't always do amazing things - it's just that subconsciously I somehow think that me not moving, not doing something will not produce anything for the glory of God.  Do I think that much of myself, to think that God cannot move without me?  How delusional and egotistical!  I have to laugh at that ridiculous notion, and I can imagine God does as well (in a "That's cute, funny little human" kind of way).

Yesterday one of my friends was discussing how something she had been waiting on forever had just happened after she had given up on it, saying, "I guess all I really had to do was let it go and truly give it to Him [God] after all."  Amen.  Easily said but hardly done.

Honesty time:  I was one of those Union girls looking for a Mrs. degree.  Especially in the first couple of years, I was on the lookout for my future husband.  I do realize how desperate and romcom this sounds, but I prefaced this by saying it was honesty time.  Whether or not I admitted it at the time, I know this was my mindset.  However, by the end of my junior year, I quit looking.  The thought process was this:  "I have only one more year left here.  I'm going to grad school far away, so there's no point in trying to find Mr. Right here when I'll just be moving away.  I'll find him at grad school."  Haha...  Yes, I'm a dork.

Of course, what happens?  Just when I finally give it up and sit back to wait, God jumps in with His own (and infinitely better) plan.  Someone asked me a few days ago, "Last year, did you think you would be engaged at this time, just a year later?"  My reply was, "No!  I'd given up on Union guys!"  Lol.  My plans changed because God moved, and I could not be happier for it.

I wish I could draw a line and say, "This is where you need to step back and give it up."  Really, we should always be giving it up to God but ready to move when He asks, but I understand how difficult that can be.  And sometimes I've misunderstood what God wanted from me, probably because I had my own plan of how I thought God wanted it to go.  We always get in the way of our own obedience.  In my case, a lot of it is over-analyzing. 

I pray that we all have peace about what God is doing, whether we're moving or not, because God is constantly moving.  He never rests and always knows how it's going to go.  Things always work out for His glory, and we know how it all ends!  Why do we worry so?  Yes, we should obey His commandments and work to live for His glory, but in the end our mistakes will not matter.  So why freak out when we make them?  I am completely guilty of that, worrying about making mistakes and despairing when I make them!  God works through us, with us, around us, and - most important to me - despite us.  To me, the last is ultimately reassuring.

Our Wedding Website!

I know I've been due for a blog since I got engaged, but I decided I would put the important stuff on our wedding website - like the proposal story, for one!  Nothing is planned, really, at the moment, so it's mostly empty otherwise.  Anyway, here is the address...

http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/RyanSpickard&DaronWebb

Enjoy!  :) 

Another Funny for the Day...

Back in my high school senior year, the family took a trip to Washington, D.C., over spring break.  There were a LOT of Asian tourists running around taking endless pictures.  While we were in one of the Smithsonian museums - I believe it was the Natural History one - Kellen decided to have some fun and jump into people's pictures at the last minute.  He especially loved getting into one Asian family's family portrait, and we have always said since then that we would give anything to see their reactions when they realized this random American kid was in their photo.  Well, I might have found the picture - or one similar to it, anyway...

http://thisisphotobomb.com/2009/11/11/photobomb-that-guy-hes-a-cousin-twice-removed/

My New Career

This past week, Mom and I flew to Washington to visit Lauren and see some grad schools.  I was excited to see Lauren's house, since the last and only time I'd seen it all I got to see was the outside, since she hadn't finalized the purchase yet and therefore had no keys.  Her house is awesome; it's basically two stories with a loft.  The stairs leading from the first floor to the second are pretty creaky, I soon discovered.  When I mentioned this to Mom Thursday morning as we were preparing to leave, she said, "Yeah, I don't think anyone's going to be sneaking up on you going up those stairs."  Being me, I had pretty quickly figured out that if you skip every other step, you can get around the loudness.  I tried it out, and sure enough it worked pretty well.  When I pointed this out to Mom, she had to try it.  After she tried it and realized I was right, she stated, "You would make a good criminal."

That's what moms do, right?  She opened up a whole new door for me!  Thanks, Mom!  :D

As for other funny stories, there are several from this trip.

Mom and I were boarding a plane, and in front of us there was a mother and her two children.  It was a boy and girl, probably around 5 and 6.  They started messing with each other, of course, and the mother said, "Stop touching each other!  Hands to yourselves."  The kids calmed down for a minute.  Then the boy reached out with his hand like half a foot from the little girl, and the girl said, "Too close!"  That's much more accurate than, "He's touching me!!"

On our way to Seattle Saturday morning, we stopped and got coffee and hot chocolate.  I got hot chocolate, of course, and told Mom she could just have some of mine instead of getting her own.  Her reaction when she tried it was, "This tastes like a melted milkshake."  What a revelation!  Who woulda thunk it?

Funny, but more sad...  Mom and I were in a Jack in the Box eating.  First of all, they had an automated machine to take your order.  I mean, you enter your order into this machine, and then someone brings out from the back.  Great idea - kill more jobs.  Anyway, we had gotten our food and were in the process of eating.  I saw this guy standing outside, and could pretty much guess from first glance that he was homeless.  He comes in and decides to stop at our table on his way to the counter.  He started talking about how there were a ton of chuck wagons outside, and we should unhitch all the horses and hitch them together.  We both just kind of smiled and nodded, and he moved on to the counter.  After he got coffee - no food, just coffee - he sat at the table that was on the other side of the wall from us.  The wall was short enough to only reach my shoulder sitting.  He once again started talking about wagons:  "I saw you pull in, I pulled in right behind you.  We just went down south, and everything's flooded!  Completely flooded!  Thank you, have a good day.  But then we went up north, and it's sunshine.  All clear.  Thank you, have a good day."  Interesting...  It definitely made me wonder where he came from and what happened to him. 

There were other stories, but that's all I have at the moment.  :)

Reporting Fail

Really?  It's a wreck?  I wasn't sure, because I thought maybe this was a picture of a bad parking job.  I mean, anyone who parks like that deserves to get towed.

Good job, Jackson Sun.