Gas guzzlin' southerner. Wait, that's me.

Sometimes you do not know how long you have been riding on E until you completely break down. You never look down. You feel no energy to stop and get gas. So, you just ignore it until part of you forgets it is even there to be filled. I know that is how humans are. It is just interesting to me that sometimes we stop but don't fill ourselves with gas. Who knows why, but that day we try something different. And, a lot of things will just make you break down again.

So, out with negative. I want to be done with the wrong choice. Is it that simple? I feel like yes, it is, maybe for the first time. In the end, more than you suffers for the mistake of filling up with the wrong thing. There are numerous things that CAN happen, and it just seems that you never know what. Thank God we have people riding in the car with us to bring us to our senses sometimes.

"Umm, honey, that's not gas, that's the water hose."

Its like, gee thanks. We couldn't have figured that out for ourselves. But, would we have?

Riding

I went to a church conference this weekend, I know, earth shattering excitement. I genuinely like being in that type of environment because I feel I learn. But sometimes I think you digress. I felt that this weekend was not so much a growth or learning experience as it was a revealing of this past digression. And how you move past it. Because all your thoughts and all your actions have been caught up in this past digression for so long, commited to it, especially when you thought you were learning. That is the trouble with being a little girl in a grown woman's body. You have to deal with what you learn and use it. People won't keep reminding you or putting you in time out. You could alter the course of your life if you choose to ignore what you know or simply what is revealed to you.

Right now I feel like I could spread a thousand messages and that there are many things I am sure of. But then I look back and see all the things I was "sure of." And I pause. I no longer want to speak as an expert or even a person who knows a lot about the things I know. But as a constant learner. I mean heck, this week I even found out that in Mexico they refer to themselves as Los Estados Unidos de la Mexicana. Who would have guessed. I wish that for a moment I could take myself out of the box of being an American. I know how blessed I am but I also think we have cursed ourselves in many ways. Ways that no amount of pacifist, conservative, or liberal thinking can change.

When you set a roller coaster in motion you cannot stop it in the middle of the ride, thinking that the car will magically end up at the end of its journey without taking all the hills, flying out of your seat a bit, and the ocassional scream. Nope, you just have to endure. And when it is over a lot of time you forget the fear and horror and just want to start it all over again.

Like men, all the good jobs are taken

The less I have time for writing the more I want to do so. The more ideas pop in my head and I want to sit for days doing nothing but sip coffee and write in my journal. The thing is that I don't know how to get there. I know I am alright with working hard for a few years and setting myself up to pursue my dreams. But I am not okay with working myself to a point of frustration and fatigue, so that everything that comes out of me reflects that. Why isn't easy to work for God's glory and see the good in everything? I know there is good to be had, I am just not the one doing it. Or not seeing it. Or both.

I miss the rose colored glasses. The times when I would look out and see people and think that impacting their lives and the way I would do so would be, or could be, something I felt fully gifted and inspired to do. And seeing people smile and knowing that their lives, for that moment, were fulfilled, happy, or just blessed. I am blessed, so why does this gap in my life exist? Why can I not just look at my blessings and be thankful? People are telling me that I don't have to work this hard, I don't have to push myself for something that is unseen. But two months ago they were telling me the opposite. I am 25 years old. I should be making at least 1,000 a month and taking care of my own bills. So, at this point, yes I do have to do what I am doing. There is not a choice. Well, there is, but that choice is either choosing not to take care of myself or choosing to take care of myself in a less appealing, higher paying, probable sales type job. Umm, I don't see the choice people. And it is not that I am chronically dissatisfied. I am satisfied with my life. I am dissatisfied with the road I have paved for myself. I am fully aware that, had I made different choices, I could be in a different place.

Not a place where I am necessarily "comfortable," but a place where I am growing and learning my spiritual self in order to fully use the gifts that God gave me. It is so hard for me to admit to others what I want to do. Not because I am ashamed, but because I feel like it is so unrealistic and comfortable seeming. I want...to go back to school. Not to grad school. I want to go to seminary. Or....Bible school. Almost a dirty word for me. I do not want to make myself more rigid, or theological sounding, I just want to fully equip myself with the Word, and shape my understanding of it. And I want to be taught and challenged. Something I can do and am trying to do on my own. But I want it to take up my life for a little while. I want to catch up on all that I missed when I was running. I want to read books and spend time with God. I don't want to be praying tears of frustration over a job I am not gifted for, but can be good at. And maybe that will lead me to work in a church, or maybe it won't. I don't know. I would hope it would. But I am not turning away any ideas that I feel are God-given.

The biting part is, I feel like I spend so much time worrying and fretting over this, and not really giving it to God. Then I wonder why it is so hard to do that if I am really called to do "ministry." "Ministry" in quotes because our lives should be that, but I am talking about the paremeters of church kingdom we as humans have set up. It is so messy. And so hard. But I am not scared of that. 95% of the time I walk around feeling like a big baby because I appear to be scared of that. It is not that, it is just mentally and physically draining to work at something that is not preparing me and taking up almost 100% of my time. Am I scared? Could I make the move but am just not going for it? Or am I stuck? I really don't know. That is the problem. I have had so many obstacles for so long. Now I don't. So am I just creating them for myself?

Accidental Ovaries

Sometimes I think about why God made women and God made men and why there isn't one sex if God is one sex, or isn't, I guess he could be neither. But it seems that everyone wants to refer to him in the masculine sense because, well, no one wants their God to be emotional and like watching movies called things like Must Love Dogs and In Her Shoes. In fact, I like to think that God would enjoy the ocassional chick flick, but who knows? I really am unsure of how he views women. And since I am a woman, trying to claim a life in the church world, which is a man's world more than WWE wrestling and the whole of the Die Hard franchise, it is quite disturbing that I do not have a clear view of his view.

I have read the verse about women being made for men (somewhere in Romans I believe), and I have also read the Genesis story, in which it is blatantly obvious that God provides Eve for Adam as a helpmate, after a period of time possibly lasting years where Adam is alone and working quite hard. So, where is the place of a woman? Do I have to let my man do all the work because his sex is the right sex to do so? I know it is a man's world, and God created man as the head, but does that leave women to be the butt? I like the analogy in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, that women are the neck and can turn the man any way she wants... but is that Biblical? What are we supposed to be striving for?

It seems everyone has a different answer. Even listening to godly men I get confused. The Bible is so simple. God is so direct in what he desires for our life. But then you talk to people, and they say, well it might not say it in there but this is what He (meaning God) really wants.... One of my pet peeves with this issue. I really have a problem with "The One." A disbelief my boyfriend, and my father, greatly....does not appreciate. And the more someone tries to convince me or the more advice they give, I am led more to believe it is one of the many things Christians make into a spiritual show they can teach about. The truth is, if everyone loved the way that Christ taught us to love and we were all friends, we could pretty much marry anyone and be happy. There are personality types and traits that attract people to one another, and that's okay, but the more theological talk you squeeze in there, the more I am apt to say, so what are you arguing about with God these days? Or what is so perfect about your life that that is all you have left to worry about?

My father used to say that as long as I married someone in love with Jesus he would be thrilled. Now I'm 24. I think maybe it was a joke. Now it has moved to "I'll be supportive." I'm wondering when it will move to "I'll love my grandchildren anyway." Ofcourse, the only reason this even matters to me is because in my mind I am still a five-year-old whose father is golden. I don't know if there will ever come a day where his opinion doesn't make my heart either rise or fall, as if it is the only voice in which I seek approval. It isn't true, but you can't help the feeling. I love my dad, love him and am so proud of him, but there are some things in life you wish you grew out of.

Like being female and not knowing what it means! It means so much one day, but most of the time it just means that you can blame everything on your period.

Submittance? Is that what females are called to? I know that is not all it is, but I wonder if God knows the depths of anti-submittance he instilled when he created me? Or is that all part of what the world created in me? If we are all for Him, does it matter. Will the women pastors be judged and the weak men be sent to hell? It seems silly almost. Because everything we know (outside of the Bible) comes from this world. It is made possible from God, and initially created by Him, but somehow we screw with what He gives us and contort it to fit a different mold. Maybe my ovaries aren't accidental, but I would sure like to know why they are there.

Besides that whole child bearing thing...