Fearless

I am one of the most fearful people I know. If I were to really think about all the things I'm afraid of, I could probably think of about a thousand things in just five minutes. It really is somewhat crazy how much I fear the future, and the majority of the time, what I spend so much time worrying about never even happens. That's the funny thing about fear, it can completely drain a person of their energy and joy without ever having to actually come true. Mark Twain said, "I'm an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." Anyone who knows me knows that I spend half of my time gripped with fear. I am always swerving my car to avoid a car that never intended to pull out in front of me. When reassured that nothing bad is about to happen, my mind immediately thinks up a thousand "what ifs..." that overrides all reassurance.

The bible discusses two types of fear. The first is a good kind that means a fear of the Lord. This is more of a kind of awe and reverence for the Lord and a respect for his power and potential wrath. Unfortunately, this is not the type of fear that consumes my mind. My problem is the second kind, more of a "spirit of fear". This is nearly the complete opposite of the healthy kind. This is the idea that life is constantly endanger of spinning out of control. And what I am really learning is that it is a symptom of a lack of faith.

Last week I went to church, having no idea that the sermon was going to be about me. As I sat there listening to the pastor talk about fear and worry, I began to fear that everyone was thinking about how this was about me. That's when i finally faced the music and realized that all the things I fear are completely stupid. And then I realized that all the things that I fear are really just the world's way of diminishing my faith. My constant worry, does me no go and nothing can be changed just because I spend countless hours worrying and fearing it. Instead I need to build up my faith in Christ, because it is only then that my fear can be defeated.

It is so difficult to change habits of the mind. However, I am commited to decreasing my fear and increasing my worry. This, I am realizing more and more, is not something that I will be able to change overnight. However, I am trying to rely on God's help and power to do it.

I feel like this is really the root of my blog. I have always dreamed of being carefree and willing to just "dance through life" and just when I think I am getting there, I slip up. I am determined to defeat fear. I am determined to be faithful and content with the idea that I am not in control. Instead, I am giving my life to someone who is far greater than I am. Someone who loves me more than I can understand and promises the best for me if I trust Him. And just the thought of not having to wake up every morning with a list of worries, but instead being able to wake up to prayer that gives my fears to God, is a total relief. I already feel like a weight has been lifted.

Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

Derailed

Ever since I was a little girl, I've been taught that I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up. I was never one for any crazy dreams, I never wanted to be a rock-star or an astronaut but I always wanted to be something practical like a doctor or a veterinarian or even a missionary. As an adult, I started college with the dream of being a pediatric doctor only to find out that it wasn't for me. Instead I decided on something that was far less schooling and a lot more personal one on one time with patients. I chose to be a nurse.

My first semester at UK, I enrolled in pre-nursing classes such as anatomy and physiology and even chemistry. And though none of these classes were a walk in the park, I loved learning about the human body. For the first time in my life, I felt compelled to learn this stuff, not just to pass a test, but because one day, it was going to be real people that I would be working on and trying to help and it will probably be pretty important to understand how the body works. This summer I experienced my first set-back when I was not excepted into the nursing program. The letter said that I was not eligible because of not having the English class that UK feels is only properly taught in Lexington. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty bitter because I was told that you could be excepted even if you were missing one pre-req but I wasn't too surprised because after all I was a transfer student just finishing my first semester at UK.

However, today I found out that the advisor for the school of nursing is telling juniors not already excepted into the nursing program to either find another program or pick another major. This raises a huge question: what do you do when you are told that everything you want to do or be for the rest of your life is out of the question. What have I been working for now for over a year? What am I supposed to do now that I have been focused on why nursing is the perfect career for me? I can't just change my major and pick something else, I'll spend my whole life wondering how much happier I would be if I became a nurse.

I have no solutions for these questions. I have asked the people I love most in my life, and they don't seem to have any answers either. Throughout the day when I got to thinking about where my life is headed, and tears filled my eyes, I kept wanting to yell, "Please God, what am I supposed to do??!!" But oh Lord am I thankful for a God that is gracious enough to have a plan for me!!! I know that everything will work out for me the way God intended it to, even if it's hard to imagine right now. I can't imagine where my life is headed in the next three months but I'm going to sit here and wait patiently for the answer from God. I am going to let Him guide me through this crazy time and a life changing decision. My only prayer is that He let me know soon.

Leaving Me Breathless...

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ~Romans 8:28

Everyday we are faced with choices. Some that are small and insignificant such as what to eat for lunch or where to sit. However, some days we are faced with major crossroads, and forced to decide what we should do, a decision that may impact the rest of our lives. I think that it is funny, because even though many times throughout my life, I have been faced with a choice that at the time seemed nearly impossible to make, at the end of the day (or month or year), if we really look at the heart of the question and really think about what God is telling us, we do know the answer. Though we almost always know, often it does not seem so obvious until we look back at our life.

In thinking about my past and my journey from here and there, I can see God's hand in all of them. I think about my choice to go to Samford and how that is in no way a mistake. I learned so much in the year that I lived on my own, forced to make new friends, and learn to live without depending on anyone or anything for familiarity and direction. I thank God everyday for the friends that I made, including my best friend Kelley and how I'm not sure how I lived the first 18 years of my life without her or who I would be today. I think about the opportunity I had to go to London, and though the decision was rather rash, how it was so right. I think of all the things I learned about myself while living a continent away and the things I could live without and the ones that I couldn't. If it weren't for the semester in London, I may still think that I could be okay without ever again seeing my family and friends or eating Mexican. I look at all these major decisions and though they may have been tough at the time, it is so clear that it was in God's plan for me. I think about the decision I made to come home to Kentucky and crying one night to my mom and saying, "I just don't know if its what I'm supposed to do!" I see my life as it is now, and there is no question that it was the right decision, though it seems so complicated at the time.

Words cannot describe how much hope this gives me. It is not just up to me to decide what to do with my life but it is up to Someone that knows far more than me and about me. But here's where things seem a little more unclear. For so many of us, we have had to face the pain of a decision that was not up to us. We have had to struggle with the feeling that our lives are broken and that things are not going according to plan. Or sometimes God is calling us to do something that is not so easy. Something that may in fact hurt someone else or send us into a void of unknown. However, it is in these situations that God really gets to become a Mover and a Shaker.

He promises us that He will constantly be working through us for the good of us who love Him. He promises us that even when we cannot possibly imagine how we can make it through or how a situation can work out, that He has something even greater in the works. He is promising us that through the pain that we are forced to endure by living in this fallen world, that He is going to give us something great and at the same time maybe give something great to someone else. Does this not testify to the power of my God?! That He, betrayed by one of His arch angels and the creatures that He gave life to, can bring out good, and I mean good in a sense that I cannot possibly understand (not like I think chocolate is good) even through all the pain and evil. Not only does this testify to the power of God but also to His unfailing, everlasting, mercy that He, someone who could have wiped us all out and started over, chose to work for the good of us, even through all the pain that we created for ourselves through sin. And because this thought leaves me breathless, I'm going to take it a step further and wonder at the amount of love that he had for us to not only work towards our good but to send His Son to DIE for us so that he can spend eternity with us dwelling in His home.

I am humbled beyond words. I cannot thank my God enough for the knowledge and comfort that I take in knowing that even when I can't seem to see it through my pain, and even though it may take months, or years, or a lifetime, I will one day understand that God put me through pain for me to have the life He intended me to have. And thank God, He has a plan for me that is better than one I could actually have created for myself. It is in realizations like this I beg God to take the part of me that is always getting in the way of myself. Haha, but even with that part of me (which lets face it is most of me) He somehow manages to work in spite of it and sometimes even through it.

And on this note, I am exhausted (it is 4:21 am) and I am going to bed. I am thankful for my life that it is not my own, but is in the hands of Someone who is far more capable than me.

Ready...Set...GO!

Nearly four and a half hours ago, I decided that I wanted to blog. Signing up was a piece of cake...all I had to do was enter my email and make up a password and promise that I'm at least 13. All in all it took about 2 minutes. For the other 4 hours and 28 minutes, I have been trying to find a pretty background for my blog. Crazy right?! I have traveled all over the world wide web searching for just the right template to make my blog beautiful because after all, that is what is most important! It was a hard task, there were so many to choose from and all the ones that I really loved were expensive...naturally. So I kept searching well into the night until at 4:15 am, I found the one. It was a decision that could not be taken lightly and therefore, I feel I gave it the time and energy it deserved. And now that I have chosen a background and my blog is looking absolutely fabulous, its time to get down to business.

Seeing this blog, you may ask yourself, "What could Emily possibly want to write a blog for? Everyday she gripes and complains about having to take English and curses every paper she has to write!"

So I guess I should explain myself. Because it is true that I hate English, I am through and through a science and math gal but blogging has a lot of appeal for me. First of all it is just one more thing that can distract me from having to do things like homework and anything else that I have to do. This is important, because if you are a chronic procrastinator like me, you know that sometimes you run out of things to distract you from what you should be doing. Therefore, this is a great addition to the long list of useless past time which include other greats such as facebook, words with friends, and stumbleupon.

Another reason that I have decided to start a blog is that I love to read other peoples'. I love to read the writing of people I know, to keep up with what's going on in their lives. I love reading blogs of people I don't know that live extraordinary lives that I could only dream of. I love reading recipe blogs and craft blogs and cupcake blogs. I love blogs. So, hey, why not jump on the bandwagon?! The funny thing is, I feel like my life has been consumed by blogs lately. You know how sometimes you can go months or years or your whole life without hearing a word and then within a week you hear it about 10 times? Something keeps popping into your life at random places and you start to wonder if it is more than just a coincidence? Well that's kind of what blogging has been for me lately. And being that I'm religious and I do not believe in coincidence, I thought that maybe God had a plan for me to write this so that I can understand Him better. I'm not suggesting that through this blog, I'm going to change the world. I probably won't be asked to write for the New York Times (that would be cool though, right?) but if that fabulous background is any indication, this is going to be spectacular!!!

Anyways, I'll just have to see where it leads me. Knowing myself and the sheer madness of my life, it may be a long and windy road. But I feel like I have already overcome the first two, huge obstacles: finding a layout and writing the first post! And so, now that I'm feeling accomplished (at least in the art of procrastination), I am headed to bed. Goodnight!