It's been a season or two. I've just returned from St. Catharine's where I was for the summer. I was honestly not really looking forward to coming back. It felt like when I left I was leaving all my problems behind, so the thought of coming back to them all seemed daunting and scary. But this week has been good so far. I feel like the thought I'm having the last couple days is that God sustains.
A habit I started while away was going to the gym. The basic thought of paying to run in place and lift heavy things that will just be put back is unappealing. However, the feeling of daily progressing towards a goal is great. And I have been making progress while I was away. The other real benefit was time to read. Taking the bus has always been my primary time to read since going to university, but I'd been driving around all summer to work and church and everything. But running on the spot gives you a lot of time to read and think. And you do actually start to notice you feel more irritable when you haven't been in a few days. ;P In any case, the point being, this is one thing that I feel is a good thing that God has given me to help through the transition. I'd been going to an Anytime Fitness, and if you are registered at one, you can use any of their locations anywhere at anytime. And one opened up down the hill from where I'm living while I was gone this summer.
Similarly, I've had a few days of work (which is always good and always makes me feel useful and like I'm actually accomplishing something). But it's actually so refreshing from work in the summer. I was working like 38-40 hours every week and it was a really high stress location where I was. It felt like there was never time to relax. Things were chaotic and there weren't too many people I could rely on. But at my new location (although it isn't my old location, which I dearly love, the place and all the people) everyone is so competent and cooperative. I look forward to working more with them and getting to know them. :3
Another thing, that I think is kinda weird, is that I find God speaks to me through pop songs a lot. All summer, driving, I'd had a lot of time to listen to the radio. And the more you listen to a song, the more you sing it, the more you meditate on the lyrics. (They also frequently talk about love, which makes it easy to connect to God's love and my need for Him). Honestly, I Don't Care by Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber is like one of my favourite songs to sing right now. I literally just sang it out loud at the gym while running (I'm real happy my new gym plays pop songs instead of classic rock. ;P). The gist of the song is that it doesn't really matter where we are, so long as you (my love; or you can read God) are with me, we'll be ok, we'll have a good time. And some of the lyrics speak deeper to me: you're making me feel like maybe I am somebody" or "you're making me feel like I'm loved by somebody". Which, those thoughts are things I think about a lot. Like am I worth anything? Can anybody really love me if they knew all my secrets and sin? But God sees past that all. He has loved me. He has shown me that. Even if no one else does (which isn't true anyways) He will always love me and be there for me.
That's kinda been my head all summer. I'd been pretty isolated and felt useless and like I was going nowhere and God gave me a message speaking exactly to me where I was at. Most of the summer the messages had been pretty meh, but this one used like all the verses that stick to my heart, spoke specifically to my situation running away from life into the isolating desert, and that God is still seeing me and caring for me and calling me home. If you want to give it a listen you can watch it here: God Who Sees Me. (and Meghan and her family was like the best part of the small group I was in this summer, but that's a story for another time).
Even yesterday a song got stuck in my head. And you know when like the chorus is so easy to get and the verses you barely know? Ya, this is one of those. I literally only know the prechorus and chorus. :P "You said hey whatcha doing for the rest of your life And I said I don’t even know what I’m doing tonight ... and you said I never regretted the day that I called you mine". And I get that just from that it's a bit of a stretch, but I started thinking "what am I doing tonight? I don't even know. I don't have a plan for my future. I don't know where I'm going." and that line "and you said I never regretted that day that I called you mine" just got stuck in my head and made me think again about myself and how I frequently feel like I'm not good enough for God, or like I've wasted the last few years or like have no solid plans for the future, but God has called me his. LT way back on the day I was baptized said that day was great not just because I was saying "God is my God" but because it also meant God was saying "You are mine". And God says "I will never leave or forsake you." If He has called me His, He has no regrets. He knew everything that would happen after that day and somehow He still loves me. And like, I know those things, but reflecting on it from a stupid pop song somehow just gets deeper sometimes than hearing it from a page of the Bible. : /
I was walking home from the gym praying. Looking at the blue sky and the rain-soaked ground and breathing the fresh air thinking "God thank you for all you provide. Everything a tree needs, rain, air, sun. You do that for me too." Then I got home and read a book I'm going through. It's like studying a verse a day for like personal devotion time. It was Psalm 1:2-3 "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."
It's the little words.
It's the perfect coincidences.
It's the feeling of comfort and familiarity even in large transition.
It's a faithfulness that blows me away.
It's only by the words that come from God's mouth that what little faith I have can be sustained and used to encourage others and bring Him glory and give me true joy and delight in following Him.
That's what I'm thinking today anyway.
#thankful
D.Fa
PS. Just went to go link the music video for I Don't Care and watched it for the first time. My goodness. This is an insanely funny editing job. ;P
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