I'm sick, but not dead. That's a mercy, eh?

But ishhh my throat hurts. :(

Today I organized my prayer requests into different days of the week so that they do not overwhelm me! This is exciting, hopefully it'll stick.

Well, God continues to be merciful and much more faithful than I am.
His mercy/grace has been shown in:

• Good grades this semester
• Some good international friends
• Sustaining me monetarily
• A car: I get to see my wonderful Durham/Chapel Hill friends pretty often!
• Good times with family living at home
• The girls at College Ministry who have befriended me and encouraged me
• A wonderful conference last week with Brindges International/NYC trip (it was safe and fuuun)
• 3 days to spend time with my wonderful NJ family

 Now it technically is morning on January 5th! I have full confidence that God will be merciful every morning in 2010, and that I will not post every morning in 2010.

I might as well post some New Years Resolutions here:

• Spend minimal time on Facebook (30 mins a day or less?)
• Steps: don't get emails from fb, don't read home page
• Goal: Be more productive.
  
• Don't spend money going out to eat this semester
• Steps: pack lunches for school the night before, go to coffee with friends instead of lunch 
• Goal: save money for bridesmaid dress and other wedding duties.
• Don't buy any more winter clothes
• Rationale: I already had my shopping spree in New York :)
  
• Always write out goals for the day when I don't know what to do with myself
• Goal: not to be lazy/unproductive those days.
• Find a routine time in my class schedule to meditate on the Word and pray. 
• Goal: Cultivate a desire for Christ and His Word.

The whole exercise thing... I'm taking a PE class so I kind of have to. So no resolution needed there. Not that I would keep it if I made one.

Mercies

Mercies on Saturday, August 29th: ( I think I'm defining the word 'mercy' very loosely)
Safe trip to the beach! (Although we did have a van get a flat tire. Tragic, but it could've been worse.)
Good conversations in the car with Internationals. We sang American and Indian songs, too :)
Didn't get a bad sunburn.
Did get a cool fish tatoo. Yes. Henna.
Did have an awesome time with Mary Brooke eating ice cream and watching First Daughter.
Mark Blucas.

And now I'm off to a photography training session.

Mercies on Friday, August 28:

Didn't get stuck in the rain, nor did I die trying to drive in it!
I got to go see Up with Debbie.
We got two Route 44 size lime slushes for $1.94 at Sonic. Amazing.
I wasn't late to class! I was totally about to be.

And today I'm going to the beach with International students!!! Woot, I hope it's not too rainy.

Your Mercies are New Every Morning

But this I call to mind,
   and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
   his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
  "The LORD is my portion," says my soul,
  "therefore I will hope in him."
Lamentations 3:21-24

INTRODUCING: Meditating on God's Mercies

This blog will be a way for me to remember and meditate on how God has had mercy on me. Since His mercies are new every morning, the goal is to also have a new post every morning. I'll keep it short and sweet from next-post on.

God gave me this idea yesterday. Reading through some sermon notes, I came across one from 2 weeks ago that said "Meditate on God's mercies!" in big letters. I thought that was a great idea and wondered how I had forgotten to do that in less than 2 weeks. More aware of His mercies, I found many in my day that I easily might have looked over. So this blog was born. Scratch that--it was already born, now I will just use it.

Mercies on Thursday, August 27:
Even though it was my first lab day, I found the building (which was very far away) and got there on time. And I got to my next class on time. (It was very far away.)
I had a lovely lunch with Brooke, Sarah, and Gina. I even got to see Kelley!
I JUST caught the bus I needed to go babysit. And it's even better that I caught that bus because there was terrible terrible traffic on the beltline.
Babysitting went very well, unlike last week. That was definitely God's hand, because I know some friends were praying.
This is a BIG one. After buying so many textbooks, I knew my account was low. I even worried I had overdrawn it, so I rushed to the bank after babysitting. Arriving 5 minutes before closing time, I deposited the check I had forgotten to pick up from chickfila (another mercy) and the babysitting money. I hadn't overdrawn though. I had about 3 dollars left in my account. OH MY GOODNESS. 3 dollars. Praise God.
And I found out that Allison, Brooke, Gillian, and Jessica are in my D Group! God is good.


Of course these aren't the only mercies. there are many that happen every day (i.e. not crashing the car, not contracting malaria, not being thrown into Hell). This blog is for specific mercies that catch my attention during the day.

Well, it being 11:50 AM, I should probably post this while it is still morning.

My Ministry

While my friends are off having adventures at New Life Camp, Impact, or in Tennessee, Brazil, Barbados, Bangladesh, Haiti, Australia, China and the like, I am doing the same thing I've been doing all year: school.

Now, this is not a post to complain about school-- I made the choice all year not to finish it every week. It's my own fault for being so busy and lazy. Let's go off on a tangent about the year before I get to my summer.

It's been a fabulous year. Band has so many memories of good friends, good talks, good laughs, and making music. And some drama, but it's hard to have band without drama!
Refinery and Starbucks with the senior girls. I love those girls. I learned so much from their view on things, and I enjoyed that we got to pray for each other and apply what we've learned in Belize.
BELIZE. Best week of my life. Long van rides, stupid roosters, beautiful countryside, amazing food, amazing kids, amazing team members and an AMAZING God. I felt so at home while I was there.
Work. Not exactly my favorite thing ever, but it's got to be in the list of why I didn't get my school done this year :)
Speech/Drama. I am incredibly glad that my mom made me take 'some speech class' senior year. I didn't know anyone, and they all knew each other...so I was kind of intimidated at first. There are some bad memories: waiting to get up and do a speech, all the research and stressing about Debate (I wasn't a fan of making up speeches on the fly.), and blanking on a stanza of the 1,120 word poem Mrs. E made me do. The good memories totally make up for the bad ones. Rehearsing 5 hours every Friday, laughing for most of them, getting to yell and be mean on stage (my character was...feisty), wearing that ridiculous little girl dress while trying to be an old woman, adventures to Chick-fil-A, Quelf, improv games, and acting in general. I love my cast, my crew, and my 'Cluck'.

So that's what I was doing every week. It was amazing and I'm really glad I did it!

Every morning I get up and I pray for my friends who are missionaries or doing some sort of ministry this summer. I pray that they will be free from sin so that they can minister for God more effectively. I pray for their focus to be completely on Christ and His Gospel. I pray that their lives will be changed by the mission they are on, and that God will change others' lives through them. I pray for their physical and spiritual strength.

Now here's my problem: I didn't feel like I needed those prayers as much because I'm just sitting at home finishing school and doing laundry. I didn't feel like I had a ministry this summer. I'm not doing hard things. I was discontent because I could have been doing awesome things like Impact, drama camps, acting in a movie, or going on a mission trip. But no! Must. Finish. School.

I realized this morning that even though I'm not out doing mission trips or the like, I still have a ministry to my family and my church. And I have small hard things to do. I have responsibilities to accomplish school and help out around the house. I need spiritual strength against complacency. It is essential that I am falling in love with Christ harder this summer than ever before: I'm going to a secular, Christ-denying institution in the fall--NC State. It is imperative that I am confessing and repenting of my sins this summer, guarding the gospel, and treasuring Christ.

You might be like me, you don't have many 'important' things to do this summer. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says "whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."
I don't know what you're doing this summer, but are you making it a ministry?

Persuasive?

I just wish I could find the one statistic I need for this persuasive paper. Ugh.