A mosquito in the airport

Last week, I traveled to Arkansas to see my best friend from school at Hendrix.  By car, it would have been an 8 hour drive, so I decided to fly instead.  My trip that began as just a visit to see a friend soon turned into a tour of 5 different states and airports.  Connections and layovers–I found myself jumping on a subway just to get to my concourse in Atlanta’s airport.  In Denver’s airport, I rode on this long treadmill that stretched the length of the long, wide hall of gates.  I soon found that the treadmill was not for riding on, though.  It was for running on whenever you were late to your gate because the treadmill helped you speed down the long hall twice as fast.

In the sea of people–coming and going, eating and drinking, texting and talking–I felt so small…too small to ever be noticed in the hustle and bustle, too small to ever make a difference.

One Sunday in church, my pastor once asked the question, “Do you think you’re too small to make a difference?  Have you ever spent the night alone in a room with a mosquito?”   It took the congregation a couple moments longer to process the question than the pastor had thought, so he helped us out by saying, “You know! Bzzzzzzzzzz!” while flailing his arm in the air.  Everyone laughed, and the pastor’s joke had been received, even if just a little later than hoped for…

This thought popped into my head as I had boarded the plane, buckled my seatbelt and began to lift into the air.  Gazing out my small window, I realized that I was small too, just like that mosquito.

Sure, our lives seem busy and seem to revolve around our own self here on earth, but from 38,500 feet, everything looks different in the light of God’s beauty and glory.  We are so small and insignificant, and yet He loves us so much that he orchestrates every aspect of our lives (Psalm 139).

That’s when I began to wonder if the happiest people that I’ve ever met in my life were those who realized that they were just a mosquito, messengers sent to buzz around in their little flight path and to give other people something to scratch at….

Life lies waiting

“Between the wish and the thing,

Life lies waiting.”

The other day, I was in a store and saw this quote on a greeting card.  Knowing me, I whipped out my journal to copy down these words as well as the quotes on many other cards.  After wandering throughout the rest of the store and then onward to my car, I kept hearing the repeating of the quote’s end… life lies waiting….life lies waiting…

This summer turned out to be nothing like I had originally planned, and as a result, I let my relationship with God suffer.  I was disappointed that I didn’t get to go on the two different mission trips nor did I get to be a camp counselor, take summer school, or even have time to write.  I became upset about all of these, but God was waiting for me to see what wonderful opportunities He HAD blessed me with: to be a most-loved nanny for my three little cousins and try to work on my relationship with my dad.

“For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are  your works;

my soul knows it very well.”

Psalm 139: 13-14

Our lives are some of God’s wonderful works.  Does your soul know this today?  Embark on this day with the joy that come with knowing that God has prepared it for you.  You can wish all you want to for a life different than what you have, but remember that the life that God has prepared for you lies waiting.  If we will just trust in Him and live each daily fully, we’ll find that His plans are infinitely better and always more creative than ours anyways 😉

Always Learning Lessons

I’m so sorry for the delay!!!!  Seriously, at the beginning of the summer, I never thought that I would be scrambling to find time to write!  But here it is, over a week later, and I am just now writing again! sorry

One thing that I’ve discovered about these past few days is the importance of always learning.  While I do reference all types of learning by saying this, I especially mean learning how to love our family and learning other lessons from God.  Sometimes I get to a point where I say, “Okay, I’m tired of always learning how to be better because that means that I’m not good enough as I am.”  What I see now is that this is not true at all.

In all honesty, I spent many days last week just going through each day as a routine.  I prayed but didn’t necessarily listen, and I was definitely not wanting to learn about any other things that I needed to do better.  Me and my pride… we all have problems with it don’t we?  Anyways, but I saw that in each time that I wasn’t truly spending time with God–reading the Bible or just thanking Him for pretty flowers or something small like that–I also wasn’t learning; I wasn’t growing, and I certainly wasn’t enjoying my time.

I think we are always learning lessons when we truly spend time in a relationship with God because we get to see even more of who He is.  If we have the right mindset, we see each lesson as merely a way in which we can grow to be more like Him and just be filled with love, the love that He gives to us to give to others.

This post is pretty much a jumbled up message of my thoughts today, but I hope that maybe, just maybe, we can all believe that true happiness lies in the pursuit of living life with God.  Because of our human nature–all prideful and sinful and all–we have a lot of learning to do.  But take heart!  After all, we are living in a world of darkness and whenever we see things as dark or bad, that means that the Light must be there to shine.  The more that we learn, the more that we see God’s Light and have a desire to change.

Well, I hate to run, especially with such an unedited and jumbled post, but I’m about to shed some light on the most overgrown and prickly, holly shrub in our backyard.  I’ll write back soon!

-Sarah 🙂