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So often things don't go as I plan. For instance, this morning, I woke up late- got ready rather quickly, ran down stairs made a smoothie, kissed mom goodbye and headed out the door. ONLY to let out a terrified screech to find that, low and behold, half the earth's water supply had seeped through my open sunroof. If you can imagine, that in itself was quite defeating... I run inside grab towels quickly to (try to) dry everything and hop in the car... 10 minutes late now. While I'm driving up Creedmoore, I realize I left my leather bag at home. Just so happened to have my phone in that bag. And some cash. My gas tank was empty. Okay, okay... I'm still in pretty good humor at this point. I pick up a friend, he has cash- thank you, Lord! We fill up, hop on the highway... I spill my smoothie. Needless to say, I will be cleaning out my car today when I get home.

But you know, this has been such a reoccurring theme in my life, recently. Could quite possibly be that, regardless of my carelessness, I need to lay my plans down at Jesus' feet? Throughout this entire six months, it seems like nothing I intended to happen has happened... instead, everything I intended wouldn't happened did happen. It was tough. Brutal even. Disappointing in some areas and overflowingly fulfilling in others.

In the beginning of this year, I had a chance to go to Florida and just spend some alone time, getting away from everything except for myself. It was there that I realized just that. I can't get away from myself. Everywhere I will ever go... I bring myself along, too. And you know what? That might sound simple but, if it was, people would live differently. So what exactly do I mean when I say I bring myself with me? I mean... I bring my imperfectness everywhere, my rude thoughts, my selfish demeanor, my sarcastic nature, my always attempting perfectionism tendencies. I bring my lack of sleep, my grumpiness, my sadness and sulkiness, my ideas and thoughts... my dreams. I also bring the good parts of me, too [don't want to be a complete "Debbie Downer"] I know my every thought- and, obviously, I bring them with me.


Most of the time, we make ourselves miserable.

I think that there are two types of human nature. The type that likes to dwell all by themselves and wrought in their choices, actions, decisions.. or the type that just cannot, under any circumstances, be alone. If they are alone, they will actually have to realize and think about themselves. Who they are. Now, let's be honest, there is no good way here. Both limit people. Both affect lives. Both do more hurt than help.

I tend to lean on the side of the first type- the one who contemplates failure so that they can try to never do it again. The type that can be quite good at beating themselves up. When I was in Florida, I was smacked in the face with all the times in the past six months that I didn't handle my unexpected plans well. I was prideful... so much so that I was lying on the account that I had been doing well. But I really wasn't. I was challenged with so many thoughts, so many things...that I was exploding. I was in disbelief over all that was happening. None. Seriously. And, on top of that, I had this thought repeating itself, "NO ONE UNDERSTANDS!!!" Oh, how often do we think that? How self-pitiful. How ridiculous.

My point with all of the above is, things don't go as planned. They just don't. They might be "supposed" to go as planned but trust me, Jesus has different plans. It seems like he almost always does. But they are better, those plans grow me- they change me.

Whilst in the sunshine state, the Lord gave me a reminder that I'm never done growing and changing- transforming more and more to his likeness. His likeness is perfect. Even though I desire to be more and more like him everyday, I know that I will never grasp perfection. At least not until the day I reach heaven. I can't wait for that day. Not because I want to be perfect...but because I want nothing more than to be in the perfect presence of my Savior.

(this post was written friday and edited over the weekend :))

As Always,