Time on My Hands

I have what seems to be some time on my hands.  Time that I don't quite know what to do with.  It is after everything else is done.  Work is done, gym and dinner have been sweated out and cooked out.  Errands have been run and my favorite tv shows are over.  I have narrowed it down to roughly 2-3 hours a night that I don't quite know what to do with.  What do I do with this time before I hit the hay?

Should I be out with friends?  Should I be at a community group?

What about taking online classes?  Or picking up a new hobby?

Maybe picking up that phone and calling that friend.

I don't know - they all sound like good ideas to me.

But lately, I haven't been doing any of them.  I have been sitting quiet in my room, piddling around doing this and that.  Reading, cleaning, organizing, lighting candles...just laying low and being quiet.  But underneath the surface it's not so quiet.  I feel discontent.  Discontent with that quiet.  Surely I was made for more than this.  What am I doing wrong?

Why is everyone else out at night with friends and boyfriends and I am not?

Why do I seem to be stuck in mud or better yet - quicksand - and I just can't seem to...seem to...

Seem to find contentment.

Seem to find what I was made for.

Happiness?

I look for it in buying the cutest sweater or getting a new pair of amazingly fitted high-waisted jeans!  I look for it in guys giving me approval that I seem to desperately need.

I just wonder sometimes what do I need to change so that I can be {HAPPY}.

But I know the words to say to myself ~ "Honey, ain't nothing in this world gonna fill that hole in yurn heart but Jesus."

And yes, yes, yes - I know that is true.  With my head I do at least, but it has yet to hit my heart.  Don't you know?  Haven't you heard?  The longest distance and hardest journey of all time is not climbing Everest or swimming across the English Channel or flying a plane over the whole world like Amelia Earhart.  No, the hardest journey is a matter of 12 inches.  The distance from your head to your heart.

So I have {quietly} decided to allow myself this time.  This time of stillness.  And not to quickly fill it with something - even good and lovely things!

Because honestly, my relationship with my first love is sad.  Just plain pitiful.  And maybe this is my Esther moment.  I have been called "to such a time as this".  A time of quietness so that I can get my Lord back on the throne of this one beating heart.

May God meet me in these quiet moments ~    

Camp

Do you feel a need to write down your life?  So you can see it through a different medium?  A different lense?  Are you hoping to make sense out of things that happen in your life?  These past few days, or rather weeks, I cannot get out of my head a phrase I have heard "I write to experience life twice".  Some things I don't want to experience twice but they are dramatic enough that I need to make sense of them.

I just finished working a camp.  For months it was hanging over my shoulders.  I wish I could say I am one of those adventurous girls that would enjoy something like this, but no, I am a girl that enjoys coming home to her room every night to re-fuel to get out again the next day.  I knew camp would stretch me.  I would not have my own room at night.  In fact, I was not sure even how much sleep I would end up getting.  I tried working on my attitude about this camp.  I would say silly quotes to myself like, "We can't stay home all our lives.  We must present ourselves to the world and look upon it as an adventure"{Miss Potter}.

Truth was, camp was challenging.  But even truer is that I don't think I would change a thing going back if I could.  There were many blessings amidst storms.  Many laughs amidst sweat.  Many smiles amidst exhaustion.  And they were not my typical laughs and smiles.  They were new ones, different ones.  Ones that you only experience when you put yourself in a new situation.

So I am thankful.  Thankful for new situations that seem to rub you raw at first but then reveal a new layer of skin you didn't think you had.  And then how this new exposed skin, no matter how small a patch it is, reshapes you and carries you into a future that may not have never happened.

God met me at camp and exposed some "new skin" in my life ~

Quiet Sighing

Some days we don't hear God.  Some days He moves in whispers, or seems to be perfectly quiet.  Other days He moves in us like He did for me in the courtroom.  If God worked like that everyday, then it would be easy to be a Christian.  But we all know that is not the case.  In days where I don't see, or rather feel God's hand on my daily circumstances.  It is then when faith has to kick in and I need to remember these verses:

But He knows the way that I take {Job 23:10}

my sighing is not hidden from You {Psalm 38:9}

You are the God who sees me {Gen 16:13}

I have been quietly, underneath the surface, been fighting a fear of feeling invisible.  That if I am not out with friends, or dating someone, or doing a good job at work (or actually needing all 3 of those things) then I don't feel content with my life.  In fact, I feel like my life is passing me by.

If I am having too many days of monotony; coming home from work, making dinner, reading.  Pretty much just having quiet nights of simple things.  Something stirs in me that I am wasting my life and that I need to get out there!  An unsettled feeling rises in my chest that instead of pushing me to make positive changes, leaves me feeling discontent and somewhat worthless and forgotten.

Somewhat unbeknownst to me, is that I realized these feelings are ultimately my search for happiness.  They are all good things, but my world cannot fall apart if I am not "having it all".  I am just entering into this lesson.  So I don't have any answers yet and I haven't seen how God will meet me here YET.  But I have confidence that as I continue to be honest with Him, He will continue to meet me.  I think Him, even more than me, wants me to live my one life well.

I am trusting that God will meet me here, in His timing ~

A Courtroom Mercy

I was sitting in a courtroom this morning.  For maybe the second time in my life.  I made sure to get there nice and early and as I was waiting my turn, lucky for me I had a book in my purse to read to kill some time.  Shortly into my reading...well in fact in just the second sentence I stumbled across the word "courtroom".  I thought to myself, well now that is kind of ironic given that I am sitting in a courtroom right now, and it's not a very common thing!  It triggered my thoughts to think deeper.  Years ago my mom taught me to be on the look out for little things that God shows you throughout your day.  Whether blessings, or reminders, or glimpses of Him.  So I read, and re-read, and re-re-read the sentence over again.  This is what it said, "When I come to the Lord after I've blown it, I come with only one appeal: His mercy.  I've no other defense.  I can't escape my biggest problem: me!  So I leave the courtroom of my own defense.  Because of what Jesus has done, God looks on me with mercy.  It's my only appeal, it's the source of my hope, it's my life" {Paul David Tripp}. 

I chuckled to myself imaging being in front of the judge in just a couple minutes and him asking how I plead, and I cry "MERCY!".  Oh we know that would not work.  BUT... it works for God. Ahhhh.  How very different the Lord works than what we know here on earth.  On earth, if we violate a traffic law (such as failure to get new registration tags ;) ) then we pay a fine.  Mercy is so very contrary to what we know as humans.  That is why we need to think on it often. 

Back to the courtroom. My name was called and I gathered my courage and walked forward; passing many others sitting and waiting their turn.  I was ready to raise my right hand and plead GUILTY!  However, the judge only asked if I corrected my mistake.  I opened my mouth to speak in agreement and my voice was much softer than I knew it to be.  I guess I was more nervous than I thought.  The judge had the warmest eyes and through watching others take their turn at the stand, I acknowledged that he was also the nicest judge I had ever seen.

Needless to say, the judge let me off.  No fine, no slap on the wrist, no penalty.  Even though I was clearly guilty.  I was thankful.  This judge was merciful to me this time...but my only true judge is merciful to me ALWAYS. 

God met me in the courtroom today ~

Who Holds the Key?

I am learning that when something is lingering in my soul and mind...it is most likely there for a reason.  For instance, I have been reading Streams In the Desert just about every morning for a couple months now (For those of you who haven't heard of it, it is an excellent devotional book to help you through difficult times - which let's be honest, can seem to be quite often).  Yesterday's reading was about a man who asked God for the key to control the wind.  God gave it to him, but the man gave it right back because he was afraid if he shut the wind off, it would cause some detrimental affect to the earth that he didn't know about.  Well as the man handed the key back to God, he saw that God was holding all the keys of his life.  He recognized that if God knew what was best for the wind and the earth, then He most certainly knew what was best for his life and that He could trust Him.

We can trust the one that holds the keys to our life, our families, our earth's, our atmosphere, our universe.  God knows what is best - and sometimes it feels like He doesn't.  But alas God says, "“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,  neither are your ways my ways,” {Is 55:8}

We can trust the One that holds all the keys to our life in His very own nail-scarred hands.  If He loves us enough to DIE for us, then certainly He loves us enough to care about each and every little thing going on in our lives.  Don't let Satan fool you.  Satan hisses in your ear that God doesn't hear you, that He doesn't care, that He has no significant plans for you, that you are worthless, or that you will always be alone.  Tie Satan to the ground and don't let him hiss at you anymore.

This is where God met me yesterday evening ~

I suppose my first blog post should have been reserved for the purpose of explaining this blog and what the title, "Angel on the Porch" means.  Well, the title is nothing I made up; it's lyrics from Needtobreathe's latest album: The Reckoning.  I like the concept of "maybe there's an angel on my porch".  Despite the chaos, the mess, the laughter, the tears, the good times and bad times - there is an angel on the porch...guarding, protecting, guiding.  So that is what this blog is.  A place for me to recognize my Angel on my very own porch despite what appears to be the messes I make throughout my days.

This is where I want to meet God ~

Today, I listened as 4 college students gave testimony to God's grace in their lives besides having made a very foolish decision that resulted in one of their friend's death.  I have always thought of God's grace being granted to us when bad things happen to us.  But what about God's grace when we do bad things or stupid things or foolish things?  Is there grace for us when we fail someone?  And not just when someone has failed us?  Is there grace for us when we have hurt someone?

I needed grace today for a decision that I have made that has hurt others.  I prayed for it on my way to work.  And God gave me grace through these 4 college students sharing their testimony.  God reaches down and touches us, hugs us, loves us, even when we show our glaring faults and weaknesses.

This is where God met me today ~