thoughts.

thoughts.  i joke that sometimes that's all i'm good for.  i don't always come to a conclusion, but i've got lots of random thoughts/ideas/questions flowing through my head.  given that, i do know this - if my thoughts don't get out of my head, they just sit there and simmer and create this mixed-up jumbled up mess.  ha, but seriously.  something happens when they get out, whether written on paper or spoken to someone else.  i'm not sure if it's the exchange or give and take of words or questions, or the process of the thoughts making it from my brain to the outside world, but something happens.  and, as i write tonight, i think about how i need to do more of this.  blogging, talking, thinking, praying, journaling, questioning, processing - i want this all to happen.  more.  because i need it.  this is how and who god has designed me to be.  this is how my brain and heart work.  so, as i've questioned this whole blogging thing and purposes for it, i've come away with this - i need it.  something happens when i sit at my computer and type away.  something worthwhile, that i'm wanting to connect to again.  and, for me, even if it's weird to admit, i think that's enough.  so, without further adieu, here are some thoughts of late...

joy.
choose joy.  it's a thought of late, especially after a rmc women's retreat a month or so ago.  sometimes we don't want to choose joy, and life circumstances don't lend us to doing so, but god still calls us to choose joy and even be thankful.  and, i'd like to think i've done a good job of this in years past, but for whatever reason, it isn't the case now.  but, it is what it is.  win some and you lose some, right?  so, with that, i'll take the refresher course on joy.  and get on choosing it.

rest.
my how i need it.  and, my how i run to broken places/things to find it all too often.  if i've learned one thing from the busyness and stress of the spring/summer, it is that i need rest, and i need to make time for it and get it done.  it can mean riding my bike in the beauty outside or choosing to spend 15 minutes journaling instead of going to sleep.  it's simple, i know.  not rocket science here.  but, i don't always want to find it.  the true rest.  rest in jesus.  and rest in who he is, not in what i can do or have done or should do, or what i think i need or want or hope.  but, rest in him.  and to be rejuvenated and refueled by that kind of rest, even if it's active and more required energy than i really want.  but, `as my like-minded friend catherine and i joked, we never want to sit down and process or journal - it always seems like too much work.  but, once we do, we realize how needed it is.  for our brains to get things out and figured out, but also to process things through with our lover and creator and giver of every good thing.

contentment.
in a sense, birmingham hasn't been quite what i've expected it to be.  and, there's lots of layers to that.  but, what i do know is that it's been a bit harder/more difficult than expected.  and, given that, i'm much thankful for reminders and truth of who god is, even in the midst of my whatever you wanna call it.  god is still god, even in the midst of the wilderness.  in fact, in jeremiah 29, we see how he actually sends his people into exile.  say, what?  god really did that?  even in genesis too, moses asks pharoah to release the israelites so they can worship god in the wilderness.  mind blown again.  i know god is sovereign, but he would actually send his people into exile?  into the wilderness?  does that mean he's sovereign even if i'm in a type of wilderness (as i don't have a better name for it, where life is okay, just maybe not quite 100% "everything is awesome")?  well, scripture says the answer is yes.  yes and yes.  he's the same god.  so, be content here samchok.  find joy and rest even here.  as he's sovereign.  even bloom and grow here.  yes.

"Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease."

Jeremiah 29:4-6

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. And you shall say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.”

Genesis 7:14-16