God, I need you!

How many times have you heard me cry out 

"God please take this!"?

How many times have you given me strength to 

Just keep breathing?

Oh I need you

God, I need you now!*

I'm singing these words with all of my heart over and over as I wash dishes. The house is empty as everyone else is at church so I keep replaying the song. "God, I need you now!" I'm silently crying out for strength. 

Last night I realized something again as I drove home alone, begging God to keep me awake and bring me safely home; God, I need you! As I worked to stay between the lines pretty much alone on the road, I had a conversation with God that went like this, 

 

Me: What if I died tonight? But God has plans for my life, He wouldn't let me die yet, and the baby, He has a reason for bringing my baby into this world. My time isn't now. God, You wouldn't let me die yet. What about that one person that I feel You're wanting me to share You with?

God: Anna, You think I NEED you to make my plans work out? If I can bring you into their life, I can bring someone else!

Wow! That realization brought me back down to Earth real quick. God doesn't NEED me! I might be blessed enough to be a part of His plans for someone's life, but it's not about me! It's about Him! He doesn't NEED any of us! So just because I strongly feel that God has a plan for my life, I don't know what that is and it doesn't mean that He needs me! It doesn't mean that He needs me here! I realized that God could use my death as much as my life to touch people. And I had to come to the point where as much as I want to live, I want to see my baby and my grandchildren, I want to see what happens with my life. God's plan is the best plan and if He is going to use my life or if He is going to use my death, I'm okay with that. I get so prideful thinking I'm something special, I'm not! 

I've had several people who I've shared with, my struggles and what I'm learning through trusting God and giving up, telling me I've been an encouragement to them. This is so humbling and exciting to me. The fact that I screwed up the first eighteen years of my life story struggling to find something to fill up the emptiness, trying to make the story a good one, and finally when I've got writers block so bad, I can see the story is a mess and never will be any good as long as I keep writing it. I lay down the pen and God steps in and says see all these mistakes? See everything about this story that you think is a failure? I'm going to take these pages and I'm going to make this story amazing beyond your wildest imagination. I'm going to take the scars and your broken dreams and turn them into something so beautiful you could never have dreamed up something this wonderful. The fact that God turns my deepest struggles, my weakness into something that can be a testimony for Him is beyond me.

And He never gives up on us! That's the thing that amazes me most about His love. No matter how bad we screw up, how many times we get turned around or fail, He's always there for us waiting like the father of the prodigal son, waiting with welcoming arms and forgiveness, unconditional love regardless of what we have done. A friend shared this verse with me this week;

 "Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we disown Him, He will also disown us; if we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself!" -2 Timothy 2:11-13  

The part I underlined, ...if we are faithless, He will remain faithful... really stuck out to me. No matter who we are or how much we sin, God remains the same!  

I want so bad to be consumed by Him! Passionately follow Him and shine His love to the world. I don't want to be half way in, lukewarm or mediocre I want to be on fire and one with Him! When I was praying about this, asking God to let me be a testimony to the world, He showed me that if we want to be trusted with God's big jobs, we have to learn to be faithful in the small things. In order to love the world, I have to start right here with my little corner. His greatest lessons, His boot camp starts right here with my family. The people who know me and my imperfections and who I know their's. If I can learn to love and serve the people right here surrounding me right now, my brothers and my sisters, if I can love and respect my parents, God can use me to touch the world. I'm looking for a mission and I already have one right here, my friends need to hear about God as much as anyone, and my family needs love just as much as anyone else out there. 

He is so good! So patient and loving. Forgiving, giving me grace again and again as I lose faith, stumble in this journey and mess up. The grace and love He has shown me, just in this last week amazes me! I am so thankful for hope and forgiveness! 

*The lyrics that started this post off are from  Need You Now (How Many Times) by Plumb. 

Worshiping People and Trusting God

     Last July I met a guy. I'm pretty sure I was in love with him by the second time I hung out with him. Every text gave me butterflies. I'd be walking through the halls at college grinning like an idiot reading his texts. I'd count down the hours until he got off work, or until I got out of class and I could go hang out with him. I didn't get that long with him before he went back home to visit and a situation came up.
     After a month of having no possible contact with him, he facebooked me. Eventually he came back for a visit with his parents and I got to see him. I was so excited and nervous, but at that point I had changed, I had been dealing with people, things, I had convinced myself of things and opening back up to him terrified me. I think he wanted a relationship. I told him I wasn't ready.
     I was on and off with different guys, hookups mainly, nothing serious. All the time still thinking about him, occasionally we kept in contact. I lost his number at some point, one of the many times I changed phones.
     In December he got a girlfriend. I was pretty lost. I had a hookup at that point but it still hurt watching him date someone else even if we never talked. But I was happy for him, hoping she was good to him.
     There had been so many times that I wanted to facebook him, see how he was, but I didn't wanna open that book back up.
     On a chance a few months later, in a moment of weakness, I messaged him and he responded. We talked, catching up a bit, I found out he didn't have a girlfriend anymore and silently rejoiced. I tried going to see him once recently and it didn't work. But the next time it did. I spent almost a solid twenty four hours with him. The best twenty four hours I had ever spent.
     Anyone who knows me well, knows I think marriage is stupid. In fact I never planned to get married before that weekend with him. Commitment terrifies me. I figured I'd find a nice guy eventually I could live with and settle down but never say "I do". I came back from seeing him, realizing two things, what I had been saying all along about always loving him no matter what, was true. And I wanted to get married... to him.
     A couple of years ago I realized that being "on the fence" wasn't okay, I had to get down on God's side or the world's side. I got down on the world's side. Since then I've fought the feelings that I needed God and I needed to change my life around. Until about a month ago, I couldn't sleep for anything and "What if you die tonight?" was nagging in my mind "There's no guarantee you'll wake up if you fall asleep right now." The thought finally sunk in and I gave up fighting. I told God He would have to do the work but my life was His.
     Weeks before this though, I had been struggling hard with this and I asked God to give me something to help me because I couldn't give up smoking and drinking on my own and I felt like those were two things that had to go for me to change. I had to have something keeping me away from partying with the friends I had.
      Don't bargain with God! lol After weeks of 'just knowing' I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. Within two days I quit smoking and I had already been unable to drink. My body wouldn't tolerate the alcohol so I quit partying. It was only a week or two after this that I gave in to God.
     Long bunny trail done.
     Since I got home from seeing this guy the last time, I have talked nonstop about him. This time, he was the one that said he didn't want a relationship, we could talk, be friends, he just didn't want a long distance relationship at this point. I feel like there's more that factors into that and I understand but it doesn't help.    
     After fighting off depression for a couple of days, I started praying about it. I have begged God to take these feelings away from me. I've asked that He'd make a way for us to be together... if it was His will. (I'm done asking for things in MY will as hard as it is not to.)
     Today was especially rough. I broke down talking to mom about it.
     "I have never felt like this about anyone. If he showed up and asked me to marry him, I wouldn't hesitate a moment! I'm so afraid for him. I keep praying about it, and praying that God would send someone to tell him about God and I keep feeling like God is telling me it's me!" I was having a hard time talking through tears. "I'm so terrified, I'm not okay with that. I'm hardly coming back to God myself I don't know how to talk to him!" Talking to her helped a bit.
     Later I was talking to a guy friend though, he's in a situation pretty much the same as mine. I felt terrible talking to him, when he had mentioned it to me earlier in the week I'd brushed it off, hardly sympathetic. He always seemed to be in these situations, it would pass.
     And then here I was in this situation, sobbing so hard I kept having to take deep breaths and long pauses to be able to talk and he kept telling me it was okay. I managed to get it all out, just talking, stringing words and thoughts together I hardly knew were there in my mind and had no clue if they made sense but he understood and after listening until I was all talked out his advice was to be patient.
     "If something's worth having, it's worth waiting for." He told me. The thing that stuck out most to me in what he said, that kind of put the whole situation into a different perspective for me, was that sometimes God doesn't allow us to have something because it's become an idol to us, we love it more than Him and He doesn't want anything between a relationship with us and only when we can love God more than that person or thing, will He give it to us.
     Words scrawled in one of my last diary entries;
     I'm so in love with everything he is, everything he does. I absolutely adore him. To love him the rest of my life would make me perfectly happy. I'd do anything for him. I love him!
     When he said that, I realized that I was dangerously close to making this man my idol, loving him and wanting a relationship with him more than my new relationship with God.
     I have no doubt that this man may be a big part of my future. Either way I know that he is in my life for a reason.
     God can see the whole picture. God sees my future, He knows what the outcome of my life is going to be. I don't. I can only see today. I'm a fragile human. Like Peter when he tried to walk to Jesus on the water, I'm quick to jump out of the "boat" and "walk to Jesus" but I'm also quick to second guess and be afraid. I've always tried to control my world, to make it safe, write my own story. Giving it to God saying "If it's you're will." is hard! But so far, nearly eighteen years of writing my own story has shown me I'm not a very good author.
     Realizing that God's timing is perfect and if this is His will, it will happen in His time and it will be beautiful gave me peace tonight. Giving it up to Him seems so hard, letting go of control, but in the end the peace makes me wonder why I didn't trust God sooner. And now instead of praying "God please let me have him if it's Your will." my prayer is "God please help me to give him up unless it is Your will and in Your time."