Just thinking...

I've been systematically taking down my to-do list today. Cleaning up piles. Putting things away. Catching up on the old. Jumping into new tasks. Like church internship-type things. I've had a pile of papers that I've been moving from here to there, but barely making a much-needed scratch in when it comes to actually reading them. I think a part of it is, I'm out of practice; after all, I haven't been in school for the last few years, "homework" feels just a little bit foreign to me right now. I think another part of me is slightly afraid: what if, because I'm out of practice at all this ministry stuff, I don't have what it takes anymore? What if I never did in the first place? I've been a little bit haunted by these questions lately, as I see friends and what's going on in their lives and look at my own. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm truly happy with my life--I love what I do, I love the people I have around me, I'm excited to see what the future holds! But sometimes I wonder...am I missing something, could life hold something more than what I've settled for? And if it does, how do I get there?

I've got to stop comparing myself with the people around me, it never comes to anything good. After all, life doesn't follow a specific pattern for everyone, does it? And that's good, that's exciting. I'm excited to see what the future holds for me down the road, because I know that God's going to keep holding me through it all. In the meantime, I just need to keep being faithful. And flexing my slightly out-of-shape ministry muscles...

¹ O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

⁵ You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, ^a]">[a] you are there.

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

¹⁷ How precious to ^b]">[b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

[Psalm 139]