The Grand Scheme.

Life is so full to bursting and exciting and it makes me fill so alive. I mean, I am alive, but you know what I am trying to say. Life is nothing I planned and everything God planned and what else could possibly be better? Nothing. Nothing could be better. There is nowhere else is more preciously terrifying and yet so beautiful at the same time. God is all good.

An Unexpected Answer.

One thing I have been missing since my life become a whirlwind of adventure is working with pre-teens and teenagers. I worked in youth groups in several churches over the years not to count camps and volunteer programs and love the joy I get out of seeing their faces when they realize they are special to someone. I love seeing how although I was their age years ago we struggled with similar things. I truly feel a huge purpose of my life is in working with this special age group and I think I have finally found an opportunity again. We live in a apartment complex full of kids and a lot of them are teens. I have only known some of them days and already they have started sharing painful parts of their lives with me. So many of them come from families of divorce. They have step parents and step siblings. They bounce from house to house never really having a stable family anywhere and it shows. They always look confused and are constantly caught in between the parents and their arguments. I think divorce is the true destroyer of the sanctity of marriage and the family unit. Their parents marriage is supposed to be the first way children are taught to learn love and healthy relationships. I have never seen a successful divorce. I have been wondering where my place is now that I am no longer single and I will be home most of the time(so unlike my life before where a home was optional as I was in a different place often) and God has answered that prayer. He opened my eyes yesterday to the opportunity I have here to invest in these young lives. They seem so at peace when they come to our house where they are listened to, where there is no yelling or violence, and where they can find a quiet place where they can hear themselves think. I am excited about this new opportunity to invest!

Growing.

Today, I am thankful for the chance to grow as a person. Life used to be mine. I lived alone, supported myself. handled my finances, made plans for me and now that has changed. I am a wife now. It is no longer my life but our life. It is no longer my pans but our plans. The thought of having to learn to share a life with someone else used to scare me, but I love it. It causes you to grow and stretch. It allows me to shave off the parts of me that may have been selfish, self-centered, or biased and embrace things that are foreign and difficult. I have always been someone who doesn't let the fear of something new hold me back though. The longing to see what is in the water has always motivated me to dive off  the cliff. Being married is like always having a mirror into your heart. It shows the true you. I guess a lot of marriages might not work because honestly, the first time I noticed the mirror I realized I was not as good or unselfish as I thought. It is easy to want to point out the other persons flaws or blame them for the negative we see in ourselves but the blame game never works. Love becomes so different from those crushes, high school dates, and even adult romances. Love become determination to commit, the willingness to be wrong, the opportunity to grow, the ability to share yourself completely with someone unhindered and without restrictions. It is awfully wonderful and beautifully messy and there will never be anything else like it. And so here is my life at the moment with my new name. Callie Blue has a nice ring to it I think, sounds like a writer.

Not Having My Way.

Life has been so full of unexpectedness the past couple years. It seems as soon as one surprise comes along, before I can adjust another one sweeps in, but I love it. I have learned over the years to become adaptable, to embrace change and newness and growth. In less than 3 months I will be a wife and a new branch of life will be appearing. I don't think a single thing about how I originally planned my life has happened and I wouldn't change that for anything. Life has become exactly what it was meant to be. I have matured a lot these past few years and become who I was supposed to be. So, cheers to all the changes that will be happening soon. I look forward to them all!

Quiet Times.

I had decided recently to start reading through the Gospels again trying to see everything through fresh eyes. I just started Matthew and I am at the part where Jesus is calling the first disciples when something pops at me. They just followed him. We so often ask God what His plan or purpose for us is and what He wants us doing, but what if all He wants if for us to, at first, simply follow Him? Maybe He wants us to get out of the all that we know life we are living and before asking questions or trying to see ahead, maybe He just wants us to follow. The rest will come. He has so much He wants us to see, but we can't see it if we stay in our comfortableness just asking questions and trying to pack for the trip. Just go. The rest will come.

Tight Spaces.

The last few years I have felt my personal space shrink smaller and smaller. I went form my own small apartment to a room to call my own to only a car to call my own. Life got smaller and smaller, but I grew even in the small space. I learned how attached we as humans get to objects and learned how to let go. I learned how to go from a quiet home to sharing houses with many different people. I learned how precious peace and quiet becomes when you normally live in noise. And I learned a lot about myself. I learned I am far from mature in patience. I learned I have far to go in the loving the hard to love people that come into my life. God doesn't have to shout out the areas I need to grow in, He simply shows them to me with a gentle glance. So, I have a long ways to go but life is good because I continue to grow and Jesus never leaves me.