ramble alert

"the best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer somebody else up."

mark twain

and on that note, the best way to cheer anybody up is naturally through cookies.  chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter, m&m cookies that is.  thanks to a beautiful cookbook wedding present from an even more beautiful friend, i've got gorgeous glossy pages to pour over which will inevitably inspire messes in our kitchen & happiness in our bellies. 

we brought some of these monster cookies to our young married's bible study last night, and everyone graciously indulged.  thankfully, we are slowly but surely gaining more & more friends to bake for. between coworkers, classmates, and a new church community, ross and i no longer have an excuse to split a whole batch between ourselves. unless they aren't good enough to share, of course...

anyway, one perk of working a job like mine is all the random days off.  since i worked all day saturday and sunday too, my weekend came on tuesday & wednesday this week.  i indulged in several of my vices, like baking (mostly so that i could snack on cookie dough), watching a whole disk of felicity (season 4-senior year, soo good), sleeping in, roaming through craft store isles, and {in the interest of honesty} playing on blogger. 

but free time here also offers a chance to escape into my newly discovered and already beloved world of jane ayre, study for the GRE, and spend quality time in my studio.  and by studio, i of course mean the floor...  

it's a big adjustment between my life now and the life i led at baylor the past 4 years.  every hour of the day was jam-packed with class, meetings, intramural games, bear trail dates, study parties, sing practices, picnics, service opporitunities, happy hours, and countless hours to bask in our community on our couches.  life was go, go, go all the time... those were the days.  but just like God taught me volumes while at Baylor, there is still much to learn through countless new means and methods. 

ross and i are thankfully very blessed with old and new friends here, but it's not like living on 10th street with 3 other girls & a million friends less than 5 minutes away. so even if i keep busy and set up lunch dates & dinner plans, my thoughts are what keep me company during the day. it's weird to be alone so much. to be still.  maybe i just need to pray for more courage to explore and open new doors.  in the words of my former pastor's benediction, to "go out into the world in peace, hold on to what is good. help the suffering, support the weak, honor everyone..." learning how to wait for God's plan to be revealed, but also have the boldness to seek and find it. 

i'm incredibly grateful that the other day at sbucks a girl had been in tune enough with the holy spirit to act upon what God was telling her to share with me.  her apparent dedication to Christ was beneficial to her because of how, at least in our interaction, she could share love with another child of God. 

 

"The LORD will fight for you, you need only be still." Exodus 14:14

so, in a very round about way, i guess i'm trying to get out of my head and start being a still, quiet listener of God; to try and get out of the way.  He had to go through a complete stranger at sbucks to get my attention and to finally calm my soul.  all the time i spent agonizing about my situation was time i could have been listening to His message on how to better love Ross, my neighbors, friends, and even strangers.  there are so many people are there to love & lift up, how can we waste time on worrying about ourselves?

what i'm really trying to say is: thank you to everyone for all your encouragement. especially to ross, who constantly tells me all the time how proud he is of me (for what, i do not know). the past few months have been incredibly full of transitions and question marks, but God is still good.  He has a plan for all of us, and i have a pretty good feeling that said plans include abundant encouragement.