Praise, Beauty, Love

The weeks are flying. I have been lucky enough to spend my days in Indiana, because I have been unlucky enough to be laid off in Boston. The time has been used to do some house renovations for Scott's brother, catch up with old friends, help paint my sis's new house, finish some old projects and start some new ones, read some great books, work on my thesis and just soak up extra time with family. By the time I drive back to Boston in a week or so, I will have been away from home for over three months, being that November 15 - Decemeber 15 was spent working on an island in Maine! I didn't know it, but I desperately needed the break away from what had become mundane. It has been a time of working on me, and what I want my focuses to be this year. Which brings me to Lent.

Last year, admittedly, I bit off more than I could chew (or less, technically speaking) in my efforts to focus on Christ and His sacrifice for me. And instead of coming away from the season renewed or refocused, I came away feeling failure. I want so badly for the Easter season to spill over into the rest of my year. Right now, I'm reading three different books: Power in Praise, Captivating and Crazy Love. Its very interesting how they are dovetailing together, for me anyway. Because these are the three things I want to focus on right now: Giving thanks and praise for absolutely everything in my life. Things you wouldn't want to be thankful for, like the unbelief or addictions of good friends. God is using these situations to work out His will for their lives and bring them to Himself. Renouncing my wounds and the lies that I have "accepted" about myself and asking Christ to allow my beauty to point to His own. And finally, less about me and more about God. I'm a 2/5 of a second 'blip' on the screen of His history of mankind. His name comes up over and over and over again in Scripture, not mine. It doesn't matter who I married, what school I went to, what kind of job I got, or what kind of house I live in. In a hundred years, no one will remember me, and everyone I know will be gone too (this is a paraphrase from Francis Chan) But what am I doing now that will last?

I hope your days are filled with the eternal, rather than the mundane. What have your thoughts about life been lately?