Try & Try again

I tried really hard this week to be better at doing something-anything!
There were only a few days this week I wasted most of my day by sleeping (hey, I didn't get home from work until 1 am some nights & had to wash my car-read previous posts)

But I tried. On one day I didn't know what to do with myself. So I cleaned up a little around the house. When I do stay awake & don't go back to sleep after dropping Noah off at school I realize how much time there is in a day! Its like a revelation!!!

I did do a lot of thinking this week about life & spirituality. I know, heavy topic! I watched the MC kids come & pray over my neighborhood & felt good all over that they came to my neighborhood. Ok maybe Chipo had something to do with that, but maybe not! (funny story--when I told James, Hey guess who was prayer walking the neighborhood today? He goes, Neighbor lady? no james, but good guess!)

Anyway...
I got to thinking about how far I've come & how far I've watched a lot of my friends come spiritually. It made me think about how growing in Christ is just like going to school.

First we all start out in preschool where we are introduced to the idea of school, but its mostly playtime. Thats how a lot of us came to Christ, just dabbling in the idea of Him & maybe going to youth group with friends.
Then after we get saved its like Kindergarten. We are So excited for school & to learn new things. Which is how a lot of our initial salvations start out. We are so hungry for God & to learn all we can about Him.
Then time goes on & we continue thru school. Then we hit middle school. (I did middle school) Middle school isn't exactly fun. When I was in middle school our 2 elementary schools merged into one & it was a tough transition. All of a sudden your friends are not friends anymore & clicks start to become apparant & seperations are known.
I think church can be like that a lot too. We think people are better then others or holier then others & we're intimidated and start to judge. I'm no exception.
Comparison of the faithful is how I like to dub it.
Its the immaturity of our walk with Christ that starts to show.
And this is probably a time when our faith might start to look & feel lukewarm.

Then we hit high school & we start to grow up. Our faith might be the same way too. We start to explore our faith a little more, maybe test it here & there. God might start to push us into situations we are not familiar with during this time too. We test him & he tests us.

Eventually we all graduate & maybe move onto college. This is the time when we lose a lot of friendships because of distance & because that is just how it works...
In our walks with Christ its the same way. We might see those who drop out of school (back slide) or just completely disappear from our lives.
During college we might try to reinvent ourselves & "find ourselves."
Our walks might mirror that as well.
We might try to find ourselves by looking for other things to fill that hole in our lives made for God.

But somewhere along the way we grow up & "get it." We finally come to conclusion that, "hey this God stuff is for me." And we read our bibles more & talk about God in our conversations. But mainly, we just start searching for something more or maybe not even search it out but it just clicks. Its like we just know that this will fill that hole in our lives & we want to live it.

That is how I've really been seeing my friends around me lately and in my own life. Somewhere along the way it just stuck & I didn't want to turn back. Yes, its been a lot harder lately, but if it was easy then more people would be Christians!
Change is good.
Change means there is growth & newness. And thats what I want for not just my own life, but the people around me.
Its really neat to be able to see people come from where they were to where they are.

I'm glad I'm "growing Up." Obviously its about time! I'm not getting any younger!
There is still going to be some growing pains so I hope you can bear with me thru it! But it'll be a fun ride! And I'm excited to see you all grow too...