Moving On

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I'd like to say Happy Birthday to my mom.  I think she is 39 today.  Or was it 37?  I can never remember.  Love you mom!

I finished Something Borrowed two days ago.  Essentially, I read it in 2.5 days.  Suffice it to say, I liked it.  It was well-written, funny, heartwarming, romantic but not mushy.  It was a great book.  It was a bit of a surprise to me to find that there is another book, called Something Blue, that includes some of the same characters from Something Borrowed, so I will be eager to find and read that as well.

I began Water For Elephants yesterday and am 1/4th of the way through it.  It also is well-written and the story is interesting, or I'd have trouble continuing to read it.  My friend Michelle, our local Macaroni Kid publisher, loaned me Heaven Is For Real.  While I haven't read it yet, my soon-to-be 11 year old, Katherine picked it up that day and finished it the next night!  Apparently she saw it on her teacher's desk and asked her teacher what it was about.  When she saw I had it, she said "Oh I was wanting to read that!"  I love that ALL of the kids have a passion for reading.  Kaleb is secretive about his, and if he found out that I told you this, he would adamantly refuse to read for the next year!  So don't tell him that I said he loves to read! ;-)

Going back to the title of this post, have you ever found yourself at a crossroads?  A point in your life where you know that you have to make a choice?  I'm not talking about a decision on whether you should or should not have bacon for dinner for the fifth night in a row, though that does rank pretty high for me.  I'm talking about the real heavy stuff.  Life changing decisions.  Depending on the path you choose, you won't always know for sure if you have made the right decision or not until you've chosen the direction.

For Christians, you would think that this would make the decision-making process easier.  I can assure you it does not.  Especially when the decision you have to make comes to topics like change, surrender, trust.  What if the decision is to stop holding back and surrender whatever it is that you are holding onto so tightly?  What if it is something that will physically cause you pain to let go of?  What if the consequences of making a change or choosing to trust God with ALL of you is hard?  I don't know about you, but I HATE hard.  I hate making choices that will cause pain (primarily to myself, as I am admittedly very selfish) or will leave me in emotional turmoil.  Even if you know that the end result will be worth it, it doesn't make surrendering any easier.  And when you are unsure of whether it will be worth it, it makes it even harder.

I don't know that I have ever really trusted God with ALL of me.  I'm talking about those things that shape who I am, or at least, who I THINK that I am.  I'm very insecure.  I need praise.  I am extremely self-conscious and not very confident in many areas of my life.  And I have never learned how to "go to God" for security in those things.  I have never really surrendered the things I hate about myself to God.  Some of what I am thinking about has to do with physical attributes.  Some is emotional.  I know that I have a flawed view of myself.  That I don't see myself the way that God sees me, and that I most certainly do not see myself the way that Kris may see me.  You see, even now, I can't say with certainty that I really know how Kris sees me.  He's a good, good man.  But he has trouble expressing himself.  You combine that with my need to HEAR how he feels about me, and my 32 year inability to surrender that to God and we have a problem.

This has been weighing on me a lot lately.  I'm going to a women's retreat this weekend, which is so NOT my "cup of tea".  I've been dreading it actually, ever since Kris suggested that I go; then he had the nerve to go ahead and PAY for me to go, so I had no choice.  I have a few friends that are going, which so far is my only solace.  The fact that Beth Moore is somehow involved leaves me leery.  I have issues with Beth Moore.  Not her theology. Not her books per se.  I just clash with her (i.e. she annoys me) and so I'm not fond of her studies and the like.  But I'm sucking it up and going anyway, primarily at the urging of Kris (and the fact that he paid for it) and my relentless friend Kim, who shall remain nameless.  Oops.

I don't know what the weekend will hold for me.  But I feel like I am at this crossroads where I have to choose NOW, before the retreat, whether or not I am going to surrender that part of my life that I cling to so dearly.  It may sound absurd, but something is stirring within me...and I know with certainty that a choice has to be made.  And it terrifies me.  It could change everything.  And I don't like change.  I feel like ending this here just leaves everything hanging in the balance.  But that's how I am feeling and so I think it is only appropriate.