Baptisms

It makes you excited for these people who have a new life in Christ. It also makes you recollect your own Baptisms. Mine was after Guatemala(parasite) and my rocky fiance'ed relationship. The thing that they don't tell you is at times it'll get worse and then it'll get better. I think this past year has made me question my relationship with God in so many different ways. Not if He's real or if my relationship is fake, it's questioning Where is He? Does He not see my good work? What I am doing day to day in the classroom? Did He see me busting my butt losing weight and changing my body? Where was He when I woke up with the worst anxiety attacks and didn't want to get out of the house? And if I am being honest with myself, than where was "Atta' Girl" or Good Job in the least with my job this year?

And so today's sermon spoke to my heart, my core today and I didn't start crying until the Benediction. Gos is wit us in everything that we do. Even if He seems so silent and so distant.
Someone spoke today saying, "You can't follow Jesus if you don't let everything go." And what I am thinking about is all that I have been holding onto. All of this control in: My finances. How much a failure I feel when I can't pay my bills even though they are mostly from credit cards and it's not like I don't work, I work so much as to say that I need a cushion or a "real reason" that I have got money problems. I am grasping control over my future husband. Wherever he is and why I haven't met him yet. And how I feel the need to type that I don't have a wedding dress sitting in my closet or am rude to others when they speak about a wedding/or having a baby.

It was said today at church that God took care of Jesus and His men when they were in the wilderness. They were always clothes and fed. Even when I have felt like I have been in the wilderness, I have always had clothes, food, and a roof over my head. And so comes the what do I do while I feel like I am in the wilderness. In the past I have done the opposite of what to do. Binged ate and gain all of my weight back? Spend more money on stupid things b/c I am already in debt? Or how about carve out real time with Him like I am doing right now at Starbucks? To relish in the quiet time and to read books that bring me closer to Him? To eat what I have in my kitchen and to not eat out at all? This scripture was talked about at church today.

2 Corinthians 4:17
For this light momentarily affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of GLORY beyond all comparison.

We are crowned with GLORY. That God is with us all of the time, even if I can't see or feel Him at all. I do the things I do, I am kind so hat even if I never get those recognitions, when I pass and God is in front of me, HE will say, "Christine, Well Done. Well Done Christine."