Happy Sunny Saturday!

Wow, it's Saturday afternoon... of a THREE DAY WEEKEND! :) And I only work 1.75 days next week! OK, well, I'm doing church stuff, too, but... work work I only do a little bit because Jenni's coming! :) Should be fun!

In my small group we always have these GREAT discussions and come up with some great understanding of the Scriptures and what God is saying. We find ways to apply the Word to our lives and are, more often than not, amazed at what God does, says, and has for us. It's incredible. And I realized that I've been missing that in my own life... in preparation for Sundays I know the section of Scripture but I don't "wrestle" with it as I should. So for tomorrows message I took out all the headings and the chapter notations and printed the area out and started reading. Then I got stuck on a verse, thinking, "What the heck does that mean?!" So I read it. And re-read it. And read the context. And re-read the context. And tried to figure out what the readers would think when they heard it. And re-read it. And then I read it out loud because it wasn't making any sense (can you tell?). And then I read it with a different inflection in my voice and... I understood. So I re-read it just to make sure. Phenomenal. Did you know that God is bigger than our hearts? (Yeah, I got stuck there, too... Duh, our hearts only weigh a couple pounds and they're not that big and... yeah.) We don't have to trust what our hearts/feelings/flesh say about ourselves. God is BIGGER than that. If your heart makes you insecure, feel alone, afraid, whatever... GOD IS BIGGER THAN THAT! We have to trust HIM, not our own perceptions of things. We show our love for God and others by our actions--that's how we know we belong to HIM (the truth) and we can "set our hearts at rest in his presence when our hearts condemn us." Even when our hearts say anything that's not remotely truth, we can leave that and be at rest with Him because He is greater than our hearts and he knows everything.

I've been wrestling with a few things in my own life lately--things tucked reallllly deep inside that I've never really let out or even really knew were there. God's given me some instruction and loving here, and this verse gives me so much freedom. I am FREE from my own thoughts about me or... whatever. HIS thoughts are what I should have and THOSE are the ones I can embrace.

OK... I just emptied out my car and cleaned the inside a bit (dashboard, etc.). I'm hoping to get an oil change tomorrow after church. I'm due for one and would like to have it before I start driving all around the state next week. Plus, they'll vacuum for me! :) Then either tomorrow or monday I'd like to wash the car--it's pretty dirty. That would make me feel pretty good about driving around! :)

All right, it's time to go back to either my car, cross-stitch/movie, the kitchen, the bathroom, sermon, singing, my room, a game... yeah. there are a few options. Adios!