Growing up

I remember having sleepovers where my friends and I planned our weddings and kids out with barbies. I remember playing house and pretending to cook and clean. I also remember when I was young enough to say "When I grow up, I want to be....". And fill in the blank. I can remember being 10, wishing I was a teenager, and I remember being 16, wishing I was old enough to stay out past 11 pm. I remember when I didn't know what the word gay meant and I despised news channels like CNN and Fox News. I remember when Daddy blocked MTV. And I remember watching it at friends' houses because I was curious.

Things have changed. Now, my friends really are planning weddings and kids, and I really do cook (kind of?) and clean. Now, I'm still learning what I want to be "when I grow up", and it's a matter of following God. Now, I don't want to lose my youth and I don't want to ever have another birthday. Now, I'm fully aware of what gay means and never thought there would ever be such a thing as legal gay marriage. I want to keep up with the news and what's going on with the world so I sit and watch CNN and Fox News on Saturday nights. I don't prefer MTV, but I do like The Hills.

Things are more complicated now. It seems like all my friends are struggling with so many problems and decisions right now. Dating is more complicated..it's not the carefree-type thing it was in high school. Now, friends worry about living a life of singleness or if they are with the right person...and if that person fits into what they want to do with their lives. Some are confused about what that is that they want to do.. Husbands are overseas fighting for our country and wives are left at home alone. People can't get jobs. People are working jobs they hate. People are lonely. People are unhappy. People feel unloved. What's the point of living? There are tons of problems.

I didn't face any of this back in the day. Growing up stinks. But (and thank goodness there's a but) God is still there. He is there through everything. He loves us so much..so much that we can't even understand it. He is our reason for living. He placed us on this earth to worship Him and bring Him glory. He said that to know Him is to know love. If we truly seek after Him and desire to know Him more and serve Him, He will never let us down. He will direct our paths. Jeremiah 29:11 and several other places in scripture tell us that. We have to want Him, yearn for Him, seek Him, and most importantly, act on His commands and follow where he leads. It's not always easy, but it's simple and just simply being in God's will will bring happiness and contentment. Most people know this already, but still worry about things that are uncontrollable. I'm one of those people a lot of times.

Acts 17 :25-28

25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

"There's a peace I've come to know,
though my heart and flesh may fail.
There's an anchor for my soul,
I can say, 'It is well.' "

-Chris Tomlin

How awesome is it that?!