will hunting.

no. not the movie. not like good will hunting. just will hunting. you know, searching, seeking, wanting, needing, and hopefully finding God's will.

it has been hard lately. to confess. to take time away from my daily chug to seek and to search. its been hard because i find myself putting in half the effort...making excuses...and tricking my heart into believing that i am really listening to what God is trying to tell me. when, in fact, i am not.

i think it is one of my temptations--to alter my state of thinking to the point where i can't decipher between the voice of the One who is speaking and the things that are all-to-often leading. its a mean trick satan plays--speaking in your ear while God is working on your heart. because guess what? i learned in anatomy that they are connected. and needless to say, no matter how hard you try to listen to God from your heart, satan always seems to sneak his way into conscious thought--constantly trying to alter God's message.

but the coolest thing, as i found out tonight, is that satan--being a bit inept--isn't BIG enough, GREAT enough, GLORIOUS enough to speak in other ways. he finds his comfy place--for me it is in my ear (for you, it might be in your eyes--him tempting you with what you physically see)--and sticks to it. doesn't change. doesn't move. but God can move. and God can change. and God can speak in many many different ways. sometimes He uses other people. sometimes He uses billboards or commercials or books or nail files (personal experience) or words. and (dare say) sometimes He even uses His word. and that is just what he did tonight.

as if my previous post wasn't indicative enough, i have been struggling a bit lately with my future. my 'type-A' tendencies tends to get ahold of me sometimes. i make lists. i fill out calendars. i brainstorm about time and dates and opportunities. i try to plan my life out. and then i stick to the plan i haphazardly throw together. it is disastrous sometimes. so i have been trying lately to just let go and let God. let God take control...of my lists (although i will still admit to making them), my calendars, my dreams and plans and dates and timeline. and He has--as much as i have let Him.

the purpose of my doing all this has been, primarily, in a fervent attempt to better follow His will for my life. all the while thinking that His will is something to be followed. i do best thinking about God sitting down at the beginning of time, pulling out a file with my name on it, and filling out the calendar for my life (similar to what i do when i haphazardly fill out my own...except God's calendar wouldn't be haphazard). in other words, i've always strived to seek God's will for me thinking that it was something to be sought-after, something He has to offer me, something He wants me to follow.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. --Romans 12:1-2

that line that i bolded and redded and italicized? that line is equivalent to this one in the NIV:

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—

his good, pleasing and perfect will. --Romans 12:2(b)

so....the point of all this is that tonight God spoke to me. to my heart. and i couldn't hear anything thing satan was screaming in my ears. in fact, i still can't hear satan. it was like a lightbulb went on tonight. and it is SO cool.

God's will for my life isn't something to be sought or followed. it isn't something that He is just waiting to give to me. it is quite the opposite, in fact. God's will for my life is something He wants from me. something i have to offer him. i, little lousy me, have something to offer the Creator of the universe! and it is only through prayer, through searching and seeking and stopping my daily chug to actually find, that God will speak to my heart and reveal what it is He wants from me. i just have to be willing to give it to Him. and that, my friends, is the next hardest part.

what is He telling you to offer?

and.

balance isn't "either/or". balance is "and". --unknown

i was just wasting time on the internet. nothing new for me. except today has been an extreme case of the i-don't-want-to-do-my-homework-blues. sometimes it hits really hard. and i get, well, blue.

i've really been struggling lately with the idea of balance. not so much for now. i feel balanced now. i go to school, do the homework i should (minus the days when i have the homework-blues), sometimes call myself social, and i try my best to prioritize the relationships that matter to me most. so no, not so much balance for now. but balance for the future.

the prospect of being balanced seems, at times, so daunting. now is one of those times. thinking about time management, money management, life management...it all is a bit too overwhelming a bit too often.

and yet it is exciting.

i am trying to get a group started at school. it will be a resource group for women in medicine. i will try to bring in guest speakers to talk about un-said issues that i know almost every woman who has committed herself to medicine has struggled with. children. family. marriage. finances. time. day-care. balance. so far, i've gotten an amazing response. there was even a class-wide email sent out that encouraged all the men to attend...i am excited to see what becomes of it.

most of the time, i am up for challenges. especially when i feel like God is pushing me along...wanting me to try to ride my bike without my 'training wheel' buffer in case i find myself off-balance. and i think there is one challenge in particular that he is slowly unscrewing the training wheels for. it is a big one....a life-changing one for sure. a challenge that will require incredible dedication, extreme prayers, and ultimate understanding. as time goes on, i am getting more comfortable with the idea. and getting more confident that God will provide the wisdom & patience necessary to find balance in the midst of it all.

time...

.... is flying by. totally flying. i can't believe i have been here for 5 weeks. while time has the illusion of being sluggishly slow @ times, hindsight tells me otherwise.

and it has been quite a journey already. my excitement about being here has worn off slightly. school has taken its toll. i don't leap out of bed in the morning when my alarm goes off @ 5:55 a.m. like i did just 2 weeks ago. i show up to class with sleep lines on my face. my daily dose of chai is barely keeping me awake. the anatomy lab has lost its allure. the amount of material i have to learn is slowly piling up like the trash in shel silverstein's 'sarah synthia sylvia stout would not take the garbage out'.

and, in short, i am overwhelmed.

I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made.

But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.

(Phil. 3:12-14, The Message)

lately i've been distracted. by the temptation to lose sight of my goal...to get caught up in my dislike of the biochemical mechanisms, molecular pathways, and immunological systems...to take my eyes off the prize at the end. i do, after all, only have 2 years of this intense book-learning stuff. by the temptation to doubt the presence of God here, in my life, in my here-and-now. it is easy to stick my nose in a book...or on the internet...or on my pillow, for that matter, and forget that it truly is a miracle that i am here. deep down i've always wanted this to happen...but never ever imagined it actually would. i've been distracted by the potential for the future....by my own tendency to become preoccupied with subjects that are better left to curiosity--and to God. i tend to dwell on those things; they consume me...my thoughts, my mind...my habit of 'planning'.

and amidst my studying and searching and planning, i have been reminded in the last week that everything in life happens at just the right time, as long as it is GOD'S TIME and not my own.

so that is my prayer.
to hear God speak because He has definitely gotten my attention with His silence lately.
to keep my eyes set ahead because my tendency toward distraction is driving me off course. to trust that God will iron out all the wrinkles and worries i have for my future because i have to remember that He only wants the best for my life.
to remember that this life is not about me. God gave me the job to love people. to love and respect and share His joy with people. that is all. and as long as i do that with all my heart, God will smile.

and just as Rick Warren said, "The smile of God is the goal of your life."

good goal Rick, good goal.