The Right To A Beautiful Life: "When all that you've got left is being strong, just gotta have a little faith to fall back on!"

Yesterday morning, I hit my alarm a few times, before finally getting up to get ready. I was so wiped out, and the colder it gets, the harder it is to get out of bed. We messed around with the idea of possibly going to the later service, because we thought Taylor Swift tickets went on sale during that time, but they didn't, so we went at the normal time.

The message was amazing! I love the series that we're doing right now, "Believe," because honestly as the year is starting to wind down, I still need that little boost or pick-me-up to remind me that it's not over yet, and there are still plenty of good things and promises coming my way. Our pastor gave us 5 ways to stand confident in what God has planned for us with an acrostic:

Start acting in faith; "God can't drive a parked car" and "God always blesses active faith." When we're doing our part and taking those first steps, even when we're terrified or have no idea what's going on, God blesses that. Our pastor said that for some of us, God is going to be asking us to take those first steps with certain things in our lives this week, and I want to be one of them.
The second step was to trust in God's character! We don't always know why or how a situation is going to work out, but we have to trust in God's timing and who He is, and the fact that He is control of everything, no matter how we feel about it.
I think out of all of the points made, this one resonated with me the most. It was affirm God's promises. It's so easy to get discouraged when nothing is going like you've planned, but we have to recall the things that God has told us, whether it's in the Bible or personally. If He says He's going to do something, He's going to do it. No questions. It might not be in the time frame that we've imagined, but it's going to work out in a much better way, at a much better time.
The next way to stand in confidence was to never act on my feelings. We can't act on our feelings, because feelings are fickle; we change our mind, like we change our clothes. Feelings are temporary, and what we think one minute, might change in the next five minutes. That's why we can't make big, life changing decisions based on what we feel like we should do. Instead, we have to act in faith and rely on God, even when it's hard (and it usually is). "Courage is fear holding on a minute longer," and that's how we have to respond to it.
The last point made in the sermon was discover the miracle. That's when we will truly see God's blessing on our lives and futures. Something that really stayed in my mind after was, "Never doubt in the dark what you trusted in the light." Just because you're going through a tough season doesn't mean you should doubt what you've always believed.

I had a lot on my mind as we walked out of service, but was quickly shaken out of that, looking for familiar faces to say hi to! It's always makes me so happy when I know people, because for the longest time I didn't have that. I love catching up with friends or even just people I've seen around the church before. We even caught up with some old friends of my parents (my old english teacher too). They told us about their kids, who I went to school with, and it's crazy that they're all married or have kids and are living out of state. I can't believe how time flies.

We made it home just in time to get online for the Taylor Swift presale tickets, but as I imagined, it sucked! We didn't get anything, because they only put certain tickets out. It doesn't sound like any of my other friends had much luck either.

After that rip off, we met up with our family friends for lunch at PF Changs! It was good seeing them again; they told us about a trip to Oklahoma they'd just taken, while Mandy and I talked about me transferring to the other university. She gave me some helpful tips and even possibly looking into another school. We also talked about how we wish we could go away, because we don't want to be stuck here forever. That is honestly a fear of mine. If you don't go away for college, you don't really know what else is out there, and that's something I'm dying to find out for myself, not just hear from others. But, at the same time, it's not very realistic...and maybe it doesn't have to be. I've never been realistic, so why are all of these thoughts creeping in now?
I even ran into my best friend's family, while there, so I got to catch up with them and see her new baby niece. She is so precious! Even though I am nowhere near having a family or even getting married, seeing Emmy really struck that idea in my heart of how badly I would like to be a mom someday.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of me on the computer, listening to music and relaxing. Sunday afternoons are usually like that, which is nice. We had dinner at Panera and ended up going grocery shopping, which ended up not being as terrible as I thought it'd be. We were home the rest of the night, watching The Notebook and drinking hot cocoa, which was a really nice way to end the day!