God's purposes

It's pretty amazing to me how many times I try to tell God how I want my life to go. One of my favorite sayings is "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him Your plans."
Maybe it's just me, but learning that God has a different plan for my life then what I thought orginially makes me wonder why I even thought about my plans in the first place.
I sometimes wonder what God has planned for me. I see all of my friends growing up around me. I even see friends who were little or just born when I was a little girl growing up, graduating and yes some have even gotten married. I used to be discontent because everyone else around me had a life and knew exactly where they were headed. Me on the other hand has one of those callings where I never know what is going to happen. And yet Now that I have been able to step back and see that God has a special plan for my life that I haven't even begun to figure and can be happy for my friends.
I now realize that sometimes we have to do something totally different then what we want to or at least be willing to do that. God might just suprise you and give you what you were looking for in the first place.
A promise that I hold on to is that if you ask God for something He will give you the desires of your heart. Amazingly that doesn't me the same thing to me that it did a year ago. I thought that it meant that if you want something God will give it to you. But I think Wanting something and desiring something might mean something different. I also think that the desires of our hearts don't always show forth like the wants of our heads. Deep down inside there are things that our soul cries out for that even we sometimes don't realize and Our all knowing God can hear those cries and grants those requests. He knows that your soul is crying out for the things that you need.
Of course we could argue that we haven't yet gotten the expience house and the huge pay raise that we want, but do we really need it? Would it not be better to be dependent on God for all of our needs instead of depending on our pay checks.

Someone said something today in church that got me thinking. He told us that he has a friend who has a problem that is life threatening. He said he wondered why it was that God would send this problem to this friend who was a good Christian and one who isn't easily humbled. I thought to myself, "Why is it that he is questioning God about this situation? Instead the question should be, Why Not him?"
SO why do we ask God why me or why that good person? Shouldn't we be saying "Why Not?" When we became Christians we didn't begin our Christian lives so that we will never again have heard times and never again be in want. If you believe that you need to go back into God's Word and read again. Even after Paul became a Christian and became a missionary for the Gospel he had to live on very little, and he was not stranger to hardtimes, he was beaten, shipwrecked, stoned, imprisoned and had to run for his life more than once before finally being beheaded. Why then if all these things happened to a wonderful Christian who spread the Gospel should we be thinking we are above them?
God's purposes are not our own and although we may have an idea about what we want, we need to realize that God has a much better plan, reason, and purpose that we may not understand until we get to heaven.

Letting God be God

I have come to the conclution that it is in our nature to try to act like God. Whenever something happens in our lives we try to fix it when in reality we are too weak and really don't have the ability to do it.
I have to say that I am one of those people that have to come to grips with the fact that God is in control of all of the circumstance of life.
I have a friend who is more like a sister to me then a friend. Several months ago I had a real urge to pray for her. I didn't really know what it was all about, but I determined that if ever I had someone pop into my head even if it was someone I hadn't heard about in years, I was going to pray right then and there. So I prayed for my friend. She came to my mind often and I made sure that I prayed for her even though I hadn't heard from her in a while.
Then I got an email from her brother who is in Iraq. He told me that my friend was in trouble and I knew right then and there why it was I had been praying for her all that time.
I continued to pray and tried to write to her, but she never answered. I started to call myself all kinds of a fool because I hadn't realized what was going on way back from the last time she had called me on the phone. I felt that if I had been there or called her, I could have helped the situation. I felt totally helpless and I will admit to you I wept very hard for her.
I contined to pray for her still wishing I could help her ln someway. But it was all out of my hands.
Then I got an email saying she was doing better. I was thankful my prayers had been answered.
My relief however was completely shattered when I got an email saying that she was in trouble all over again. I wanted to scream at myself. I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to be there for her, but had no way of doing it.
Her brother wrote to me again telling me how he wished that he could do something and that because he was so many thousands of miles away he was starting to stress out about not being there. I started to write to him that God was in control and that we shouldn't worry about it. It was then that I realized that I had been doing exactly what I had just told him not to do. I was trying to be God and trying to figure a way to fix things. It hit me that although I can't see what is going on right now other than all the bad and the heartache, I can be completely assured that My Big God, the one who made everything, the one who has been around from the very beginning and always will be has a Much big line of sight. He sees the whole picture. He has known that this would happen long before we were even born and he knew that everything would work out. In His wonderful master plan He has something so wonderous instore for my friend and her family that I nor anyone else can see. It is going to be so amazing when it happens it will be like a light bulb clinking on.
That kind of reminds me of the light bulbs my dad just recently put in the computer room. They are the energy saving light bulbs and if you have them you know that when you flip on the light switch they are actually very low in brightness, but within just a few minutes the lights get brighter and brighter until finally you can see perfectly fine.
I think that is the way things happen in our lives. We switch on a light that shines on a situation with our lives and at first it is very dark and get annoyed because you eyes aren't adjusting very quickly to the lights. Then all of a sudden it starts to get brighter and brighter until at last you can finally see the whole picture.
God knew right from the start that we would worry, that's why He told us so many times that He is completely in control of everything that is happening and that we don't need to worry.
"For everything there is a time and a purpose for everything under the Heavens."
"And all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
So let us learn to let God be God. He has a fabulous plan awaiting us that we can't see yet until the light has come to it's full strength.

Of Books, Movies and other such Writings

I watched a really good movie last night. It's called The Last Sin Eater. I read the book written by Francine Rivers several years ago so I know what the story line was about and I sincerely believe that it went very well with the book. Michael Landon Jr. Did a very good job directing it. And if you ask me he does a whole lot better at it then his father would ever dream of doing. I am sure if it had been his father The Kie would have been killed by an angry mob at the end (even though it wasn't in the book)
Not every movie that comes from a book is like that however. And I think non writers of Movies don't really understand the reasons why. As a writer who has been through all of the courses from Script Writing to Novel Writing I have a pretty good reason why movies many times don't go with the book.
First of all let's get something straight. When a Movie is written there is a disclaimer with it. It's in the little words "Based On". These two little words mean that although they have taken the story from a certain book there is still that artistic Writers licence that allows the movie writer to write the movie so that it is in "Ahem" Movie form. If a movie were written just as the book was written everyone would be looking for a new movie within about 10 to 15 minutes of the movie.
It's just the nature of a story.
A movie has to be much more compact then a book. Descriptions that are written in a book and thoughts that are inside a persons head can't be expressed in words during a movie. So a script has to be written to fit a certain format causing the story from the book to sometimes get lost in the two hours it has for viewing.
I know there are some writers who could care less about how a movie is based off of a book. They end up using the name only saying it is "Based off" of the book when in reality the name is all it is based off of.
In the past few years the trend to keep a movie as close to a book as possible has really come around, but there is still the problem of not being able to fit every single detail into the movie.
So the next time you see a movie that is based on a book, Read the book then enjoy the movie and realize that each one is different in their own way. Don't compare them by saying "Oh how could the writer approve of having their book ruined like that?" It's not ruined, It's just different.

First Post for the Year

The last two weeks I have been running on high gear. I am sure you have to. Christmas isn't the easiest time of year to sit down and relax. But now It's all over. I am sure most of you have taken down the Christmas tree, my mom did. You may have left some decorations to remember the season, but most of them have been put away in the dusty attic for another year. The Apple has dropped in New York City and that to has been put away for another year to collect dust. The Floats for the Rose Parade are being taken down. What ever happens to all those flowers?
And so here we are. 2008. What's next?
I am going to admit to you right now that I don't like New Years Resolutions. People make them to break them anyway. They try to do too much and get over whelmed. I am trying a totally different approach this year. I am taking little step and making small goals and reaching them before I go on to the next one. It's not a "This year I am going to do such and such" and hope I get it done sometime this year. It's more of "For this many days I am going to do this and when I am finished I am going to go on to the next thing". Smaller steps lead to more things getting accomplished. It works a lot better.
That's not to say I don't have some things I would like to get accomplished this year. I have some resolves and not resolutions.
One resolve is to finish my book. And we aren't talking about sometime this year. First I am going to start by editing and rewriting. Then editing again. Then let some people look it over and tell me what they think. I have a set goal to be finished and if I get it done I will reward myself. I think that if I tell myself there is a reward for getting it done, I will be more likely to get it done.
I have to hurry up. I already have a crazy new Idea popping up in my head and I need to get it out before I forget that too.
I have a few more goals I would like to see accomplished, and I will be working on them, but it may take more than just one year to work them out. Long term goals that didn't start on January 1 and will end on December 31. More of Opportunities I guess you might say.
You never know what might happen. I will let you know once I have them worked out in my own mind.
SO I guess what I am coming to is this, Why is it that so many people think that on January 1 they have to tie themselves down with a New Years resolution they know they are going to end up breaking them anyway? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Okay so now I have given you my view on the matter and I feel better about it :)
It's nice to know that I can write things here and know that everyone else has their own opinions on matters, but they will read my blog anyway.