Why do I keep trying

Why do I keep ignoring the Lord?

What am I trying to do? What am I trying to accomplish? I voiced these questions to a friend just a day before deciding to make another Danielle-centered decision. Why am I so focused on my OWN desires when I know the greater reward he has for me?

I have been working at a school for two weeks now, and it's a GREAT school. It's everything I looked for in a school.

but I am unsatisfied.

I have realized that I am unsatisfied because, ultimately, I don't want to work in a school (at least not as a teacher). Rather, as I've known for at least three years now, I want to be in full-time ministry.

But I keep makin excuses.

I have loans to pay off. I need to go back to school so I can be better equipped and therefore need to go make some money first. Etc.

Like God can't take care of that.

I knew 100% in my mind that he wanted me to work at Graffiti again this semester, and I've chosen not to. Technically, I'm on a trial period at this school, and, in all honesty, I feel myself sabotaging my chances of getting hired. Like, I submit lesson plans late without care, etc. I do like the kids, I do like my staff, and it's a great neighborhood, but it's not ministry. It's just not the same.

Then agian, other days I love it. I don't feel what I'm feeling right now. I feel like I definitely made the right decision by putting myself in a situation in which I can start working toward those loans, move into a cheaper apartment, and go back to school.

It's all a mess.

The truth is, even this morning diggin into Monday morning Jesus time, I read the passage about beinga anxious. We are higher than the birds, and they don't worry about having their needs taken care of, so why should we?

I guess I'm just going to keep praying that in the next few weeks God will show me how what I am to do.

Pumkin Spice Lattes The Good Word

In the madness of starting a new job, I've also had to create for myself a new routine. In said new routine, it's especially important to pray through how my time with the Lord can be best spent. He's provided me with the time to spend, and I need to steward my time in a way that I can both keep my job, and more importantly, grow daily in my relationship with him.

This balance is crucial, in that I am on a trial period with my job, and it's not just a trial period for them to test me out, but also for me to see if this is truly where God wants me for at least the next ten months of my life. but more on that later.

What I wanted to share most, is the ABSOLUTELY RADICAL AMAZINGNESS I read while enjoying a pumpkin spice latte last night (ahhhh, fall!). I took myself to starbucks so I'd be removed from the distractions of work and my apartment. It's a routine I plan to work into my routine, even if it doesn't include starbucks (considering the only time of the year starbucks is my preference is during the fall when the pumpkin spice is in full force)

Have you ever had one of those moments where you were diggin through the word and you just wanted to stand up where you were and do a little dance because you were so pumped up and charged by the passages before you. That was me, last night. These moments rock my world.

I marinated in the words of Titus 2:11-14:

"For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, waiting for our blessed hope, then the appearing of the glory of our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for his own possession a people who are ZEALOUS for good works."

Retyping that, just blew my mind again. Dude, GAVE HIMSELF FOR US so we will be ZEALOUS for good works. What?! He wants us to live upright, self-controlled, and godly lives while we WAIT for him and his glory. really

take

that

in

don't read this lightly. In digging deeper last night, I came to know that the Greek word for waiting connotes eagerness. It's not like when I'm waiting on the train for work, its like, when I'm waiting from the time of the superbowl/BCS national championship games to the time when the first ball of the season is kicked off in the late summer/early fall times infinite numbers of awesomeness.

SOOOOOOOOO MUCH BETTER.

we are waiting on the GOD OF THE UNIVERSE. This big dude, who knows more than we will ever ever every understand, comprehend, or pretend to know. Things we could never wrap our mind around. He's coming to bring us into his fellowship. Like, for real. Take that in. and in the meantime, he wants us to be CHANGED by his promise.

Like, what is salvation if we don't let it soak us up. Why on Earth would we want the things of this Earth when we can be friends and live in community with the most infinite, unimaginable, greatest person who ever walked this earth. Like, think about this. Really think about it. I read this stuff every day, and sometimes I get complacent, but when I truly sit in amazement. WOW.

you'll prolly want to dance around a starbucks too.

A couple of New England days

Four years ago I posted this blog about how fantastic Boston is.

Ever since, I've talked about moving there. The summer after NYC, I went to New England for two months, which rocked my world on so many levels and brought the most amazing people into my life. I cannot imagine how different things would be if I'd have stayed in Louisiana or come back to New York that summer. Truth is, though, that love for Boston was what pushed me over the edge when making decisions about where to be a summer missionary that second year. God used images I couldn't get of my brain, baseball, people, and lots of slaps in the face to send me there.

I love the history, the ocean breezes, the accents, the scent of salt water, the seagulls, the immense passion for EVERYTHING (seriously, people in New England are passionate about anything they like- which I why I fit in so well with them). I just wish folks would transfer that passion into something like, oh, I dunno, loving Jesus. I tell you if all of the New Englanders would simply fall in in love with the Lord, they'd start workin on winning the world over so fast we wouldn't know what hit us.

I really could go on for hours and hours and hours and hours and ramble and go on and on and on and on and on about how completely flabbergasted I am in how God has brought people into my life in the last seven years from Baton Rouge, Providence, Boston, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Mississippi, etc. and twisted our lives around and intertwined them in ways that completely blow my mind. I feel like, at the root of it all, is New England. It seems to anchor all these connections somehow. Like all roads lead to Worcester or something like that.

Because of the ways God has used the next region north, I have always assumed he's going to have me land there at some point, even if only for a few years. And this may be the case. I have absolutely no opposition to it WHATSOEVER. Believe me, I'd love to go to more Red Sox games.

The point of this particular post is this: I don't think I'm moving there any time soon.

This is a new revelation. And a great one. One I've been praying for.

You see, I LOVE New York in immense ways I cannot describe. I wont even bother trying. Suffice it to say, this place feels like home and always has. I know I won't be here forever, or at least, I don't plan to be, but lately, with all the transitions in my life, I've been praying that God would show me if it is time to bow out or if it is time to settle in. And the overwhelming answer is SETTLE IN.

Having had this feeling for the past few months, and particularly since my return from Chicago, have become pretty comfortable in it. THAT SAID I knew that hopping the Lucky Star to Boston for the Red Sox game was going to be testy. I could see myself getting that same feeling I always get when I arrive at South Station, where I just KNOW I have to move there. But I didn't.

Upon my arrival, I had a couple of hours before the next train to Providence, so I prayer walked around the common, Chinatown, the meeting house, Quincy market, etc. During that time I kept praying God would show me if I was supposed to be in that city, and what needs he would reveal to me there in the meantime. I prayed and prayed and prayed, but I kept thinking "I kinda wish I was still in New York, I miss it already." This was foreign to me, I'm in BOSTON Im supposed to overwhelmingly excited to be there. But I wasn't. I loved it still, and I had a great time, but even in Fenway, it was like, God was saying "I know you love it here, but it's not the time." and I was PERFECTLY okay with that.

I'm super thankful for this trip, and the time I got to spend with Maria, who is AMAZING. I'm thankful for the long walk around Providence I took this morning (I really could write a whole post about that). I'm thankful for great weather, and Fenway Park. I'm thankful for the comfy megabus ride home (so much better than the Lucky Star ride there).

Most of all, I am thankful that God confirmed what I've been suspecting all along.

I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

With only five days left, I give you, picutres.

The View from the Hancock Tower

Whirlyball (Basketball meets Lacrosse meets Bumper Cars

Overpriced Underwhelming Beignet at Taste of Chicago

The View of my Neighborhood from the Beach

One of many gorgeous views of the Chicago River

Where I live- Baumhart Hall

My BFF :)

Cloudy Day Skyline/Beach View

Broken August

As August approaches, I am trying my best to lean on faith and pray that this is not, yet another, broken August.

Two years ago, I posted this . August 2009 was one of the most trying months of my life in terms of discouragement. It set me up for a couple of years of adjusting to constant change and unpredictability in life. I remember it being tough, but I also remember the good times that went along with it. I recall long walks around Williamsburg. Taking the bridge to church so I wouldn't have to buy subway passes. Baking baking baking.

I learned so much about leaning on the Lord, and he, of course, provided. This has been evidenced over and over in the past couple of years. That said, I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to be doing in August, and it's scary.

Come September I can get back into routine with School Professionals. Fine. But August is a challenge. I need to find something else to do with my time to bring in more dough anyway, and August is the perfect time to do that, but it's easier said than done.

Also, I'm getting that whole "I'm 25 and what the junk am I doing with my life" complex again. All around me my friends are growing up. I got yet another call from a friend today who made a very adult, life changing decision. I feel like a mid-twenties teenager. I'm not moving forward right now, and though I'm trying to rest in the present, it's difficult not to wonder when I'm going to start hitting normal strides. I've been craving a normal life lately. It's a bizarre feeling for me, as I tend to enjoy instability and adventure.

I want normal. I want to have a career. I want to have a family. I want to know where I'm headed, but I'm don't. I have none of the above, and it's kinda freakin' me out.

So all that to say, I think it's time for me to get back to New York, settle down for a little while, and pray hard about the next steps, how they're going to happen, and what that's going to entail on my part.

I pray I do not have yet another broken August.