My car title finally arrived.  I've been looking forward to getting a different car for a while.  I love the one I have, but it doesn't get the greatest gas mileage, and my commute is long.  But, after getting an estimate on my car and looking over my options, I've decided NOT to get something different and stick with what I have.  Yes, I could trade in mine for something with better gas mileage, but it would have to be a car close to as old as mine if I wanted to just trade up.  If I wanted to get something newer (and with even better gas mileage), I'd have to either make payments, which I don't really have the cash flow to do or sell stocks, which seems to defeat the purpose of being economical and not spending money.  My car needs a few things: new wipers, new tires, and maybe new brakes.  Selling it would have meant not dealing with those things, but I'll spend way less money maintaining it than I was going to trading it in for what I felt like were the best options.

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I have a home inspector and a contractor coming to look at a house on Friday.  It seems like this thing is getting more real.  We still don't have an official offer on it yet, but that should change over the weekend.

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I spoke with a guy last week about being a mentor, but his schedule was in the mornings or at lunch.  I wasn't really sold on the guy just from our conversations, but the schedule conflict sealed the deal.  I've asked my contact at the church for any other suggestions, but tomorrow will make it a week since I've even heard from him.  Now, I'm a little conflicted because if I try another resource at the church, I don't want to seem like I'm going behind his back.  If I use a resource at another church, part of me will just feel a little fragmented.

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I've moved on from the car situation.  I'm moving forward on the house situation on Friday (and over the weekend).  I'm going to talk to a couple of connections tomorrow as far as the mentor situation goes.  Until I do those things, I really shouldn't move forward on getting back into the dating game.  Part of me wants to get my car appraised in Austin, and I still might just to have that number established.  It would also give me an opportunity to act, even if it was subtle, and I'm just not sure I want to do that.  I know the timing isn't right, and I would definitely need to feel like it was.

Once again, I find myself in the right place at the wrong time.  In this case, that would be the library when someone has the book I need

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I started my spiritual directing this week.  The first session went pretty well actually, but I'm looking forward to the next session where it's not so much introduction.  Honestly, I got just as much out of it as he did because he too is dealing with being faithful in the little things.  I'm going to get a prayer journal and start writing.  I've been convicted about the little things lately as well, and I want to be faithful to those things and see how God speaks and works through them.

Our second intramural football game is tonight.  It rained crazy hard last night, so we'll see what the field looks like.  We have 6 people confirmed, so with one more, we will have a full team!  We had one go down last week from pulling his hamstring from not stretching.  I hate to be a mom out there, but we're seriously too old and wise not to be doing that before games.  Either way, even with 6, I'm confident in our abilities.

My arm still hurts, but I think it's getting better.  I've been stretching it multiple times a day, but I can't tell if I'm just strengthening my entire shoulder, so it doesn't have to work as hard or if it's actually improving the muscle.  I'm trying to limit what I do with it, but football and ultimate frisbee definitely make that difficult.

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Waiting on God...being still...not striving...is hard.  I find myself every day battling this feeling like I need to be planning a course of action, and every day I have to tell myself to stop, to have faith, and to hope.  I think I've been a little hard on myself in that regard in the sense that planning is just anticipating God's working and what I'll do need I can move forward, but there's a fine line between that and being constantly preoccupied with the "what if."

I will say though that I've felt much closer to God lately, and that's something I've been working on.  I've been wanting to be more intimate with Him and to listen better.  I wake up with praise songs in my mind, and I'm in prayer more often when I'm driving or in the spaces between class.  I want to continue to need Him and seek Him in the good and the bad, when I act and when I wait.  Ironically, I had "Don't Wait" by Dashboard Confessional stuck in my head last week, and after a while, I really wanted it out.  Yesterday, He put "Sit With You Awhile" in my head, which was perfect.

"If I could just sit with you awhile, you could just hold me.  Nothing could touch me, though I'm wounded, though I've died."

I still feel a pain from my relationship with Rae, and the closer get to God, the more and more I regret how all that went down.  But, if it taught me one thing, it taught me that I want to be intimate with God.  I want to want Him; I want to talk to Him; I want to seek and think about Him and His Kingdom like I thought/think about a relationship with a woman.  It'll never be quite the same, but He deserves way more attention and affection than I was giving during that time.  The lyrics and timing of that song are perfect, and I love that.

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That's all I got.

Every morning as a police officer, we were supposed to make sure our traffic radar antennas were functional and accurate.  We were provided two tuning forks that resonated at different frequencies, and they would cause the radar to display a particular speed.  If the speed was off by more than 1 mph from the the fork was tuned for, we would have to get the antennas serviced.

We've been reading about "soul attunement" in my Spiritual Formation class, and it's been enlightening to hear and read on the topic.  If we really believe that we have souls, and we really believe that God created that soul, and we really believe that God can and wants to speak to us, then communicating with God shouldn't be that hard.  And by communicating, I mean dialoguing, not simply talking at God.  Sometimes we are tuned in, and sometimes we are not.

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Updates:

I met with the YA pastor.  He asked me to be the "Fun Team" leader for the YA ministry.  Not what I was expecting at all, but it fits me great.  I'll be responsible to organizing two events a month to help bring all the young adults together and also help reach young adults that aren't part of a ministry.  I'm honored that I'd be asked to do that, and though I know it'll be a challenge, I'm ready for it.  I've made space, and now God is filling it.  I've also got a lead on a couple of other jobs.  One is at Truett helping in the Spiritual Formation department with Covenant groups.  This would be a cool job in the sense that it's more young adult small groups.  If I want to be a community/small groups pastor, this would be great experience for me.  The other is at the Methodist Children's Home.  I'd essentially be a glorified baby sitter, but the perks are relatively close to campus and insurance.

As my plate has been filling up, my time to think about relationships has as well, though I still find myself imagining ways to reconnect.  I miss our friendship most of all, but I miss alot of the little things, too.  I miss throwing a nasty, chewed-up frisbee to her dog.  I missed playing with her nephews.  I miss "The Wooden Spoon."  I miss her laugh.  I miss plucking out her occasional gray hair.  Every time I catch myself going with that train of thought, I just have to remind myself of a couple of things...

a) I'm not ready yet.  I need to be in a new car, have a good sense of direction on my housing situation, and I need to be in a mentoring relationship.  Emotionally, I'd be ok with going out with someone, getting to know someone.  Those things I mentioned are more artificial barriers than anything, but they are important to how I tell my story and how I invite my community into my relationship, which is something I've not done well in the past.

b) God is working.  He is moving.  He knows my wants, he knows my needs, and He knows how best to fulfill the desires of my heart.  He has resources that I don't even know about.  He has plans that I couldn't even dream up.  There's no need to feel like I have to work more than I do to.

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My main frustrations have been my lack of control of certain situations, which has also served to remind me to work where I can and not to be anxious where I can't.  My car title still has not been processed.  I had to correct an error on a form that the bank should have caught, so I essentially waited 10 days for nothing.  They corrected it, but even if they get it today, it'll still be two weeks before I get it.  Housing has moved forward a bit.  There's a property that looks promising, but again, moving in would still be a few months away.

I'm trying to listen more.  I'm trying to be in silence more.  Even in going through my head of how I needed to get ready for a relationship, I thought about this lack of a mentor, which I've been actively working on.  But, just as I was thinking about that, the fact that I didn't have one, and the person I emailed hadn't responded over the weekend, I got an email from him wanting to set something up.

"I'm working on it."  I keep hear Him saying.

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Flag football starts tonight.  I got excited about it just driving to class this morning.  I have no idea if we will have enough to field a team.  I know we will have 5, so that's enough, but I'll be interested to see if we have 7 show up.  Don't even ask me who is playing what.

Fun times