a season of surrender...

I have been in school my entire life until this past December so I have always viewed my life as semesters or school years.  Now that I am done with school, it has been really interesting to change that terminology in my life.  What students know as semesters, other people think of seasons.  However, this may not always mean summer, fall, winter, and spring.  Right now I certainly view my life in a season of transition.  I have also felt like I have been in a season that requires a lot of waiting.  This past month in particular, I feel like the Lord has really been working on my heart in a lot of different ways and have finally pinpointed where I am now... and that is surrender.

When reading this morning out of a devotional book, it spoke about having a complete reliance on the Lord and not being constantly worried about every single detail about our lives.  This can be considered the discipline of surrender.  This past month I feel like I have been working through so many things with God and trying to follow His direction in my life for all of them.  So often I feel like I am saying that I believe that God is sovereign and that I know He has control of my life.  But yet, am I really giving Him that control?  Is it really handing Him over control when I am constantly dwelling on the situations that I supposedly trust Him with?  Even though my actions may show that I am trusting and following Him, is my heart aligned with those actions or am I begrudgingly going along with what I feel like I am supposed to?

I want to completely surrender my life over to God... every thought, every action, every word.  I want my trust in God to be completely evident in every detail of my life... instead of my measly attempt of trying to manipulate or control every aspect of my life.  

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him.  Psalm 62:5   

it's my fort worthaversary...

Three years ago, I packed up all of my belongings in a ridiculously large U-Haul and headed north on the highway to Fort Worth.  This decision was not easy.  At the time, I so would have preferred to stay in my college bubble of friends and never leave Hunstville... or at least stay near it.  But I knew after lots of prayer that this is where the Lord wanted to lead me... and I certainly wanted to follow.  My plan was to live in Fort Worth for my years in grad school and then immediately move back south to Houston....
And three years later, here I am.  Grad school has been done for eight months and I have no plan to move anywhere anytime soon.  And I absolutely love it.  So with that said, it is my Fort Worthaversary... and yes, I definitely did just make up a word to celebrate my 3 year anniversary of living in Ft. Worth.  It seemed only fitting to commemorate this huge moment with a post dedicated to the love I have for this town.

Thinking back over these past 3 years, I thought the best way to present all that I want to say is listing out all of the fantastic things (as quick as possible) that these years have consisted of... all playing their parts in making this time super fun and memorable in their own ways.  Or else we may be here for days if I went into detail about each little thing.  And nobody wants that.  So here we go (and I'm going to try to stay in order as much as my memory allows)....

Brand new one-bedroom apartment with cute vaulted ceilings.  New, super fun, fantastic single girl friends.  The introduction of fantastic in my vocab thanks to a new friend.  The Texas State Fair.  Boyz II Men concert.  Two-stepping.  Downtown Dallas during UT-OU game.  Crazy amounts of school work.  Trail Lake Starbucks.  Ridiculous nicknames for absolutely everyone at our school.  This Thing.  Basically all of us living at Jess' apartment.  Family dinners.  Shoot em up movies.  Carpooling to the Village.  Quitting the crazy nanny job.  Karaoke at Sbux.  Salsa dancing.  Meet Me Under the Mistletoe Christmas party.  Carroll Park.  All-nighters.  Very first snow day in FW.  Valentine's Day at Rio Mambo.  Rock Band.  Basically living at Katie and Jac's apt.  Taquitos in the middle of the night.  Spring Break by introducing the South Carolinian to Houston.  Being the closest people at Fergie's concert.  Curtis' birthday punch.  Six Flags with the long-time bestie.  Hell Presentation with the girls.  Summer Fun Day Mondays.  McKinney church.  The Angelika with crazy independent movies.  JD's Chippery cookies.  More new friends.  Moving to Carroll Park with Jen.  Cramped tiny closets full of clothes.  Rangers games.  Being allowed to actually counsel real people.  Austin road trip for John Piper.  Best concert of my life with New Kids on the Block and my sissy.  Lots of proposals and engaged friends.  Curtis' famous barbeques.  Texas Stampede rodeo in Dallas.  Getting kicked out of TCU library.  Baseball girl team for Halloween.  Wedding galore.  Katie and Jessica moved in.  Shouting through the walls.  Mama Raven.  PT Cruiser rental.  Hockey games.  Weekend in Boerne.  Phil Wickham amazingness.  Daffodil gardens.  The boys asking me if I knew I was in an accident.  Amazing friends that nursed me back to health.  The coveted Cobalt.  Finally pictures at the Water Gardens while freezing.  Blindfolded Curtis busting it.  Resurrection Barbeque.  Easter weekend at the Stockyards.  Slide-a-palooza.  Phil Wickham in Ft Worth.  Sissy's wedding.  The swing.  The competition for the swing.  Pure Bliss obsession.  More wedding galore.  Random one-day river trip.  Katie's karaoke machine.  JoBros concert.  Back-to-school karaoke party.  The fantastic four.  Free Cowboys games.  Halloween in a corn maze.  Girls weekend at the Gaylord.  My Cross-Cultural group project.  Our perfect real Christmas tree.  GRADUATION.  Our grad party with Curtis' amazing cake.  Graduation celebration cruise.  Chopping all the hair off.  Moving to our new grown-up apartment.  Craigslist craziness.  Nick Jonas at the House of Blues.  Sunday lunches at Red Hot and Blue.  Being a kindergarten teacher.  People being forever late to the house-warming party.  Sitting Diamond Club at the Astros game.  Monday TV night with the girls.  The time warp at the Magic Time Machine.  Lots of snow.  The night of the Ginger Man.  Jen's 80's birthday weekend.  Esparza's with the girls.  Sushi and Wicked.  Our 25th Birthday River Trip Extravaganza.  The block luau party.  Rainy Kaboom Town with picnic in the parking lot.  Pool time with the floats.  New job and my own cubicle.  Fireworks at the Gaylord.  Housesitting mania.  Fort Worthaversary celebration at the rooftop of the Reata. 

WHOA!  I absolutely love Fort Worth and these past three years of my life.  And even though I probably missed mentioning some other fabulous things, but that just goes to show how much FUN has happened here. 

Here's to the continued awesomeness in the next year....