Procastination.

Fail. It's been 3 weeks since my last blog post and I was hoping to try for one a week. I suppose inspiration doesn' t just appear out of thin air. To be perfectly honest I was hoping I could post the words "I RAISED EVERY LAST CENT OF MY SUPPORT!" the next time I blogged, but unfortunately that is not the case. But please don't let my slight disappointment undermine my excitement for what God did these past few weeks! As of May 31st I had a message in my inbox letting me know that I had $1,500 left to raise for my trip. All my support was supposed to be sent in by today, June 10th. Scary, much? Ya. Ten days and $1,500 to raise. So I prayed. Hard. Don't let that make it seem like I had any hand in what happened next, but I was definitely more aware of what God was doing. I checked the mailbox every day, and every day I was met with disappointment. See, I was looking and hoping that one day I'd just open it and BOOM letters would come pouring out, I'd have a cry fest, and it'd be wonderful. God has a funny way of doing things you expect in a way you don't expect. I didn't get letters, but I got an e-mail, a text message, and several in-person gifts that rocked my world a little bit. See at the beginning of my support raising, I had about $1,100 in the first 4 weeks. I thought that was incredible. Well God provided that much in a span of 3 days. There is really no better way to describe it than a God-thing. So as of today my parents are writing a check for $400 versus $1,500. And 3 days was all it took to make up that difference. If that isn't incredible I'm not really sure what is.

Now, I learned some things over the last few days (I find that God is never really done teaching me, even if it is lessons I think I've learned before). First off, I struggled with how to pray over all of this. Was I trying to manipulate God with my prayer? Did I need to pray in exactly the right way in order for God to do exactly what I wanted? It's that whole "If God is sovereign why should I pray?" struggle. Well last year my bible study did a study on prayer and we went through a book that addressed a lot of these issues (It's called Live a Praying Life, I highly recommend it, either as a personal study, or for a bible study). I cracked it open and I was immediately convicted about my attitude in my prayer life. See, I've viewed the money for my trip to Africa as a right. In my mind I was just like, "Come on God, what are you waiting for? Just give me the money already, I already know you will, why wait?". I thought that it was all as good as mine, but that's that problem. It was never mine. It never will be mine. Every good and perfect gift comes from God. Well the very first page asked some "Why do we pray?" questions. I found myself lining up with the manipulation stance more than anything. I thought I just hadn't "released" God's blessing yet. I thought I hadn't said the magic word in the magic way yet in order to get what was mine. Ouch. Kind of a humbling realization. Not really my favorite to put into words for everyone to read. But it's true, that was my attitude. So through all of this God has been working on refining my heart and mind and my prayer life. I realize that I don't know a perfect prayer, and I never will, because the perfect prayer doesn't exist. Honest, heartfelt, confession and supplication is what God asks of us. And then thankful spirits when he answers our prayer in ways we couldn't possibly imagine.

So that is a very brief update on some life lessons that I've been learning. Would you like a little fun update? Yes? Okay swell. Yesterday I got my last two shots for Africa! Whoo! For those of you who keep up with some of my Facebook postings you may know that I passed out on my last shot and because of that they didn't give me my other two. So I've been putting this off for about a month now. Whoops. The whole looming "You could pass out again" thought kind of help with my procrastination. But Grant, my boyfriend, came in this week to visit me and he was not about to let me keep putting it off since you need 2 weeks for the vaccinations to really kick in and start working. So I got bribed into getting them done yesterday. I feel like a little kid, but I admit I went in because Grant promised me he'd buy me two scoops of cappuccino chocolate chunk ice cream from Braums (SO GOOD) if I went and didn't pass out or cry. Success and success. I would like you all to know I got to enjoy some delicious ice cream afterwards. I maybe admitted the bribery to my doctor, so she helped me out a bit and gave me an ice pack to help keep me from passing out. There were no rules against getting a little help. Yesterday was a good day.

So last thing, before I leave you all, I am working on my list of thankful things and it is coming along quite nicely. Basically every day I write down 6 things I'm thankful for. They can be really small and silly, and most of the time they are. Over the summer I can never repeat anything so at the end I will have 450 thankful things. Each day there has to be a specific reason for why I am thankful for that thing or person. For instance, one day I was thankful for ceiling fans, canoes, Psalm 25, Thunder (our dog), Chacos, and chai tea. Pretty random list, huh? Well the AC in our guest house had quit working and so we had every fan in the house running. Without them it would have been complete misery. Also, Roxy, Haley, Hope, and I took our neighbors' canoe out and it was very fun and relaxing, and without a canoe we wouldn't have gotten to have quite as fun of an afternoon. Psalm 25 because it is the first Psalm I read when I became a Christian and I had read it again that morning and it was just as meaningful and powerful. It will always be one of my favorite passages of scripture. Thunder because I sit outside at night when I talk to Grant on the phone, and Thunder sits out there with me and makes me feel safer. Chacos because they are just super convenient and comfortable and great for canoeing. Chai tea because, I mean, come on. Its SO GOOD (just like cappuccino chocolate chunk ice cream.) So there is the main idea of my summer thankful list, and it is crazy how many awesome little things God does in our life every single day. One third of the way through my summer (Seriously. It's ridiculous) and I don't think that it will be very difficult to come up with new things all the time, seeing as God's mercies are new every morning.

From here on out I'll be keeping you posted on thankful things, more painful life lessons, and AFRICA (SOOO SOON!!!!!!)

Over and out homies.