Weekend reflection and some life updates :)

Hey there...

It's Tuesday...and I am home once again. ;) Oh the life of an aspiring substitute. It helps that I know a lot of people are in my shoes.

I had a really great weekend! For some reason it seems a lot farther away than it is..ha.

Friday Kasey and I hung out, and then Friday night some friends got together for my birthday at Olive Garden. :) It was soo fun. We went to Border's after because they were having an intense going out of business sale... I got two good read a loud chapter books for pretty cheap, so that was exciting.

Saturday morning I went to R and R. (women's retreats that last for about an hour an a half once a month on Saturday mornings.) It was awesome as usual.

Jenny talked about how we so often cover ourselves up from people and God with "fig leaves" or people pleasing. BUT there is nothing we can hide from God. She sent this email about a book called "grace for the good girl" and included this excerpt that I really liked... it can be true for me or has been at different times in my life.

"I hide behind my smile and laid-back personality. I hide behind fine and good. I hide behind strong and responsible. I hide behind busy and comfortable and working hard toward your expectations. And if I do not meet your expectations, I hide behind indifferent. And though the purpose of my mask is to fool you, don’t be fooled.... I feel fear. It washes over me with its lies and half-truths. The lies aren’t blatant. They marry themselves with a little bit of truth so the distinction is blurry at best. And so I practice the presence of fear and refuse the presence of Jesus. I lived this toxic way for many years before I understood about The Rescue. I live it still, when I forget that I’ve been found. Even for those to whom truth has been revealed, fear can be a loud and abusive motivator. Fear drives. But Love leads."

I just think that message is so powerful...

I try not to hide behind any masks but I'm sure I do. As I was journaling I got the feeling that I do try to DO and SAY things to be more pleasing in God's eyes...but there isn't anything I can DO because the price has already been paid.

After RandR I had breakfast/lunch with a good friend and we were able to catch up on life. She is in a semi-new relationship so I was asking her about it. She said they actually met online.. which I think is really neat!

I think I might try some sort of sight and see where that goes. I think it's definitely less creepy, and more acceptable these days. What do YOU think?

On Sunday night I went to LCBC (a big church) for something that they call a life group link. It's basically a way for people to find a small group. It was really neat the way they did everything. I ended up with about 7 other girls who live around my area... I'm not good at forming first impressions of people that are very correct... but we'll see. I'm not sure I'll be "BFFs" with all of them...but it could be a good experience. We decided to meet on Sunday nights. The life group people suggest that this be a six-week trial, and that if you don't feel connected or comfortable after six weeks you can pull away. So I guess I'll give it a try and see how it goes.

Something really neat that came out of it, is that when I was in the midst of figuring out my group, I saw a girl kind of standing by herself and she looked young. Since I was looking for other young people I went up to her and asked her if she had a group yet...and she just said "no...", and I told her that we were kind of trying to form a group over in another area for people around where we live, and she came to join us. Then at the end, as we were walking out (we ha parked RIGHT near each other) she said "thanks for coming up and talking to me". I told her sure..I wasn't really sure what she was doing.. and she said "yeah...I'm not good at that, I was about ready to walk out."

So that was AWESOME. It was totally God working through me to help her find a group, and I'm so glad he did! Times like that are awesome.

So that was my weekend :)

Today I went to a school district office (hempfield) and started the process of signing up to sub with them. I'm supposed to call this lady at an Elementary school around Thursday to set up an informal interview. Then I have to wait for the board to approve me and they don't have a meeting until Oct. 11th.

Oh well... hopefully that works out.

Hope y'all are having a fantastic Tuesday!