a mask of meekness....

So, I am sitting here, sipping a coffee, and reflecting on the day. It wasn't very eventful, although it did provoke some interesting questions in my mind. The one that keeps rolling through my head is the topic of identity. I had my first bible study tonight with and on campus christian group that I've become connected with this year. We are doing a study of the book of John and the indepth questioning of the first part of the chapter tonight were great. But as I was driving home I kept thinking about, well...me. I know that probably sounds a bit self centred, but let me explain. For the majority of my life, I have had a label. I am the quiet, passive, obliging young lady who speaks when she's spoken too. I'm never the first one to raise my hand, heaven forbit offer an opinion. And what I came to realize again tonight was that I have carried that with me for a long time, and it has come to define me. For people who know me, I feel I'm expected to behave in this way. The unfortunate part is that even coming into new group settings, I continued to portray that side of myself, even if it wasn't truely who I had become.

So tonight, this year in all honesty, I want that to change. I don't need to hide behind a mask of meekness, I am ready to step out boldly. God has been showing me many things over the past year, and one of them is simply that I am missing so much. So many opportunities to grow; grow in relationship with others, branch out and start new relationships and, especially, grow closer to Him. I am not defined by who I was but who I am now. I am created anew.

I am currently reading "Practicing His Presence" by Brother Lawrence (just as I said with Irresistable Revolution, read it, it'll change you). The author's lifestyle was to be in constant prayer with God, a continuous conversation (crazyily simple, yet amazingly hard core stuff!). There's a quote from the end of the chapter that I just finished that says, " every minute can be a fresh beginning". I think I like that :)

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come!"

~2 Corinthians 5:17~

That's all for now, talk to you soon :)

God Bless :)

Running on the Beach <3

As promised, here is the journal/blog written on vacation, during which time I was without Internet...

Waves are incredible. They have both beauty in their colour and mist and power in their size and current, that can sweep you off your feet in an instant. Waves can also erase. This week as I ran along the beach in Ocean City, I was reminded of the footprints poem that sits on my desk at home. I would run along the shoreline leaving a trail behind me, only to have a wave come and wash the evidence of my existence away. I had to rely on the buildings erected further back along the beach to get myself back to my starting point. A land mark closer to the water could be swept away in the blink of an eye. I am like those landmarks, those footprints, I change with the tide. I can be swept away in the depth of my emotions, running so deep that i feel like I can't keep my head above water. But my Father, He is the tallest, strongest building along that beach and if I set my eyes on Him, and follow His path I will find my way home. Maybe not on the path I thought I would take, and I might catch a wave or two along the way that spins me or crashes against me, leaving scrapes and bruises; maybe even scars. But when I have finally reached my finish line, and I fall down face first into the sand, He will see those scars and still call me beautiful. He will gather me in His arms and whisper in my ear, "Welcome home".

Just thinkin'.....

So, I haven't been at this for a while, but I did warn you of that in the first post :) I figured it was about time that I checked in though. So, life is continuing on, as it always seems to do despite my best efforts to make it come to a standstill some times. School is fast approaching and while I am leary of the many essays that will innevitably be in my future, I am actually looking forward to being one year closer to reaching my goal. I have to watch it this year though. Ask my family or pretty much anyone who knew me during fall and winter semesters, and they will tell you I put way too much stock in my studies last year. It took a few good friends to slapping me upside the head and reminding me that there were things that were more important in life. It hurt, but it worked. Anyways, I've got a few other things on my plate coming up as well. Besides more school stuff, registration and what not, I have a placement that I am currently trying to fill. For my second year CHYS course this year, I am required to spend three hours once a week, working with children in some setting; this absolutely thrills me :) Finally, something about school that, while it is manditory for the course, I can do whole heartedly. So, hopefully I will be able to post good news about that soon :)

On non school related news, I have begun to run again. I told myself that I was going to run everyday this summer when the summer began and, in my typical fashion, fell short of this. I then began running again while on vacation with my family and even got the chance to run on the beach in the mornings, which was amazing. I have a seperate post about that which I will put up later that I actually wrote while I was on the trip. All that to say, one of the purchases while were away, wound up being a new pair of running shoes, which I have been putting to good use. I have also finally found someone to run with, which is more helpful than I thought it would be. I find that no matter which one of us sets the pace, I want us both to finish our run at the same time, so I will keep going, past the point where I would have stopped if I was on my own. I'm not sure how long it will last, but for the moment I'm excited about it.

Well, that's about it for today. I still don't even know if anyone reads this but it's still proving to be a great outlet for me. Bye for now :)

God Bless

Meaghan :)

Tenth Avenue North

Hey there :) I'm hiding out in the computer room at the moment from the abundance of family that has arrived at my grandpa's house :P I love my family so much, but man some of them can be loud sometimes :) While I am hiding out I am also listening to Tenth Avenue North, a new group that I found today. We made our annual trip to LifeWay, the Christian bookstore down here and I almost picked up a copy of their CD; but I decided to youtube them first. I fell in love with a couple of their songs but the one that's stuck in my mind is called Beloved. It's written as a love song from God to us, but so many of the lyrics just hit home for me. Thinking about God as my lover is a new concept for me, one I only really began pondering a couple months ago. I was reading a book called the irresistible revolution (read it, it'll change you), and the author, Shane Claiborne was talking about his love life, so to speak, and the reasoning behind his life of celibacy. He shared about falling in love with Christ, and the journey being like one we would typically experience. As the you come to know more of your partener, you become closer to them and, hopefully, fall deeper and more completely in love with them. This is how he described his relationship with Christ, and it gave me perspective that I desperately needed at the time. Now I'll be honest, while a life of celibacy is something that would be amazing, I don't think I could do it. But, I do have to be careful not to fulfill my desire to be loved with people and things of this world. They will let me down, break me, but the love of my Saviour is eternal and unconditional, something that it is, frankly, unfair of me to expect of any future relationship that I may have :P So, that brings me to the links you will find below, both my Tenth Avenue North. The first, as I mentioned before is called Beloved, and is a love letter from God to us. The second is called beside me, and it talks more generally about our relationship with Christ, how we tend to search everywhere else, try everyother path before we come back to Him, the only one who will satisfy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CUGTIWCFyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J95rAr0gOFU&feature=related

Just Checking In

So, I finally have a chance to get back on here and update a bit of my life :P I'm in Baltimore right now, visiting my dad's side of the family. We only get to do this twice a year and for me, this trip is my only one this year because of the timing of reading week. We're staying with my Grandpa, and have plans to see the remainder of the family sometime this week. This is my second trip down here without my grandmom's laughter being heard from the kitchen as we enter the house. I can almost hear her laughing along side my mum and dad as they clean up the supper dishes and it makes me smile. My grandmom loved laughing, and when she really got going she had everyone else at the table giggling too. Each year here gets a little easier. A few less tears, a few more smiles. To speak her name and to think on her hugs and amazing cooking is now a cause to smile instead of causing you to leave the room or hold back tears. She was an amazing lady, and the only thing that still makes me a bit sad is that I did not see her as much as I would have liked.
What is kind of neat though, is all of her belongings that we keep coming across as we clean up or try to find places to put out luggage :) A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take up knitting. Half of it was learned through youtube, the other from my mother (as it should be), and off I went. The firs scarf (which I have yet to finish), turned out quite horribly. Many a dropped stitch, many a hole and I learned after the fact that the needles I was using were about 4 sizes too small for the yarn I had chosen :P None the less I carried on and the near-finished project is at least the length a scarf should be :) All this to say, that on our yearly trip to the craft store, I decided to get some new wool, or string.....whatever it's called, and start again. Coming home, my mum remembered that she had seen some of my grandmom's old knitting needles in the back of one of the closets. So I am now working on my second scarf (which is turning out quite well), with a pair of needles that she used to lovingly create gifts for her family and friends. It's one more thing that reminds me of her and one more thing that makes me smile :)

Waiting for the Sandman

If I let it, my mind can wander so far that it takes awhile for it to find it's way back home again. Tonight happens to be one of those times. I have to be up at 6am tomorrow morning and even though I can feel a wave of sleep coming over me I'm not quite ready to turn in. I've been thinking over this last year a lot over the past couple of weeks. A lot has happened. A lot has changed, both in my life and in my heart. I've had many new experiences this year and each one left it's own unique fingerprint on my life.

I have learned a lot about dependency this year. Choosing to stay live at home during University proved to be a blessing in disguise as I stuggled to gain my balance, but it also left me wishing for independance that was simply beyond my means at the time. However, the dependency that my mind seems to wander to tonight falls not into the financial category, but into the relational one.

I would not say that I have a lot of friends. At least, not a lot of close ones. See, I'm the type of person who, no one really dislikes, but no one really knows either. And that's not really anyones fault but my own. This means, then, that if I call you a close friend, that you have by some miracle, broken down the protective barrier that I have placed around my self which normally resembles a smile. And I love you for it. You have seen me at my best and at my worst. You have seen me cry and laugh so hard that tears of joy have streamed down my face. But, most importantly, you have taken me as I am, regardless of all of that.

Now, what does that have to do with dependency? Well, individuals who fit the above description are few and far between. There are those friends who know me on the surface. Like I said before, that protective barrier is hard to penetrate. But, becasue these are the friends that are around most of the time, they are the ones that I come to depend on....for too much. For my value, my self worth, my mood for the day. Sometimes they come through. Other times they don't. That, is life. Life can hurt.

So, this is where the awesome part comes in :) I don't know if you've read my little autobiography on the side of this page, but I mention in there that I am in love with the God of the universe....I'm not saying that to try to be funny or sound important; I wrote it because it's true. And, He is the one that I need to be depenant on. This is what He's taught me through all of the drama, tears and healing of this year. Through my first relationship, start of university and struggling with who I am, I have found that sometimes, in order to have the longing to have God close and in the day to day, He needs to pull away sometimes. That we were made to be in community, but that if I place all my worth on who calls and to what extent I am included, I am placing my dependency with people who are going to let me down.

I have a friend (one of those rare few who have broken my protective barrier), who sends out a text message every day with a verse of encouragement. Today, it was from Joshua 1:5 - "I will never leave you nor forsake you." He never does! I pray that I can wake up every morning with that promise on my heart, and take comfort that He broke through my protective barrier years ago....He was jus waiting for me to open my heart to Him :)

Lots of Love

God Bless

So, I've never done this before....

Hey there :)
So, I was spurred on to this site by my mum who created her own blog this past week. In all honesty though, I have no idea what I'm doing! :P My initial thought in creating this blog was it would be a good outlet for myself. Writing is an outlet for me in general, be it in my journal or on a random scrap of paper that I find in my binder at school. While the majority of this writing comes when I am stressed or upset, I do also write in extremely happy situations which will be to your benefit :) All that to say, this blog will not be a daily thing, and it may not even be a weekly thing (one the school year starts). But it will be a place where I share my inner struggles and joys, whats going on in my day to day life and how, at the end of the day, I continue to be amazed at how much the God of the universe continues to love me and call me his own, even when it feels as though I am completely alone. See, there I go with the inner feelings :P
So, I thought I'd give you a bit of a background on the name of my blog. I pulled it from one of my favourite quotes which reads, "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today, it's already tomorrow in Australia!" I am a worrier, I have been for pretty much my whole life. Sometimes it's justified, most times it's not :P Anyways, that's where the name comes from, and somehow it fits :)
I think that's about it for this first posting. My family and I are leaving for vacation tomorrow which I have been looking forward to for a while now :)
Lots of Love
God Bless