"Your will be done"

I have had two major life verses in my life, that I have repeated to myself over and over again when times were rough.
The first one was Jeremiah 29:11. As I drove by myself from Iowa to LA in the spring of 2009 through hills of Utah in an extreme downpour this verse came to mind.
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
I breathed easier knowing that God had a plan, that should my car die, should I die, in this barren land with 100 miles to the next gas station, that it would be a part of God's plan. That should I live, it would be a part of God's plan. God had a future for me.

This was my verse until winter 2013, when I met someone who had the same life verse. When I was in a relationship that would change my life. When I experienced my first panic attack, as I heard that verse coming out of his mouth, and knew God was clearly speaking to me.
My prayer had changed that fall. That relationship had caused me to change. The words of my lips and pray of my heart had changed to a simple phrase, "Your will be done."
Yes I had a future and yes, God still had a plan for me, but what I needed to remind myself of was that God's will needed to be done. It wasn't about me, but about God.

Today as I reflected on this, I began to think more and more about the Lord's Prayer. About how Jesus instructed us to pray.
It starts out so simple.
Our Father - Ours not just Jesus', not just mine, not just yours, but OURS. We may not agree on predestination or the end of the world, but none of that matters. We have the same God, we share the same Father. We are a community of believers. Often we forget that.
who art in heaven - God is reigning over us, He is where we want to be.
hallowed be your name - God is are holy, God is worthy to be praised.
your kingdom come - Your kingdom God, not mine, not Joe's, but Yours.
your will be done - God what You want, what You will, what You desire. Not me, not my wants, not my wills, not my desires.
on earth - On earth, in this place. God's will be done here and now, where we walk and live.
as it is in heaven - let this place on earth be a mirror of heaven.
Give us today - Today, not tomorrow, not next week, or next month or when we graduate or get married but today.
our daily bread - God will not let us starve. He will deliver the manna from heaven. He will feed us. Daily.
and forgive us our trespasses - We will screw up. We are human and we fail, but God will forgive us.
as we forgive those who have sinned against us -  we need to forgive. Holding that grudge, holding that hurt, does nothing but hurt us. If God can forgive us, we need to extend that forgiveness onto others.
And lead us not into temptation - I am prone to screw up. It is only with God that I don't fail. If God is leading us, if our eyes are on God, we will be safer from temptation.
but deliver us from evil - God can rescue us. God DOES rescue us. He is the only thing that saves.

Matthew 6:9- 13, how simple, how beautiful. How often we just repeat the words from memory, without pausing to think about what they really mean.

My head is full

Trying to lay down to sleep and my head is full.

Full of thoughts about inmates and how they are loved and that no matter their past crime they still deserve to know they are loved. (By God and by others)

Full of thoughts of how no one deserves love but God loves us all anyway.

Full of thoughts of the power of the written word. The value and meaning behind that someone took the time to write something down. 

Full of over processing and over thinking. 

Full of feeling and emotions and tears.

Full of a heart that doesn't fit in my chest.

Full of a God who holds it all easily in His hands. 

Blame Game

Exodus

Isrealites blame Moses. Moses blames God.

We blame those who hurt us, the friend, ex boyfriend/girlfriend. The parent who was never around. We blame those people and they blame others. The father who didn't teach them how to be a man, the generational differences, the disease. 

Everyone is blaming someone else. Passing off our behaviors and actions and words as results of something that happened to us. 

But what if we stopped. What if we stopped passing the blame? What if we just admitted that a crappy thing happened to us but that we can rise above. 

Yes my ex relationships have hurt me in a lot of ways but those men aren't to blame for our failed relationshipships. They screwed up and I screwed but in the end We didn't belong together and that's all that matters. 

Yes your father was never around, he never "taught" you how to be a man but aren't you still a man. And maybe he wasn't around because he realized he wasn't a good teacher. 

I am not trying to create excuses for the way or why things happen. All I am trying to say is that passing the blame onto someone else gets us nowhere.

So let's all just own up to the fact that crappy things happen and learn from it and stop pointing fingers.