"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.

Food

Those of you that know me know that food is a pretty major part of my life, like in the "how the heck is that girl not 1000 pounds" sorta way.

The other day after eating at Red Mango and being disappointed because it was definetly no YogurtLand, I started to think about my life and eating habits and how when I lived in California there was little to no foods that I missed in the Midwest. There was the occasional desire for Dorthy Lynche (sp?) dressing and in the summer sweet corn but that was really about it.
Now that I have been back in the midwest for almost a year I miss A LOT of resturants from CA. Yogurtland is a constent miss, especially in the warm summer months. When I went to Red Mango the other night I was kinda disappointed cuz they just don't have any many flavors and all of theirs were fruity, not sweet and fun like YogurtLand (oh rootbeer you were pretty awesome)
There is also In N Out Burger which is another constent miss. My mouth is currently watering thinking about those burgers and fries. I'm not going to lie I usually felt sick if I went Animal style on both the burger and the fries, but it was delicious and worth it every time.
Then there is El Pollo Loco and any place where I can get a decent fish taco. That is what I truly miss the most, fish tacos.

I went to a so called 'Mexican" resturant the other day for lunch and decided to order their fish tacos to try them out and it was kinda like eating a fish stick in a tortilla shell with some lettuce and tomatoes. I proceeded to try and cover it with several different things to help it out but nothing worked. It still makes me sad to think about it.

So even though I love my family and am happy to finally be employeed after almost a year of unemployement, I would totally move back to Cali just for the food.

What to do???

Yesterday while meeting with my pastor he informed me that I needed to figure out what I wanted. WHAT?!?!?! Apparently me living as the wind takes me isn't a very purposeful life, nor profitable.

I have been couch surfing for the last 6 months in the beautiful Long Beach, CA area. I came out here after living in Iowa for 27 years. I had spent the last three of them in a small south eastern Iowa town with a good job. I also spent those three years looking for another job. Small town living is not the life for me. A short discussion with some friends and my hand been forced at work lead me to quit my safe job and load up my car and move.
So in addition to couch surfing I have also been job hunting, in a state that is having some pretty serious issues. The major downfall for the job hunt besides the lack of jobs is the lack of knowing what I want. I have this ideal in my head of working for a convention center or hotel as an event coordinator. That is what I would love to do, I think. In all honesty I have no clue.
So here I am with a blog and not much else. I tell myself and others that I what I want is to do what God wants me to do. Which is completely true, but I don't know what He wants me to do. Does He want me to be a bartender, or a nanny, or a lunch lady? Does He want me in Long Beach or Redondo Beach, or maybe back in the Midwest? Maybe it doesn't really matter what He wants, or maybe He wants me to do what I want. Which goes back to the original issue.
I need to figure out what I want.