Morning...

It's 7am. Everyone in my house is asleep right now, everyone that is but me. It's a very pretty November morning. The sun is shining through my blinds and I can hear birds chirping. At this moment it is making my heart feel happy and inspired. There's something about a sunrise that feels hopeful and inspiring. I need that. I need more sunrises. It reminds me of a line in one of my favorite songs by Augustana called "Boston", the line says -"I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset." That's how I've been feeling for a while now. I need a sunrise, the sunset is just not as beautiful as it used to be. I need the new. And whenever I forget that, watching the sun rise seems to always remind me. It reminds me of what is worth living for. Hope. Hope for what is brand new. Hope for what is not yet but will be. I think 7am is a perfect time to write. I like being the only one awake in the morning, it's a good time to be alone with my thoughts, talk to God, write, read. I need to do that more often. I've always been quite a night owl but truth be told, I'm a night owl that actually longs to be an early bird. I would love to get up early in the morning and pray. Or go to a cute cafe and just read and write. I've always thought that sounded really nice. Grab my mp3 player, journal, and a good book and just hang out at a cafe all morning just sounds good. Or maybe I'm romanticizing it a bit... I can do that sometimes.

Lately I have really been feeling God doing a work in my heart. Changing me, making me new like the sunrise. Molding me and sculpting me more into the woman he wants me to be. I'm becoming more myself I think. I've always felt that we are the closest to who we truly are when we are our closest to God. I've been trying to pray more faithfully than I had been and it's amazing because I really feel it changing me. I have been challenged in a lot of ways lately to grow in so many different areas of my life. To let God have his perfect and pleasing will in me. I feel like more and more I'm seeing people just settle for whatever comes along in life, settle for so much less than God has for them. It hurts my heart to see people I care about letting go of the hope they had in God's plan for them. I understand it because it is hard to wait for what God has for you. But yet I don't understand it because He's the God of the Universe. He has so much for you...it's too much and too good for you to miss out on because you were tired of waiting. But I feel so inspired and challenged to wait and to never settle for anything but God's perfect and pleasing will for my life. It's all I want. I don't mean this in a self righteous way at all but lately all I can think is, even if everyone around me compromises, I will be the one who doesn't. Even if everyone around me settles for less than God's best, I will never settle. By the grace of God I will keep my head above water and wait for his perfect pleasing will in my life. He is my sunrise. He is my hope for brand new. He is the source of what is not yet, but what will be. Praise you Jesus!