don't close your eyes

balance-to bring in to or keep in equal or satisfying proportion or harmony

I'm pretty sure that balance is one of the hardest things in life.
I'm not talking about balancing school work with my social life-I think for the college level I've got that down.
But balancing other things....abstract things
I'll try my best to explain.
I'm finding that everything in my life has to do with submission. In this book that I read "How to Get a Date Worth Keeping" (before you laugh-it was good to read after all of the I Kissed Dating Goodbye Types in the world) something stuck out to me: "When asked about their relationships, women talk a lot about desiring to respond, desiring to be pursued, wanted, initiated with, and so forth. It helps them feel aggressive. A man's strength allows her to be all she is created to be." (Cloud 147)
Aggression = initiating things in the realtionship
Before you think this has to do with relationships, let me stop and say that it isn't. My whole life I've been the strong personality-the extrovert, the leader, the initiator, the pursue-er-and I've always struggled with the concept of God's will because I've felt (because of my personality) that I am too take charge-and I'm afraid that I will miss what God has for me because I'm off doing or wanting to do other things. This has led to an extreme amount of inaction over the past couple of years of my life (a.k.a I sit around forever and try to discern what God wants me to do down to the littlest detail). While this is a good exercise in waiting on God, I have come to the conclusion that this is not how He created us to be, and that my extreme leader personality isn't such a bad thing after all.
My whole college career I have focused on English because it is something that I've loved and also is something that I am good at. I never felt like I was lead by the voice of God to do English-it just seemed natural. And I've always doubted it because I never heard directly from God. Then, in the middle of this Feature and Magazine Writing class-I felt like God was showing me the specific knacks that he created me with. I remembered when I was a little girl and would write stories down on lined paper-the kind with the dashes in the middle so you could make your letters correctly-and I would staple them together to make books. I was also extremely story board and plot oriented-I loved making up stories in my head (my family has some pretty funny stories about my old tendencies with that). When I was older I loved to take different mediums and put them collage like on a flat surface to create art. All of a sudden I had it-God was showing me that He wanted me to pursue Magazine layout after school. And I felt like it was the most natural thing ever.
Now here I am, ready to work on the Papyrus (school newspaper) next semester, sending out my resume to people I can do layout for, and stimulating my artistic side by cutting and pasting everything that I can find and sort of calling it art. I am passionately pursuing this direction that God has opened my eyes to-even though it was totally there the whole time. He's given me the vision, now I'm after it.
This brings a whole new meaning to "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." -37:4 The desires of my heart were already there. I've always struggled with this verse as well.
So what does this all have to do with submission? I'm learning that submitting to God does not mean inacation in the rest of my life-I've been pursuing an English major for the past two and a half years while trying to hear what God wants for me after school-whether it be going to the mission field or going to grad school or getting an English type job-and to be honest, those could all be possibilities still, but I have an umbrella to work under now: magazine layout and loving people. I'm submitting that to God and waiting for the next step.
His nature to show me what is good and of Him gives me the peace to passionately and aggresively pursue all that He has for me in life.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a 'go at it one hundred percent' person-If I get something in my mind that I think is what God wants me to do-I go for it without looking back.
Another important thing to add is that if whatever I am doing is not good/the right thing, I trust that God will turn me back around-and teach me something in the process.
I need to have more grace when people make bad decisions-because I make them all the time-which means I need grace for myself as well.
God is good.

A few lyrics from one of Switchfoot's songs....I was listening to it the other day in the car, and I'm pretty sure that God has connectedness because I get pounded with a particular message at different points in my life:
Don't close your eyes
This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
when the world was younger and you had everything to lose?
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Trust in God's promises and let them promote you to action-love people, pursue what God has for you/who He's created you to be, be true to your personality.
Love,
Emily