I am blessed

I am blessed with amazingly intelligent parents who love me more than you can imagine.
I am blessed with the most fun siblings on the face of the planet.
I am blessed with super encouraging friends who are there for me no matter what.
I am blessed with a youth pastor and his wife who would drop anything to sit and talk with me.
I am blessed with a church and youth group that has taught me about what's important.
I AM BLESSED WITH AN AWESOME GOD.

I am blessed with a God who loves me enough to send his only Son to come to Earth and take the beating that was meant for me. I am blessed with a God who cares about me so much that He wants me to continue learning and growing in my faith. I am blessed with a God who is willing to help me with that by testing me. I am blessed with a God who knows what's best for me.

The past couple weeks, I've been praying for patience. Yes, I understand that a lot of you are asking "Why on earth would you do that?" I had been told by many people previously this year that praying for patience is ridiculous because then God gives you plenty of chances to test it and it's not all fun and games. I didn't remember that AT ALL when I began praying for patience. But sure enough, they were right, and God delivered plenty of chances for me to exercise the patience I had been asking for. Easy? No. Beneficial? Yes.

Another thing I've been praying about recently is what career path God wants me to take. Lately, I've been kind of interested in looking more into psychology. I have been told by many people that I'm great to get advice from and I'm a super caring person. While that may sound all cheery and happy-faced and such, it's a lot harder than it sounds. Don't get me wrong, I love helping people, but wow, it's not easy to do. I'm the type of person who wants to fix everything for everybody myself, and if I can't do it, then I'm disappointed. Obviously, that's not the way it's supposed to be...God's there for a reason and He gives me all the strength I need to be able to reach out to people the way I do.

So anyway, I was discouraged this week because I had several people ask me for help on all sorts of different issues and I felt defeated. Defeated because I didn't have the answers to all of their problems. Defeated because I felt like God was putting too much pressure on me. But really, that wasn't the case at all. God gave me all of those opportunities and "patience tests" for a reason, I just wasn't looking at it the right way.

After talking to a couple of my really close friends and my mom tonight, I feel better about everything. God doesn't do anything on accident and this week was definitely good for me. I'm not expecting things to get easier, but I do think I'm ready for whatever God throws at me this week. Maybe He's showing me whether or not I could handle being a psychologist or counselor, or maybe He's just showing me more and more ways to simply trust in Him. I'm not sure yet, but...either way, I'm totally cool with it.

*Psalm 32:8 ~I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. (NIV)