No More Mundane

Weekends in Review help me remember the little things.. and big things... that change my life. Because weekdays seem a little mundane. Get up. Go to work. Go to the gym (when I'm good). Go home. Go to church. Go home. Go to bed. That's pretty much everything.

But weekends... Oh man, weekends are da BOMB! Yes, I'm a youth leader. Yes, I say weird things and use random outdated urban-ish language like "da bomb" and "WORD." Because I just think it's funny. And apparently, my youth think it's funny too. We are easily amused. :)

ANYway, back to important stuff.

Friday. I leave work at 4:00 pm and go straight to the lil' Starbucks cafe in Barnes & Noble. Good coffee and free wi-fi = other computer work, photography related. Except my laptop decided to be stupid. Major stupido. And we battled for about 1.5 hours. The computer won. Your time is short, my stubborn technological friend! .... onward to the Penn State ice pavilion for youth group activity. Slight snag on the times of free ice skating, but we had some major fun making short jokes, helping the bad skaters, twirling, spinning, mimicing the "Ice Princess," mocking (in a nice way) the 'lifeguards,' screaming over little children that fell down in front of us, doing psuedo-hockey-body-slams into the walls (middle school guys are so willing to get violent!) and making silly videos... And no, I did not fall down. Not once. Boo-yah! Then walking 7ish blocks up Penn State campus for the world-famous ice cream. Best flavor: Death By Chocolate! *Sigh* I (heart) Penn State.

Saturday. Another day for senior portraits... Only this one was a road trip. I love willing subjects. The Curly Girl just laughed and went along with me whatever I asked her to do... "Oh, a forest!... Oh, can you climb into that tree?.. Oh, a roof! Will you get onto it?.. Oh, look at those rocks!" LOL And it was wonderful that she was so willing. Because we had enough trouble trying to FIND locations. We ended up in a town 15 miles past where we needed to be, drove in an entire circle (for 15 minutes), decided to detour for the World's Best French Toast (not kidding), then went back 15 miles, through mountains, up gravel roads, still listening to that crazy GPS system, and finally, when the GPS told us to drive on a little bumpy, grassy, deep-tire-ruts trail, I refused. It knew nothing. It pretended to know where it was going... but that little GPS system was crazy!! Finally, we ignored it. Completely. And after about 7 calls to my parents (not joking), I made it to our portrait location. Which was a cool state park and awesome railroad tunnel. Worth the crazy drive? Hmmmm, maybe so! You can tell ME in a few weeks when the portraits are up on the photo blog! :) .... after that 6-hour-long senior portrait fiasco, I was beat. Saturday afternoon/evening positives included: Penn State winning the football game, a little nap, inspired to cook ridiculously great Italian food, then a British movie and chocolate chip cookie dough made with dark chocolate chips. MMMMMM. It's all about the details!

Sunday. And here, things get serious.
I don't know what to say... God is pressing on our hearts. He is challenging me to regain the spiritual fire that I once had. May I say again, "The zeal of God has consumed me!" During Pastor's sermon this morning, he talked about the marks of revival. Including deep repentance, the spirit of prayer, the spirit of expectation, total surrender, spontaneity of meetings, the absence of fleshly elements and Christ being pre-eminent.

What hit me the hardest was absolute surrender, and the word "abandon." Have I abandoned myself to God? Given myself, my future, my desires, and all that I am to Him? Without wanting to take back control of this life? Have I trusted Him with everything?

There is so much more that God is speaking... There was a new hunger for Christ, His Word and His Spirit rising in my heart again. There was a seriousness in our youth meeting tonight... and so I have nothing else to say.

Except.
No more mundane.
God is now reviving His people.
God is now reviving... me.