Thankful at 1:27am :)

Well, it's another late night ... and I just don't want to go to bed. A night when the mind is goin' and the body won't stop movin' ... blah. I love to sleep, but I've been tossing and turning in bed more often lately ... and I find myself not wanting to go to bed at night a lot lately too.
Ha! It's probably all the sweet tea I drink, now that I think about it. ;)
But either way ... whether it be too much sugar and caffeine in my system or a mind constantly pondering my season of life ... I don't want to go to bed tonight.

I've been in an extra good mood the past couple of days. Since my chat with my dad and my "pruning," I've just been thinking UP. Excited about life. Thankful. And wow ... what better way to spend a late night than to thank God for my many blessings.
Yes, let's go! :)

God,
I thank you for my parents. I think I have the best parents ever! My dad is an encourager by nature, generous, slow to anger, passionate about You, always takes care of me and mom and Wes. My mom is a perseverer whether she thinks so or not, has a great sense of humor, goes out of her way to love me in light of my love language (receiving gifts), a great listener. I am excited to be living at home when most 20-somethings don't like, maybe even hate, living with their parents. I am incredibly blessed not only to have a great house to live in and a town I love but an awesome HOME.
Thank you for my friends. I struggle from time to time with my friends getting married, having kids, moving away, even just getting busy with school and work ... but I have amazing friends! They love me, get excited for me when I'm doing what I love, more than tolerate my shinanigans, pray for me, encourage me. Oh, they are great!
The list could go on and on, Lord, because you have blessed me with so much - far more than anything I could ask or imagine! So for now, lastly, I thank you for changing seasons - yes, the weather seasons (I'm lovin' the 50 degrees blowing through my open window right now!) - but more importantly, the seasons of life that you give me. This "single, 20-something, 'what the heck am I gonna do with my life!?'" season has been difficult, to say the least. But, God, I find so much grace in it - through Your provision of hope and excitement for what's to come, the focus I can have on YOU, the calling I can live out even more passionately and undistractedly (yes, I just made up a word), the time with my parents and brother and friends and church family and SoZo that I wouldn't have if I were married and having kids, the lessons I cannot learn in any other season. Lord Jesus, You are just AWESOME!!!! For growing me, loving me, teaching me, dying for me, giving me purpose. Thank you for Your hope and grace and strength and provision and joy and peace and lessons and Your word ... thank you for giving me courage to withstand the trials and disappointments ... and to face each new day. Your grace is more than sufficient and more than amazing. Your might is more than I can comprehend. Thank you, Lord God. Thank you, Jesus!
I love you.

The Pruning (Part 2)

Okay! Listen up! You must read my previous post first - "The Pruning (Part 1)" BEFORE you read this post!!! It's a preface to the great thoughts to come now ...

Why might God plant us in less than ideal circumstances?
Check out these verses, yo!!!

Deuteronomy 30:6
"And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live."
Circumcise: "to put off the sins of the flesh; to make holy"
Less than ideal circumstances = trials
God allows us to go through trials so that we will learn to run away from the sins that so easily trap us and to make us more like Him. The more we overcome sin, the more holy we become.

Jeremiah 29:12-14
"Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."
God allows us to go through trials so that He can teach us how to seek Him and allow us to experience the grace of His restoration in and of our lives.

Philippians 4:11-13
"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."
God allows us to go through trials so that we will learn to be content in every circumstance we face and and to learn that our strength not only comes from God but that we are utterly dependent on Him for all that we could want or need.

1 Timothy 6:6-8
"Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content."
God allows us to go through trials so that we will understand that we are nothing without Him and to teach us contentment with what we have and where we are in our lives.

Awesome, right? .... Wow!
Well, let me leave you with some questions that my devotional had me answer for myself ....
What keeps you from being content within your present circumstances?
What might God want you to prune?
Prune: "to remove dead parts"
What might He want to heal, mend, or perfect in you?
How can you "bloom where you are planted" in your present circumstances?

Lamentations 3:25-26
"The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."

THE END :)

The Pruning (Part 1)

Well, it's true ... I am very behind with my grace posts again (surprise, surprise). I'll catch up with 'em later. Right now, I have some amazing thoughts to share with you. ... My devotions tonight are really awesome. "Are" being present tense because they continue here ... I just MUST share them with you all!!! :)

It amazes me how God works ... always and in perfect ways! Tonight, I talked with my dad about the season of life that I'm in right now. It's a rough season overall ... and it was a difficult conversation with my dad. Nearly tears ... almost. But I came away from it encouraged 'cause my dad is a great encourager, always keeps an eternal perspective, which I need to be constantly reminded of, and his words just simply gave me hope for my current circumstances.

The short version of my life-situation, or my "current season of life," is ...
1. Most my friends are leaving me either by marriage or kids or moving away or busyness.
2. I failed the Praxis 9 times. I still want to be a teacher, and I plan to take the test again. But I struggle with fear that is closer to the paralyzing kind than the healthy kind.
3. I want to find my future husband and work alongside him in ministry, but he's nowhere to be found. (And by the way, several of my friends have husbands!)
4. My insecurities have been nearly crippling me in my calling.

Without going into too much of a pity party, I will stop here. Wow! I'm finding hope in these circumstances, right? RIGHT! :D .... Oh, but first! In effort to keep this LONG post shorter, I'm gonna break it up into two posts. I really want y'all to hear this! And I wanna make sure my A.D.D. doesn't kick in too hard so that I can listen to it a second time ... 'cause this stuff is good! Straight from God. So ... read my next post.

This one is TO BE CONTINUED ...

GoG 253: The "Why the Heck Would You Want All the Details about My Day?" Post :)

Today ... well, I tossed and turned all night. Not sure why ... I've been doing that for the past week. So I finally woke up at 8:00 and headed downstairs to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Cartoons these days are so weird - warped, even ... and sometimes gross or somewhat crude. So I finally turned off the TV and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up again around 12noon. Then, I got dressed and made a few stops ... went to Calvary to do a few quick things for SoZo, went to check on Jared and Maggie's garage sale - they're having it tomorrow instead (rained out!), and then I went to Dugan's for an oil change. They were closed. So I came home, plopped down on the couch, watched a movie ... and then fixed dinner, ate dinner. Then a walk ... a long walk. Then ... I took my autographed picture of Zachary Levi over to Uncle Mike and Jen's ... I just had to show them! And I stayed for over 2 hours ... chatting and watching a movie.

Ha! But why on earth would you want to know all those details??!!! Hahaha! We'll just say I'm sharing about my day with my BBF who lives 5 hours away. You'll appreciate the details, Em. ;)

Aww ... and the grace in all that. I'm sure I could find a few glimpses, but I'm gonna go with hangin' out with UM and Jen. They are definitely at the top of my favorite people ever list ... so it's always great to chat with them. And their house feels like a second home to me. :)

GoG 252: The Hug from Jaxson :):):)

Yesterday at after school, I got a hug from Jaxson!!!!!!

I'm still new to the after school thing, so I don't get many hugs yet. And you're not supposed to have favorites among your kids, but I do. Jaxson. Jaxson Molloy is my favorite! He is the cutest 5-year ... maybe ever! He's got kind of a mischievous side to him but oh, so lovable too! And he gave me a hug yesterday. Oh, the grace!!!! :D

GoG 251: The Tears from James

Can you believe it????? I'm all caught up with my blog posts!!!!

Last GoG to write for the day!

Today at after school, I was headed out the door, ready to leave, when one of my kids stood close by looking as though he was about to cry. Ah! My heart was already starting to break!!! The face he was making was so pitiful. James. I said, "Oh, buddy, what's wrong? You look like you're about to cry." He looked at me and told me his dad wasn't there to pick him up yet. I guess his dad had come by to pick him up about a half an hour earlier, and he didn't want to leave. So his dad told him to keep playing, and he'd be back in 45 minutes or so. Well, James' friends started to leave, so he was upset that he was alone.

When he started to cry, I wanted to cry! A few minutes later, I was scheduled to leave early that day (that's how the system works - everyone trades off days to leave early as the kids begin to leave), so I was telling the kids in the room that I'd see 'em tomorrow. And James looked at me and said, "Miss Mical, you're leaving?" And he looked as though he would cry again. Broke my heart again! So I said, "I don't have to leave? Do you want me to stay?" And he just nodded his head, tears in his eyes.

Oh my goodness. It was so sad. So we sat and colored until his dad came. Then he said, "Okay, Miss Mical. You can go home now."

Soooo cute!!!!

GoG 250: The Keri McRoberts :)

Keri McRoberts.

She's seriously one of my favorite people in the world! .... She and I often laugh together and at each other. We don't really get to talk all that often. Even in a small church, it's hard to cross paths with a lot of people.

Well, I recently started reading the Twilight series ... and she's already read 'em. And she likes Edward, and I like Jacob. So we started chatting about the book back and forth yesterday ... and it's continuing today. We're starting to get into more important things ... haha! But it's been great to chat with her on facebook. She's just awesome! And any time I get to chat with her, I am blessed.

Keri McRoberts ... a glimpse of grace in Mical Masterson's life. :)

GoG 249: The Good Job

3 more!!!!

On Tuesday, I asked my supervisor how I was doing at my job at after school. It's been a fairly stressful week and a half, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong with the kids, being impatient, being lazy 'cause I was tired, or in a bad mood or something. But Miss Sandy said I was doing a great job. And even though I asked her specifically about my work, it was good to hear her say "yes!" :)

In the midst of crazy kids, I'm doing a good job loving 'em! :)

GoG 248: The Labor Day in Bedford

Only 4 more posts to go, and I'll be caught up! It's a miracle!!!!!

Every Labor Day, my parents, brother, and I head down to Bedford, Indiana for a day with my dad's side of the family. I remember, as a kid, I didn't like going 'cause "all we did was sit around and stare at each other." Haha! We really do that ... well, with a little talking. But I've grown to enjoy it the older I get. It's always good to see my aunts and uncles and cousins and my granny and gramps, of course. We usually eat lots of food and then sit around talking. Sometimes, we play cornhole or euchre. But mostly, we just chat, catch up on life since we only see each other about 3 times a year - Easter, Labor Day, and Christmas.

Family. Now that's grace, isn't it?
Thank you, Lord, for family :)

GoG 247: The Night of Volleyball with the SoZo-ers :)

Since the SoZo volleyball tournament, I've left our net up. And we've been playing a lot during youth group, before the lesson. I've actually got 3 or 4 kids who've decided it's their new favorite sport - so fun!

It's fun to get the whole youth group out there playing. I've got some pretty tall guys in our group, so they often spike it down our short people throats. And we just had a really good time last Sunday playing volleyball together. Lots of laughs, lots of boasting .... it was so much fun!

GoG 246: The Really Yummy Sweet Tea ... just about everyday!

Sweet tea.

Golly! It is heaven in a glass for me! I'm serious! I am addicted.
It's my comfort drink, my joy drink ... and it tastes so good!

And for God to have put the idea into someone's head for sweet tea????
Heck to the yeah! That sure is grace!!!!
Mmmm .... yummy!

GoGs 241-245: The First Crazy Days at After School!!!

Last week, I started at after school. It's a new program to the Danville schools, and we have tons of kids! I have 20 all to myself, and it is pretty chaotic most of the time! The group leaders and supervisors are working to continually structure the program, but it's been a hard road so far. And I've only been there for 8 days! Whew!

But when God gives you a passion, He sure knows how to help you persevere and even enjoy the chaos and frustrations. I find glimpses of grace in the chaos that is after school ....

I have 20 really cute kids.
I get hugs, hi's, and "Miss Mical, look at this's."
I have kids wanting my attention, making me feel special.
I get to serve the kids by loving them, disciplining them, opening their snacks, etc.
I have kids like Jaxson and Sam who have super mischievous personalities but sooo lovable!
I have adorable little girls like Izzy and Ana who are super agreeable.
I've got little guys like James and Luke who smile all the time.
I can even find grace in Kyler holding my hand after he's cried over something totally insignificant and in Joel giving me a hug after he's thrown his third crying/screaming fit of the day!!

It's been a rough start to after school .... but like I said, God gives me the desire to push through and love the kids.