the thing is...

This may be an extremely long rambling of sorts, but go with it. Rudy only sits still to listen for so long before he decides he'd rather toss his bone around upstairs.

My heart feels heavy today, with many things that I can't quite put my finger on. I miss Andrew with an intensity that I honestly never knew existed. I feel a little impatient and anxious, wondering how he feels about RLP and whether or not I'll hear from him on Thursday or Saturday. Or neither. I feel tired and still a bit sick and on the edge of tears and hungry for peace in my heart. Don't mistake it for sad, because I'm not. I'm actually quite happy (hello, have you seen the 5-day forecast??). I just feel a teensy bit unsettled and alotta bit like the Lord is about to teach me something good. And that's always an uneasy feeling for me.

You know how you take the same route to work every single day, so you zone out when you're driving? But your hand still puts on the turn signal at the right places, even though you really weren't thinking about it being time? You can do other things like listen to the commentary on the radio, or sing along with the song on your iPod, or talk on the phone to your mom without fear of getting distracted and missing a turn. But if you were taking an unfamiliar route, you wouldn't do any of those things and you would turn the radio way down so that you could concentrate. That's how I feel about my faith these days - it is so familiar and comfortable and routine that I don't think about it. I just do it. I don't worry about Andrew getting beat up by his drill instructor, because I just know that he's going to be fine in the end. I don't question the decision we've made, signing ourselves up for more time apart than together, because I just know that the decision was guided by God. I just do it.

But the thing is, I don't want to just do it. Honestly, I don't think it's this crazy unshakeable, Mary-like faith that leaves me feeling this way. I think it might actually be complacency. Maybe it's too much trouble to go about seeking the Lord for faith, when I could just sit back and have it. I feel like you learn yourself and you learn God and you learn what God wants to do in you by having your faith rocked. You're more focused on the drive. Even though you made the left turn, all the while wondering if you took it too soon, you are very much involved in the ride.

That's what it is.

I want to be more involved with the Lord's guidance over my life. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that the Lord has blessed me with a calm heart, but I want to feel challenged - like I'm clinging to the Lord for dear life, because I am completely out of control. I just want to grow, that's all. I want to know that during this time, I have become (or am becoming) a woman who is so dependent on the Lord that, naturally, her identity and confidence is tied up in Him.

Is that too much to ask?

So those are my Tuesday night thoughts. A little deep I guess, but it can't always be about really cute dresses, now can it?