Stuck in the Waiting

          "Stuck in the waiting" feels like what I'm doing now in life. Everything that I'm involved in or want to be involved in has the "waiting" sign on it.  It could be in my personal life, my future career, or my current job. If you know me at all, you know that patience is a virtue that I have to practice daily especially in times like these. I'm not a very patience person to start with and I'm just saying that nicely. If something is going to happen and I know it could change my life or the lives of others, I want it to happen now but things don't work that quickly. If they did, then we wouldn't need God. I feel like God is using this "stuck in the waiting" time to draw me closer to Him and to fix the many problems that I have in my life. The problems that I grew up believing that they were okay.
            If you know me, you know I have had a crazy life altogether. Moving all over MO, 5 siblings, and the 2nd youngest of them all and so on. I love it, don't get me wrong. My family is very close and I love that but I've had some challenges that became natural for me and I'm sure no one knows about it. I've started habits and they have become natural for me because I needed them everyday while going to school and meeting new people but mainly it was because of high school. I had a very big thought life which is good for playing by myself or just for the times I wanted to be alone but when it hasn't stopped when you become an adult it could be a problem. That problem could be that your thought life start making up things that aren't true and block out people that you don't want it to block out. You could start being mean to people that you don't want to be mean to and it could block out the true you. It could also be a problem because you don't know how to make decisions by yourself because everyone made them for you when you were younger even your closest friends.
               I remember my first best friend would do that to me. I loved her too death but it didn't help me. We would play whatever she wanted to play and however she wanted to play it. We would play Barbies most of the time. I would always be Ken because she always wanted to be Barbie. She, even, made that simple of a choice for me. Yes, I was one of those girls for the first 10 years of my life. Now that I look back on those moments, I laugh about them but at the same time it is sad.
               Those kinds of habits in my thought life, I'm starting to learn, is hard to remove. I'm learning about having a steadfast mind in Christ and it sounds so hard but really shouldn't be. For a person who has lived lies all her life because she put up those lies to be safe, it is hard to break those down even if you want to really bad. Honestly, it does get you stuck in life where you just keep repeating the same actions and getting the same results and then you wonder why is this happening. I've realized that these past few months and I'm trying to break from it. I've put up so many walls, trying to be so many things to please so many people in my life instead of being who God wants me to be in Him. Now because of those thoughts, I'm stuck in the waiting while it seems like everyone is moving onto greater things.
                 I prayed a prayer this morning that I want to keep praying until I am where God wants me to be in my life whether it be with career, friends, or even marriage if He is willing. Here it is:

                  "Dear Daddy,
                           I have come to the conclusion that I've been living a sinful life and I want to change everything. My mind has been sinful and lately my actions and words have been too. I want to surrender my mind and life to you. I want to master intimacy with You. Please show me any hidden sins that I need to confess to You. Remove all fleshly things and thoughts away from me. I want Your Will above mine. Please use me as You want and with whatever you want. Whatever knowledge, wisdom, words, and so forth. You know I am in such a hard place right now with decision making and that has never been one of my strong points either. I'm scared that I will mess my whole life up if I chose apart from You. I'm in that season of life where every decision I make can be a curial one. To sum up my decision making process it would be should I stay or should I go. I'm stuck in the waiting and it isn't a very fun place to be. I'll admit that. Please help me catch every sinful thought and give it back to You. I want to be a strong women who shows Your Splendor to others."

                    In Christ's Love,
                           Amen."

              It is a strong and deep prayer but I'm ready for the next step of my life. I'm ready to do something and stick with it for the rest of my life. Even though, I like where I am right now, it won't get me through life or the life that I have always desire since I was a little girl. I'm still learning a lot. If I needed to pick a new idea for me in my Christian walk that I need to work on. Having a steadfast mind and how to get it would be it. Big time. It is all new to me. Tearing down the old wallpaper and putting up new wallpaper that we keep in on the path with God. Listening to God and doing things differently. Yeah, it will be scary but what kind of adventure is life if we aren't willing to take it.  Life is an adventure and we need to take it.
              Just to make it clearer. I wouldn't want to relive my life any other way. I am blessed because of the way I grew up and I love every memory of my life. The good and the bad ones. Going back to the towns where I grew up feels so good. I got to go back to one town over Easter and nothing changed and I remembered everything. The houses were still the same or close to it. The only thing that had changed was that I was all grown up and looking back at the good times. I am the strong women I am today because of the way I grew up and the things I had to go through.  Never regret the life God has given you because it could be a lot worse.