Clean and Clear

Where to start off? I guess I'll start by saying this terrible excuse for a week ended up pretty good starting from Friday. I was immensely bored from Wednesday-late Saturday. However, I cannot thank God enough for what He gave me; making up for a really boring and lonely week. What I didn't realize, until Saturday night, was that God allowed me a few days by myself to evaluate my life and get caught up in my devotions. I unconsciously evaluated my life which still freaks my mind. I realized many things that make me annoyed; and things I need to let go. For instance, there are many pseudo-Christians out there, and much hypocrisy that lies behind their actions. And I know that there is NO way I can justify my hypocrisy by looking at other's lives. I need to look at my own life; judge MYself and MY actions. I also realized I just need to worry about certain parts of my relationship with God, instead of trying to pry into other's personal life. I do have a bad habit of that which is something I'm gladly working on. That was just a biggie I realized, and another big thing I saw was how I was called on earth to live a certain way; to live as Christ, to die is gain. but to "live as Christ" gets so utterly twisted the majority of the time. To live as Christ lived is to be humble. It's to serve and not worry about always being served. It is also to be in a constant loving state, even when we're wronged; when we're mocked; when we're ditched by our "friends", and the likes. So, next time I ask God to, "help me to love as Christ loved", what I understand that I'm really asking is, "God please be my stronghold, when I can no longer stand from the treacheries and pain life and the world daily brings; help me to praise you in the most dangerous storm. and give me the faith that You are the beholder of all."
So, yes, I had a lot of time, many hours, to talk to God and to think; to ponder. I no longer want to live my life for myself. I want to live it for God; only God; the One. Saturday morning I met up with my lovely friend, Michelle, at yoga. It was very relaxing and stress-relieving. I love yoga and my yoga instructor. Afterwards, I asked Michelle is she wanted to watch the sunset that night, and she said of course. And for this I was glad. The word glad was exactly how I felt. I thought as I walked to my car, "After not having anyone to hang out with this week God, You managed to find me someone. Thank You." However, last night there was no sunset due to the overcast, so Shannon, Michelle and I went to Starbucks and talked for hours. It. Was. Amazing. Does anything ever just make your heart jump because it makes you so happy? Or the feeling of floating on clouds? That's precisely how I feel when I am in a philosophical conversation with another intelligent human being; that is exactly how I felt all night with the girls. We started at five in the evening, and finished talking around ten, so I imagine how amazing our conversations went considering how much time we used to talk about things pertaining to the important aspects in life. I could go on and on about our night, but I'm leaving for church soon so I'll move on. (Best night I've had in a while, no doubt!)
To-day I decided to be very productive and rearrange/ clean my neglected room. It went very well, and now I feel very clean, from the spiritual cleansing last night, and from this entire day of cleaning my room. I'm in the very sluggish process of re-doing and decorating it. Mainly right now I'm looking for cheap black bed sheets and a curtain rod, since mine is barely in commission. But alas, I am being patient and put it low on the priority list. I'm just grateful that God helped me be very productive to-day, seeing as I did not have a lot of sleep last night;  my doing, of course though. Here are some photos I took of my room .In my opinion they didn't turn out very well. One thing you can tell is that my room is very blue. I didn't get to pick any of the colors or anything, I just made do with what I had;)

before

before

after

after

clean mirror!

 There you have it, a couple of great days in one blog. More to come,
-R