Perfect Peace

Random pondering's for today: There is something about a peacock feather that has always intrigued me, although after actually seeing a wild one in a tree and being told they look like eyes staring back at you. I must admit that my love for them is on an individual basis. One or two is fine, more than that just freaks me out a little bit.

I like to spend my Sunday afternoons alone or with a friend that doesn't mind just doing her own thing. I would much rather sit down at a coffee shop and do my quiet time or some home work then go back to a tan walled dorm room where my roommate could still be sleeping. I am realizing more and more the blessing of being alone at times. I have never actually enjoyed this before now, I always felt the need to be with someone, be doing something, all the time. Okay, not that I don't ever want to do anything, for some reason this past friday night everyone was either out of town, sick, or just felt like chillin' in the dorm. Not me, so, I tried to do the friday night thing alone. I went up to Church, wasn't feelin' it. I went to B&N that lasted long enough to grab Starbucks. I wandered around campus by my dorm, and it felt creepy. So, I ended up working out and watching Ugly Betty and Pride and Prejudice. So, Sundays are a rarity for me.

My point in writing that was just to tell about my afternoon at the bookstore. I grabbed my Grande Soy Carmel Macchiato and MultiGrain Bagel, sat down and got to spend a few hours working through my Beth Moore Bible Study. I feel like there has been this verse attached to my ankle since my junior year of High School. The juniors always got to plan, and decorate the for the Junior-Senior candlelight event. That was the theme verse since we were on a ship, it just sounded like a good verse to have. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is fixed on thee because he trusts in you." -Isaiah26:3. And ever since then it pops up in a ever stealthy way when it seems like that "Peace like a river" is more like a huge flood coming to overwhelm me. Well, guess what verse todays "Homework" was on? Yeah Isaiah 26:3.

Something I think is really interesting is that we HATE to admit our strongholds, hate it. We don't want anyone to know or see what could end up making us look "weak". Because we are SO perfect and everything. Well, in ancient Corinth and really every ancient greek city, they had a fortress on top of the highest peak in the city. Whenever there was a war everyone that was of any importance would go up there because this place was virtually impenetrable. Even to this day they still stand strong while the rest of the city lays in ruins. Isn't this so true of life? I think so, we have these things in our life, good or bad, that we let be our shelter. Even if we hate it, we still keep it and run to it when things are good, or bad; even if we let God mold and rebuild the rest of our lives we keep that fortress to ourselves, never fully surrendering it to Christ. Sometimes the thing we most hate is the object we cling to most dearly. How naive we can be to think that God would take something from us not to better us and replace it with something greater but to think that he wants us to live in want. A life surrendered to God is not void but lived to the fullest and beyond the expectation of our greatest dreams.

I am so intrigued by this, and what my life surrendered will end up becoming.