Moments Like These

Moments like these at 2:45am, when I can't sleep, I think about my life and how quickly it's passing by.    Just yesterday I was watching the ball drop ringing in the new year of 2014, and tonight (or rather this morning) I'm reflecting on the past 7 months of this "new" year and realizing that it went by in the blink of an eye. Wishing I had done more and trying to plan out what I need to do in the next 5 months before it's time to usher in another year. Moments like these I get very sentimental sometimes I cry myself to sleep on these kind of nights, although not tonight. But tonight I'm wishing I had taken more long bike rides, and sat on the patio to watch the sun rise, and read my Bible outside with the breeze blowing the pages. Wishing that I had played tennis and went to the little coffee shop in town and shopped at the Farmers Market Saturday mornings, and read more books. Wishing I had done a lot of little things that don't exactly matter that much, but that make life a little bit more fun. Moments like these I plan. I plan worry about what I'm going to do about college because I'm only able to take 10 credits this semester and that leaves 20 credits for me to try to fit in in a semester and a half. Worrying about whether I should work at a camp this summer or do a short term mission trip, but then worrying about where the money will come from to fund them. Moments like these I just wish time would stop and I could figure everything out and then hit the "play" button for everything to start again. Moments like these then make me think about what life really is about. One thing- Following Jesus. Ok, so it doesn't matter if I choose elementary or secondary education because either way I can follow Jesus, it doesn't matter if I don't have 60 credits by the end of this school year, if I'm following Jesus. It doesn't matter if I work at a camp, or go on a mission trip, or work at the Henry Ford if I'm following Jesus. It doesn't matter if I don't fit in al the extra "fun stuff" into my life because when I die the only thing that matters is, did I follow Jesus. Moments like these make me ask myself, "am I following Jesus?" I want to. My life doesn't always feel grand enough to follow Jesus. I feel it at church, but it's so hard sometimes to see how going to college and working a job and living an everyday life fits in to following Jesus! But I guess it's the hard part. I mean volunteering at a soup kitchen is easy and helping out at VBS is easy and singing in the choir is easy. It's the everyday stuff that's hard. It's getting up everyday saying, "I'm following you and not myself". It's being patient with the babies your mom watches, it's controlling your tongue when you want to gossip, it's letting your sister wear your clothes, it's holding back on saying something that's prideful, it's discipling your mind to think true thoughts. That's everyday and that's hard because I forget that I was made to live in an everyday life with everyday struggles and that choosing to handle them God's way IS following Him. And that's what matters. Moments like these make me sentimental for the time I've lost in doing what actually matters, but also gives me hope that I still have time left.