I give up.

Three days into Lent this year and I'm already craving a diet coke and cupcake. It absolutely amazes me how things i never even think about have such a control on our lives. While i give things up every year,this year is particularly significant for many reasons. I am astonished when i read my Lenten blog from last year at where this year has taken me, and perhaps i need to take time this evening to reflect.

Id like to share a story tonight that, until recently, I didn't like to tell. This story involves the worst day of my life. I can pinpoint easily what i considered to be the worst day of my life as Ash Wednesday 2008. Now I have had days when worst things have happened to me,but this day stands as a moment where i felt absolutely and completely helpless and alone. I had just gotten out of my two-year abusive relationship with Lucifer's cousin, I had changed my major because said person had fears of my being more successful than him, and i had applied to graduate school. I was graduating in two months when i found out that, not only had my relationship not worked out, but i hadn't been accepted to the only school I had applied to. I was overly-qualified, why wouldn't they want me? I remember getting my fathers phone call...he had opened my mail and carried the bad news. I wasn't even upset because I didn't get in, i was mortified because i had nowhere else to go.

I had absolutely nothing going for me at that moment. I'd disappointed a lot of people with the decisions i had made in the previous years and hated myself for making those i loved doubt me. I didn't have a plan, much less purpose. I had abandoned my calling years before convinced that i was not worthy of being used by God because i had screwed up so badly He'd have to be overly desperate to use me. I decided to go ahead and go to the Ash Wednesday service at my Episcopal church for some solace...bad idea. Normally this beautiful church was the most comforting place i could visit to hear from Heaven, but this night i had been suffering from a chest cold and ended up having a fierce coughing attack in front of about 500 people. The noise reverberated off the wooden ceilings and marble floors. Nothing was working out for me that day. I didn't even know why I should wake the next morning...Lord knows I didn't want to.

I tell you this story to prove a point: truth chases us during Lent. Truth was chasing me that day but I didn't see it, i didn't want to accept it. I seems that when we deny ourselves of the things that make our lives more comfortable, we allow god to move us from a place of mediocrity to a place congruent with His purpose for our lives. Looking back now, I know that going to graduate school would have been the biggest waste of my life and money. I would never have been happy and i most definitely would not be living out my life's purpose now. Sadly, i did not get the message in that fateful Ash Wednesday and continued to live in a way that made sense to me...my life would be so much different today if I would have accepted truth when it came knocking at my door.

I say all this to tell you, do not be afraid to let God move you. He always knows what He is doing. What you think is your worst day could easily be the day where God turns your life to face your destiny. I'm getting my masters today in something that matters and has eternal meaning, Im happier than I've ever been, and i am thankful that God chose to speak to me one Ash Wednesday and tell me to turn around,