I just failed at making homemade pie crust for my very first homemade cherry pie. I was feeling pretty failurific, and I just gave up. I didn't wanna try anymore. Being the gentle husband that he is, Todd took over and got it to work. I love him for that.

I decided to sit down at the kitchen table and fill out my workbook for Apples of Gold, a women's group that I joined through church. We meet on Tuesdays, and since I am going to be hosting small group at our house tomorrow night, I needed to get it done tonight and get it out of the way.

So I have my workbook, my bible, and my pen and I jump right in. This workbook has a lot of scriptures that you either look up, read, and answer a question about it, or you wite it out. Right next to my bible on the table sits the lesson for tomorrow night's small group. The topic is from a Mark Driscoll sermon from his series "Vintage Jesus" entitled "How human was Jesus?". As I sat here looking up verse after verse for Apples of Gold, the list of things I had to get done tonight and the following week was running through my head at the same time. I have two papers due on Tuesday- one of which I tried to start this afternoon but didn't have the motivation so I quit for now-, I am four chapters behind in my textbook reading assignments- even though it is not required that I read the textbook, I still want to because I want to be a great teacher not a good teacher-, I have to read the children's book "Ella Enchanted" and "Where the Wild Things Are" for Tuesday, and I have to study for my midterm exam in one of my classes next week.

As all of these things were racing through my mind, I just had to stop and think, "What is the point of looking up these verses, and writing out answers to these questions?" I suddenly thought to myself that I am regarding this bible study workbook and my lesson plan for small group as just another thing on my to-do list. I'm just going through the motions, doing the grunt work for yet another thing I have to get done, like homework.

I realized that this is definitely not how I wanted to feel towards small group lessons or bible studies. I was hesitant but excited about taking over the small group and having it at our house. Todd and I both decided that we really wanted to make our small group all about reading the bible and looking at actual verses and learning truth through the inspired words of God intead of some other book or video series. I was proud that God put Todd and I in the leadership position of this smal group, and I had a very positive outlook before it started.

Just as we started to go over the first lesson last weekend, I read it through, and thought about the best ways we could present this lesson. It had a scripture for every point it made, so we knew we wanted everyone to look up the verses and read them together. Once I got into it, I thought about making a powerpoint, complete with colors, backgrounds, and bullet points. I wanted to present this information in the most appealing, exciting and impressive way. I saw myself in this position of leadership as a person giving a presentation at school, making sure I included everything, that I would get full credit and mine would be unique. Todd had to stop me and remind me that this should be informal, where friends get together and simply read the bible. I agreed, and we did just that.

For this week, however, I have thought seriously about making a powerpoint. I know it sounds unnecessary and over the top, but I feel like this is the only way I can present this material the way I want to. This is really good information- and truth- from the bible, and I don't want to have it be a so-so small group time.

Listen to me! I am totally forgetting the whole purpose of this small group! It's not about how I present the lesson, or the points, or scriptures. All that matters is the content, and these people are not stupid. They all have read the bible, they don't need my slide show. All they need is to read scriptures and find out what God is saying to them through those scriptures. And it's not about me having the best small group out there and enetertaining my friends. It's about how I can learn and grow from what this lesson is saying.

I've completely taken my eyes off the true reasons for small group and for bible study. I fill out the workbook because I don't want to be the only one who didn't complete it, and I'm used to being given homework assignments and I'm a good student who does what she is given. (i wish they had a sarcastic, rolling-eyes smiley on here).

What is the purpose of being involved in these bible studies if it just means that I have one more thing on my plate to accomplish during my crazy school/work week? Reading God's word and trying to hear what He is trying to tell me through it should not be a gotta-get-through-it, meaningless event.

Have I really prayed about what I am doing my lesson on for small group? Nope. Here's something embarrassing to admit: have I prayed for the prayer requests that people submitted last week at small group, that I so dutifully wrote down? Uh. . . .. . . . no. Seriously, what is the point of writing down people's prayer requests if you aren't honestly going to pray for them?! It's ridiculous. And that's what I am. Ridiculous.

I am starting to see that the reason I get so down occasionally (ok, frequently) is not because I have self-esteem issues or I don't have enough stuff. No, I am starting to think it's because I am not following God's will- or, more honestly- I don't have a real relationship with God right now, even though I tell myself I do, and God doesn't want me to feel comfortable about that. I think I get nudges from him and deep down I know the true reason for why I am unhappy but I have no idea how to change so I figure I'll blame it on something else. Because the truth is I do have self-esteem issues (BIG time) and I do think I need more stuff (LOTS more, which I really, really, don't), but that's not the real reason for my lack of inner joy and peace. It's because only God can give us inner joy and peace, and since I am not having a relationship with God where I talk to him and he talks to me- and I actually listen- I am not given those things from Him.

So. . . .. where in the world am I supposed to go from here?! I feel like I should talk with someone who knows what I'm talking about and knows what to do. I'm sure the obvious answer is to pray and talk to God about it. I should start that relationship up right away by just talking to God, admitting my sins, asking for forgiveness and praying for guidance. But the truth is, I don't know if my prayers will be genuine. I want them to be; I truly want a relationship with Jesus, and I want his guidance, completely. But I just don't know if in my heart I truly mean what I pray about. Here's an example of what I mean:

I have prayed a lot about motivation to have a devotion time, where I sit and read my bible in a quiet, secluded place, and just talk to God, and listen to God. I'v been praying that prayer for over a year now.  Have I started doing devotions ever day? Not once have I done it. So, in that sense, do I really mean what I pray? Are my prayers genuine? My point is, what is the point of praying over and over again for something when you don't ever do it? Hmm.

I don't know. No matter what I do, I never change. I always think that I will eventually get it. I will take the steps that I need to to actually have devotions, or start helping others in need, or praying genuinely. And even though I know if my heart what I need to do and how I need to change, I never find the strength to make it happen.

I am such a faker. I fake it in front of everyone.And I hate fakers. One of the things I really need from people is for them to be genuine. And I am genuine, except for the things I try to hide about myself. I fake that I pray a lot. I fake that I have given my whole life to God's leading.  I fake that I trust God completely, and I have unwavering faith in Him. I fake that I am a hard worker; because even though I am a diligent student, I do that because I have to, and the other things in life are kind of left undone. I do not think enough about my friends to call them up and see how they're doing, or offer to help them with things, or hang out with them. I don't do volunteer work for Habitat or visit children in the peds wing of the hospital that I've kept saying I want to do. I don't care enough to plant flowers in my garden to add color to the outside of the house (that one's not so important). I don't care enough to make time to exercise, even though I complain literally, every day to Todd how disgusted I am with the extra pounds I have. I don't care enough to go outside and talk to my neighbors and make friends with them. Even though I want to, I never go out there and talk.

So when will my breakthrough be? When will I break free from Satan's lies about myself and my life and truly start praying genuinely to God and get my inner joy and peace back, knowing I am right where God wants me? I'm sure that God is probably letting me go through this time in my life just so that when I come out on the other side, I will appreciate him that much more, and I will be stronger than I am now. But I definitely want to be done with this way of life right now.

I can go to school to make a difference for children of America, I can teach the bible to kids at church, and help out with vbs, and join educational organizations and do all of this "nice" stuff, but it truly doesn't matter if I don't have a relationship with God. This is all just going through the motions, living life but not really having any purpose. I want purpose. I want God's purpose.

I am on pins and needles right now. I hate not knowing what is going to happen next, especially when there is something that I want to happen so badly and it's completely out of my hands.

Of course I'm talking about me and Todd moving. Here's where we are right now: the day after we signed with Molly Jones- our pastor's wife- as our realtor, we had a family come look at our house, make an offer and we accepted all in one day.

That happened on Sunday, July 13th. During that week, we looked at diifferent house with Molly in Boulder Ridge where some of our friends from church already live. Molly suggested a house that was built just two weeks prior that was in our price range- actually a little less than the houses we were looking at- but it was in Tolono. I humored Molly, but I ruled out the house the second she said "Tolono"; I didn't wanna move out of Champaign. I didn't even wanna move to Savoy! Why in the world would I wanna move farther south to Tolono, a town I have never even driven through?!

We followed her to the neighborhood. . . ..Windstone.. . . .I had to admit I liked the name of the subdivision. The houses looked pretty similar to the ones in Boulder Ridge- all of them really cute and unique.

Once I walked into the house, I fell in love with it. The colors and the details were just amazing! Beautiful cherry-colored wood floors, amazingly soft carpet, awesome gas fireplace, and a kitchen I never wanted to leave. The quality of every last piece of material in the house was so great, and it was cheaper than the houses we were looking at by a different builder with mediocre materials inside!

I walked away from that house that day truly torn.  Although I loved it, and had done a complete 180 from wanting to have a new house built instead of buying one already done. . . . .I just couldn't see myself in Tolono. Todd and I both work in Champaign, our families live there, we go to church there. . . .our whole life is in Champaign and it just seemed pointless to move out of town to make it a longer trip any time we wanted to leave the house to go ANYWHERE.

But the rest of the week, I thought and thought, really not knowing what to do. The people that bought our house wanted to move in by the 30th of July, just 2 1/2 weeks. I was really excited about that because we could get everything packed and outta here in that amount of time, and we didn't have to sit around waiting very long at all. Within a couple days, I told Todd that I just couldn't let that house in Tolono go. I had to jump on it because I hadn't seen anything else like it and it was a price we couldn't refuse. We went to go look at it for a second time, and had Molly write up our offer that same night. The very next morning we got an answer: our offer was accepted by the builder/owner!! I was so elated that everything worked out so fast and easy! After  sitting around for two months trying to sell it on our own and having not even one person interested was really discouraging, and it was great to actually have it sold in one day and have two other couples wanna see it a few days after! I couldn't believe this was going to finally happen.

Well. . . . . it's after the 30th of July and we are not in our new house. Last Friday, the 25th,  we got a call from our realtor that the buyers would need 7 more days to get their loan approved through FHA. I came home that night and was so upset. Everything had been perfect so far. . . . . .and even though I still couldn't believe we were actually going to get to move, I hated having this happen and having to wait another week. Molly basically said that they needed 7 days, but we were hoping they were just giving themselves a buffer, and they would get it approved before that.

We got a call from Molly on Tuesday this week saying that we are giving the buyers until this past Thursday at 5:00 pm to give us written confirmation that they have been approved for their loan. If they couldn't give us that, we would cancel our contract with them, and we would be able to put our house back on the market. We would still be able to sell our house to the buyers if they eventually got confirmation, but we wanted to be free to accept other offers in the meantime if we got any. We had vbs this past week every night all night. It was a welcome distraction from the house stuff because I was pretty upset and very anxious; if I had the chance to sit at home all night and go over it and over it in my head I would go nuts.

Thursday night after vbs, Molly met us at the church to have us initial the contract that she written in big letters "CANCEL" on. I was pretty disappointed. I knew that God could perform a miracle- Molly told us over and over again that there was no way they would get confirmation by Thursday evening. I prayed again and again that God would just let them get approved and we would get to move the following Wednesday. I knew He could do it, and it would make sense for Him to do it if He wanted these people to buy our house and us to move into the house we picked out.

For a reason I don't know about, God didn not let them get approved for their loan, and now we are just waiting to see if they will get approved by Tuesday. If they do, we can still move on Wednesday this coming week.

Although I am crossing my fingers for these people to get approved by Tuesday or earlier, we still had someone come look at the house yesterday afternoon. We thought the woman was pretty serious about our house since she stayed in here for over an hour! (we just took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood in the 100 degree weather and kept checking to see if their cars were still in front of our house- it seemed like they would never leave!)

We haven't heard from anyone about that lady making an offer. That ticks me off a lot, to be honest.

Tomorrow we are having an open house- actually, Molly is having it and we need to leave- and then we have two other people coming in the evening for private appointments to look at it because apparently they don't want to associate with the riff-raff that will come during the open house. I don't know. . . . .

Anyway, we have been packing up our house for the last week, and we've made a lot of progress. We packed up all of the stuff in our bedroom, our office, and our spare bedroom that we aren't using and is not furniture. We focused on the garage today and got everything packed up (except for our bikes, the lawn mower, and big lawn tools that can't fit in boxes) and organized the boxes. I'm pretty tired tonight, but happy we have packed up everything but the kitchen. We plan on tackling that either tomorrow night or Monday night. Other than that, we've packed everything that is not essential right now.

I am trying to stay optimistic about moving on Wednesday this next week. . . .actually. . . .in four days!!  I hate waiting and not knowing. I like to be in control. I've waited so long to move, and I love that Todd and I found a house we both love for a good price and we have buyers who want to (actually need to) move quickly. We will continue to pray that God's will be done and that we will be patient and trust His plan.

I'll keep you posted on what goes down in the next few days. Hopefully I'll be too busy moving into my new house to blog!! :)

To see pictures of our potentially new house, check out our flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pavlikpics/page3/ (scroll down a little bit for pictures of the house)