grumpy morning prayer

my God, who gave me life today,

i want to do anything other than teach today. i know that there are other activities in the country that i would much rather be doing right now, and i am even putting off getting ready so that i don't have to scoot along to make conversation for 90 minutes and teach prepositions and what sports people like to play. please be a provider of grace and joy so i can make it through today, sharing with others a glimpse of the joy that is you in my heart. give me opportunities to share your grace with my students, and give me opportunites to love them amongst the grammar and my grumpiness.

My friend, Rachel wrote a blog post a couple weeks ago in which she was very vulnerable and open about different struggles she deals with and what's going on in her life. I was really thankful and refreshed even by how she didn't hide the crappy to appear as though she's got it all together.

Because let's be real. None of us have our lives together. Let me tell you some minor ways that Martha Stewart would consider me a failure:

I'm not rich enough to hire someone to make my bed for me, so my bed remains a mess every single day. In fact, the whole apartment remains a mess until one of us feels like cleaning. We have little dust bunnies in the corners that sometimes freak me out. We don't have a vacuum, so there's almost a layer of red hair in my bedroom carpet. actually, there's a layer of mess (clothes, books, tissues), and under that layer is a layer of red hair. 

I own almost nothing of my own in this apartment...all the big furniture was given to us, and I've only bought a few decorations and kitchen things that are mine. 

I owe thousands of dollars of debt due to two pieces of paper that say Bachelors of Science and Master of Arts. And oops...those pieces of paper are buried in that mess of my bedroom and probably covered with dust bunnies and red hair.

It gets bigger than this, and I'm saying all of this not to complain or to make you feel bad for me. I say this because I don't ever want to fall into the trap of putting on a front. I want people to know that without the grace of God in my life every day, and without realizing it every day, I would literally be a heap of tears just melting away on the floor. And some days that's a reality.

So what do I really struggle with as a single girl living in a foreign country, attempting to serve God? None of you want to read a list that long, so I'll only name a few things :)

I went through a tough spell a couple months ago where I felt unneeded and unloved. A couple specific mornings I could barely crawl out of bed, and when I did I spent the rest of the day crying and canceling anything I was supposed to do that day. God pulled me out of that tough spot, but I have no doubt I could have another smidge of depressing moments. 

I struggle with singleness. Of my seven greatest high school friends, they each, in birth order, started dating guys and are either married to them or in a serious relationship with them. And me? I was skipped over in that birth order thing.  I'm 26, and I've witnessed a lot of my good friends fall in love and marry great people. sometimes i feel like God will never answer this prayer. and when i'm not seeking his face daily (hourly), i can begin to idolize my future and ignore my present.

my lifelong struggle has been seeking God. he calls us to give our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice which is acceptable and pleasing to God. that's not an easy thing to do for a self-reliant human. this was a struggle in high school, it was a struggle in college, and it remains a struggle now. it's easy to live life without God, but that doesn't satisfy my soul. i've gone through times of shouting out to God, repeatedly asking him to satisfy me, and to help me to be pleasing to him.

these are my realities, my tragedies, my things that keep me from God and boldly proclaiming his name. and yet these are the things that allow me to see his grace.