A Bit of Encouragement

God writes straight with crooked lines. He uses ordinary people, fallible and imperfect, to accomplish His purposes. I read a book last night called Not a Sparrow Falls, Linda Nichols and it was good. It talked about leaving 'the fold' and disappointing God. About knowing the promises of God but not being sure that they belong to you. Sometimes I get tired of reading books on faith. Not that I feel I have nothing to learn and think about, but sometimes I just want to read a story. Theres a bookshelf at the Whitemud Library that has a teeny one side of a shelf that houses some 'inspirational' books. And some of them have been quite good.

I've been frequenting another kind of library the past few days, well, a bookstore. The kind that sells books for obscene amounts of money. I love it. I've taken to picking up a few texts a day instead of all at once to slow the realization of the total cost. I'm pretty excited about being in school. I know quite a few people in every class since attending the school retreat out at Frontier Lodge. Seriously an amazing place located on "25 acres of pristeen forest." We played water polo in canoes, there was cliff jumping, mountain biking, rapelling, hiking and rock climbing. Quite a blast. Friday I'm taking a bunch of rez students out to buy art supplies. Yay :)

Are you Available?

It's 2:30 am and I can't sleep. For some reason I'm wide awake and I can't shake the feeling that maybe I'm supposed to be. At school we've been having devotions every morning and we're talking about being ready and available to God. I've been thinking that when I'm ready God is available for ME. When I need Him I can look to Him and He will be there. I can depend on HIM.

Sometimes I forget to look at it the other way, that I'm supposed to available for God. And I don't mean in the "answering God's call" kind of way. I mean being available when He's talking to me. When we pray, we talk to God. When we listen, God can talk to us. Unfortunately, most of us spend all our prayer time talking to Him, never taking time to listen. I don't want to become a 'rocking chair Christian', plenty of motion but little real progress, doing what I think God would have me do but not actually taking time to ask him for guidance and taking time to listen to him. I need to give God a chance to get in between all that goes on in life. Unplugging the phone, turning down the noise and taking time to listen for His voice.


So maybe this was a wee hours of the morning reminder to take time to listen. And really this is a pretty good time, the house is completely silent. I'm not really sure the last time I noticed a silence like this, but its the perfect time to start listening.

Kara, after week 2.

Kara, after week 2., originally uploaded by Lola Laine.

I'm a little behind on camp stuff. But this is pretty much how I looked after week 3 and week 4. I had to skip out of week 5 and make a trip to visit the grandparents. As always Bethel has left me with wonderful memories that I'll never forget.

School starts next week and I'm frantically enjoying my last moments of freedom, hanging out with great people and doing things I love to do. The crisp evening air is slowly taking over the hot summer nights and I'm excited for the colours to change and the leaves to fall. This season is my favorite.