Do not pass Go, do not collect your thoughts.

I SHOULD be working on NavWest at the moment seeing as how I need it completed in 14 hours, but I feel like so many other things are flying through my head right now I just need to get them out.

I feel like in the past few days I've been spoken to pretty clearly by God about something, but I'm not sure what that means! And while I have many things I need to wrap up and do, I wanted to share with you something that's been rattling around in my head today.

Hebrews 11 is one of my top ten favorite chapters of the Bible. I love how so many people are acclaimed for their faith (even though at times they demonstrated faithlessness.) For the past 4 weeks, I've been going through Faith, Hope, and Love in an individual study as well as one-on-one in discipleship with a student. I love the picture we have from Hebrews 6:19 where, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure..."

But faith. If hope is an anchor, what I view as immovable, future seeking towards our hope in heaven, faith is needed every instant. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and trusting God's characteristics above all else.

⁸ By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹ By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

¹³ All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. ¹⁴ People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:8-10, 13-16

So this is a bit of what is bouncing around in my head.

Abraham lived in a tent.

He didn't posses land of his own and wasn't looking for a country of his own, but looked forward to eternal lodging. I like verse 15 because when I think about the places I left, I can be tempted to go back. Not in a bad way per say, but wishing God works the same way here in Long Beach as He did before, or thinking things would be different had I gone a different way.

I want to long for my heavenly country. I want to be more than fine living in a tent on foreign land. I want to see the promises of God, even if that means at times from a distance. I want my anchor to be grounded and my trust grown.

4th-grade Me

Fourth Grade Alicia makes me laugh.

I think as a result of too much Mighty Ducks and always having a weird combination of colors, I came to the conclusion in my little journal that I was going to go to Boston College (I thought red and gold were sophisticated college colors, and then I ended up at ASU ) and end up dating, then marrying a Christian hockey player named Elliot.

I really don't know why I thought this so fervently, or why such odd details, but I do know that God works all things together for my good.

I'm at a point where I am tired of change, and at the same time am looking forward to change enthusiastically. This struck me a few weeks ago talking with a friend who was saying as he was off to start a new adventure, one of our mutual friends almost seemed jealous he couldn't go start something too. This next year looking ahead is both exciting and terrifying to me. I am so ready to have a place where I can host dinners and have friends sit on the couch to watch TV or play wii and talk about real life issues without wondering who is next through the front door. But at the same time, for the first time since Kindergarten, I am the one staying in the same place and one of my best friends is moving on.

I wasn't expecting God to use Long Beach as a time to reconnect solely with Him and in some ways withhold community in my life. I wasn't expecting to feel so built up and torn apart all at the same time. I wasn't expecting Him to ask me to stay on staff and my friend to not.

But I see so much good in all these things, and while I begin to store my winter clothes knowing I'm moving in 2 months, all these thoughts of change flood my mind.

I'm wondering what God will do in this next season, what He is teaching me now that I still may not be aware of. What good He will bring to my family and friends in this next time too, and what challenges we all get to rise to.

Breathing...