hrmph.

Today I am impatient with myself.

There is a vision in my heart of the life I want to live, the type of human I would like to be, the ways in which I desire to glorify God. Some days the discrepancy between this shining lifestyle and the one I currently live glare more brightly than others. This is one of those days.

I know it's okay. I know I'm in progress. But lest you (or I) start to think I have fallen into complacency, let me state for the record the desires that beg for change most strongly this afternoon:

switching to natural cleaning products
making time to do something fun with God every day
learning French
drinking more water
investing in friends
budgeting better (okay, let's be honest...I just need to budget, period.)
getting a food handler's permit and becoming more sanitary at work
reading
reducing the amount of waste I produce
spending more time looking at the sky
not worrying so much about all the things I'm not doing =)

Life seems hard to keep up with sometimes. The days seem terribly short. And I yearn not merely to survive and find success in my own affairs, but to serve God and fulfill His purposes for me. To be caught up in His master plan for the world. To humbly submit my life to Him. I strive to fully live. So I add to the above list a wide variety of ways I'm praying for God to shape and transform my heart. I don't worry so much about those - I figure I can let God work them out =)

Charlie recently said to me, "The only person you disappoint is yourself." And this is true. I feel only grace flowing from God as I come to Him, frustrated with all the ways I wish I was different. He...and the people who love me...are far more patient and kind toward me than I am toward myself.

The strange thing is this: by the time I actually attain to the full measure of the life I dream of living, the game will be over and I'll get to go home.

For the sake of balance and encouragement, I would like to add a synopsis of the things I have done recently that deserve my own adequate recognition:

keeping my car clean
continuing to write
logging more hours at work
responding to family needs and making plans
pouring my life out for the youth at church
picking wildflowers from the side of my driveway
allowing myself to daydream about Ireland
switching to organic shampoo

Perhaps this is an important quote for me today:

"When you're waiting, you're not doing nothing. You're doing the most important something there is. You're allowing your soul to grow up. If you can't be still and wait, you can't become what God created you to be" (When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd).

This post ends with a shrug of the shoulders. I'm not sure what to conclude from all of this, and actually I am not sure I need any resolution. Today is a day...a good one. And I am grateful for my life.