Nine months seems like a long time. But these days, I'm mostly waiting for the days to slow down so I can sit down and finally get a grasp on my life. When the question was posed "Where would you like to be in nine months?" during our retreat, I immediately thought of all the typical answers. Typical, not because they were expected (such as loving God and loving others more), but because they still remain such a large struggle in my life. And in some part, because I have always seen it as a struggle and it has always remained a struggle - I seem to lose hope in those answers every time I am presented with a question like this.

Always the sociologist, my reflection on this question during the retreat allowed me to look at it a different way. Instead of asking WHY these greater goals (such as loving God and loving others more) aren't being accomplished, I want to start asking WHAT things in my life are preventing me from those greater goals. Knowing myself, I tend to be overly ambitious - which as a result, has sometimes led me to be unnecessarily disappointed when I can't achieve my overly ambitious goals; so, over these next nine months, I want to focus on two main things that the Lord has brought out to be sin in my life.

First, I want to follow through with the things I want to do and/or believe is right to do. I believe God has blessed me with the ability to feel compassion and empathy for others, but for whatever reason, at times, I feel oppressed, lazy or ashamed to do so. Therefore, I don't actually act on those feelings even though I want to or believe it is right to do so. Similarly, I am someone who is better at giving out advice than living out advice; which is in other words, is pretty hypocritical. I pray that over these nine months, that I actually learn to explore and think through what it is that I really believe in and act on it, and follow through with it.

Second, I would like to be at a place where I can actually loosen the grips I have on life right now. Fear is a huge part as to why I grasp parts of life, but I pray that I can learn to slowly let go and trust God in those areas and that my life will be reflection of that in some way over the next nine months. But I do need a lot of prayer in this, because sometimes I have no idea how to go about that.

Normally, this is where I let my goals linger and see if they will just flourish without much of my doing (as if it's God's main job to achieve our own goals). However, I do know that there's a lot of work to do on my end, and that God will only work if I allow Him in my life to do so. During our meditation on Psalm 23 during the retreat, I was moved by the line "He restores my soul." Because somehow, in the midst of the mess that I may have brought upon myself, the Lord provides hope and restoration to those who look to Him.