It is nice having a few days off from basketball. As you probably gathered from my previous blogs, I did not play these last 2 games in the Turkish Cup. We now have 6 games remaining left in the season. I continue to practice with the team and then get extra lifting and cardio workouts in on my own since I haven't been playing. This has been a very interesting season, and yet despite the craziness and unknown, I know the Lord has me here for a reason. I am looking forward to being stateside in a few weeks. It is hard to believe that next month the season will be finished.
We will resume practice on Monday. I slept in a little bit today and then I went and worked out which was good. I plan on relaxing the rest of the day. I may bake some cookies for my teammates and take those to practice on Monday.
I pray that the Lord is sustaining you in whatever situation you may find yourself in right now. How reassuring it is to know that we serve an All-Knowing God. I read this in "Jesus Calling" this morning and wanted to share it with you: "I will no necessarily remove your problems, but My wisdom is sufficient to bring good out of every one of them."
Quotes from a book I am reading by Jefferson Bethke called "Its's Not What You Think: Why Christianity Is About So Much More Than Going to Heaven When You Die"
“God speaks in the quiet. The wilderness is a place of utter silence.”
“We are afraid of rest. Afraid of silence. Afraid of idle time. And I think there are two reasons for that: (1) we are terrified of silence, and (2) we are afraid of being unimportant. When we are resting or not doing any work, especially in the Western world, we feel as if we lose our identities. We no longer know who we are.”
“That’s why people are willing to sacrifice their whole
lives on the altars of their jobs; at least then they think they look important.”
“Not giving ourselves time to rest impairs our ability to empathize. When we finally slow down, we start thinking of others. We aren’t as self-absorbed, and we have time to give and be compassionate. Resting can create a better world when millions, if not billions, of followers of Jesus are setting aside a day to play, rest, and love. “
“We either pause moments or are present in the moments. We can’t have both.”
“Honoring Sabbath is saying no; time is sacred.”
“Are your days being filled, or are you always being
drained? We need to set aside time for filling.”
“If we aren’t sabbathing, the question is, are we free? Or are we slaves to performance, to our phones, to being needed, to being in the know, to pleasure, to addiction?”
“When we are commodities, other humans are competition. When we rest, other humans are neighbors.”
I wanted to send you a link to listen to an amazing new song that just came out a few days ago by Charles Billingsley - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQFsTWiWVmI
I hope you all enjoy the song, and enjoy your weekend. I am headed to church tomorrow here, which I am looking forward to that.
God bless,
Megan