Change my heart, oh God. Make it ever true...

This is the third year that my family and I have made the 18-hour trek to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, staying in a rented house near the ocean for a week of relaxation. If you've never been out this way, I highly recommend it. Life goes at a much slower pace here...not something I could live with always but definitely a nice breather, and definitely something I should do more in my daily life!

Each year, I bring a HUGE bag of books with me on the trip. I love nothing more than to curl up in a comfy chair and plow through the books I've brought. Last year I finished a record six and a half books during the trip (that last one was a "deep" read: Mad Church Disease by Anne Jackson). It was fantastic!!

This year, hoping to beat that record, I packed a ton of books just aching to be read. I was so looking forward to it. But as of today, when our trip is starting to wind down, I have not completed even one book start to finish. A variety of things distracted me -- I drove much longer than I usually do the first day, I couldn't seem to find a quiet spot, I couldn't get in to the books I had picked, my tired body won out over my eager mind.

I was really starting to get frustrated! I mean, I look forward to this Read-A-Palooza all year long! What the hey???

Then, I believe on Tuesday evening, I was walking around the beach house looking through the various baskets of activities the owners had provided, and a bright red book caught my eye. An obviously older print (the cover style gave it away), the title called out to me and would not let me close that bin without pulling out the book. Thus, "Lord, Change Me" by Evelyn Christenson is the ONLY book this trip that I have come close to starting and finishing.

Check it out for yourself at www.evelynchristensonministries.org

I was hooked almost from the beginning into the author's true story about her fervent prayers to God for SELF-CHANGE, as opposed to changing the people around her. Her kids, her husband, her situation is not the issue...SHE is the issue, and SHE is the only aspect that she has any power to change. Everything and everyone else must answer to God, not her. She describes the freedom and release that came over a 14-month period, just from this simple 3-word request.

I'm sad I will have to leave this book behind, as I don't think I'll finish it before we leave Saturday, but I know it's one I will be adding to my collection, completing this summer, and truly taking to heart.

After reading the first few chapters, on a night that I couldn't seem to fall asleep, the word to an old Maranatha church song came into my head, so fitting for this book, this summer:

Change my heart, oh God. Make it ever true. Change my heart oh God. May I be like you. You are the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me, this is what I pray.

...this is going to be an amazing summer--for me, for my relationships, for my family. I can feel it, sense it, almost taste it. It won't be without its share of hard work, but the results, I think, will astound everyone.

Change ME, God. May I be like you.