Quality and Quantity

I'm home. For now. Time and time again I find myself in my car (or in A car since mine is unreliable) on my way to somewhere other than here. A couple weeks ago I wrote about needing to look forward to things, so I'm in the habit of creating things to look forward to. Usually by the time these events I've created are over, I'm already plotting my next move. I just got back from a weekend of fun... including driving to Michigan for the midnight premiere of New Moon (awesome!!!), driving to Indy for a birthday/slumber party at which we saw New Moon (still awesome!!!), spending time with awesome women from New Hope Pres, paintballing with 42-ish kids, shopping, youth Sunday and NHPC, and finally an awesome youth group (including line dancing!). After a long weekend away, once I got home on Monday and starting unpacking I realized that I was already ready for something new and exciting. So now what do I have to look forward to?? I think the next big thing is Christmas, my birthday, and New Years. If you've known me for any length of time you know that I LOVE my birthday and I love hanging out with fun people on my birthday. I don't know if I look forward to anything else as much as my b-day (although I do love Easter and the week leading up to it.) I'm hoping to see as many people as possible this Christmas/b-day season because I think I'll be out of the States for the next b-day or two. What about after that though? There's gotta be something!! So I've already booked my "spring break: I gotta get away from this cold!!" trip to Florida for April.
I was asked yesterday, "aren't you tired of driving and traveling all the time?" My immediate answer was YES! Perhaps if I would have gotten more than 4 hours of sleep before driving for 3.5 hours my answer would have been different. Now that I've thought about it my answer is definitely no. If any of you has taken the DISC personality test/survey thing you know what I mean when I say that I'm an IS. Basically this means I'm an extrovert, I feed off of other people and am reenergized by spending time with lots of people, I love spontaneity, and I'm a bit disorganized at times (easily distracted, as you know from reading my entries.). While this is true, I definitely value my quiet times, maybe not alone, but not with lots of people. Even though I love large group settings and hanging out I'm finding more and more that I appreciate less hectic times too. I don't know if I'll ever get tired of driving. I know I won't ever get tired of being with my friends. I love building relationships and maintaining them. It's part of what God has called me to do. :)
There are some friendships that I've had for so long that it doesn't take much to maintain them at all. I love those friendships because no matter how busy I let myself get, I don't have to worry about the state of those friendships. If I don't call for a few weeks it doesn't jeopardize the friendship at all. I'm so grateful for that kind of friendship because it really allows me to build new ones that require more maintenance and thus, more time.
So today I was challenged by something a friend sent me. "Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." 1 Corinthians 15:58. Paul is a repetitive guy, but he sure knows how to encourage. This verse wasn't really presented to me as a challenge at all, actually it was meant as an encouragement. It became a challenge as I thought about the friendships that I don't have to maintain often simply because of laziness. God has called me specifically to love others and serve them and I really tend to take advantage of how easy it is for me to build new relationships, often neglecting the older ones. Reading this and praying on it for a bit brought me to the conclusion that I need to work harder. I need to love deeper. I need to uplift all of my relationships more. Quality and quantity... these words work against each other for the most part. God is teaching me how to make them work together through trust and faith in Him.