"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
-Jeremiah 29: 11-13

I'm very grateful for the things God has given me the past couple of months. I have a job that I like, a loving family, a great group of friends, a loving and supportive boyfriend, and a great opportunity to use my voice by writing for Odyssey. It's so crazy to think that Jeremiah 29: 11-13 can actually ring so very true when you apply it to real life.

I remember when I first began to pray to God to let my school have the opportunity to write for Odyssey. My best friend began writing for her school, and I always liked writing because it helped me use my voice in a different way. After a while, I looked on my Facebook notifications and it said that they were looking for writers for Odyssey at my school. How unbelievable! I thought. God actually hears me! He does answer prayers, He always comes through. I always knew that He did that, and I had seen it a few times before with my friends. It happened to me as well, but with the bigger things in my life: roles in the school play, and scholarships, just to name a few. I never really began to pray about the simple, little things until almost a year ago, right before I started college. When I began to do that, it seemed that those things began to happen almost coincidentally. However, the truth is that God planned for those things to somehow happen. Once I began to seek God with all my heart and pray to Him, things began to fall into place, just how He intended them to be. Then I praise Him in some way, whether it be in worship or in prayer, because I know that only He has the power and control to make those things happen in my life.

As the bible says, God knows the plans He has for us. Sometimes we ask Him to show what He has planned for us, and other times we just wait, pray, and put all of our trust in Him and know that everything happens when God wants it to happen. Ever since things began to fall into place for me, I feel very optimistic about the future with God by my side. Whatever is going on in your life, I just pray that you put your trust in God, that things begin (or continue) to fall into place for you, and that you always remember to give thanks for what He has done.