Walking with Jesus

I have been going through a lot of spiritual transitions over the past year. Last year was very difficult for me and only through the summer did I start to feel "normal" again. Recently, God has been working in me through the college Sunday school group at Mission, and I now feel that I am in a place where I can put this working into words.

We wen tthrough a unit talking about the passages surrounding Jesus walking on water in Mark. The passage immeidately before walking on water is that of the feeding the 5000. The disciples are grumpy during this miracle because they thought they were going to have a rest. Jesus performs the miracle and there are 12 baskets of food left over. They then get in the boat and are supposed to go to Bethsaida. It is while they are on the lake that they see Jesus walking on water. They don't recognize him and are afraid. Jesus had meant to pass by them, but since they are afraid, he gets in the boat and they don't end up at Bethsaida. The next passage is feeding the 4000. This time there are 7 baskets left over. Again afterwards they get in the boat, and the disciples have a conversation about not having any bread. They reach Bethsaida, and Jesus performs the miracle of healing the blind man where at first he says he sees people but they look like trees.

Discussion with the group is where things really fall into place for application. The disciples missed the whole point of the feeding of the 5000. Jesus can provide everything a person needs in abundance. This is even demonstrated by the fact that there was a basket left over for each disciple. He wants them to understand that he, as God, provides for them. But they don't get this, which is why they are terrified when they see him on the water and don't make it to Bethsaida. Jesus does the feeding of the 4000 to try to tell them again. This time the 7 baskets symbolize completion and wholeness. It seems that the disciples still don't quite get it, because they complain about not having bread. There is more conversation int eh boat that we don't know about, but Jesus must decide that they are ready for Bethsaida, because that's where they end up. With the blind man, Jesus makes it a point that it isn't enough for him to see, but not see clearly. Jesus wants him to see everything in perfect detail as it is.

So, summary of application, God can and wants to be our provider. He provides abundantly for us both with physical and spiritual needs. When he teaches us something, he doesn't give up if we don't get it the first time. He works to show it to us in different ways so we understand and learn more about him. And even when we think we see something (like the blind man seeing people as trees), he keeps working to make it perfectly clear for us. There is always something new for us to discover about God.

Now personal application to my journey. The trips int he boat that the disciples and Jesus mke made me think about the Footprints poem. Graduating from Biola, Jesus and I were walking along the shoreline together. Then grad school and roommate issues hit, and I feel flat on my face. I spent quite a while lying face down in the sand. At first I cried out and began to reach for God, but the pain overwhelmed me, and very quickly i dropped my hand and resigned myself to lie there. I felt alone and abandoned and felt as if I were drifting from God. As soon as I realized this consciously, I reached out to God and he picked me up. Throughout the summer he carried me, and I clung to him. I was terrified of falling on my face again. At the same time, I felt ashamed that I wasn't walking, simply being carried. But the suppor tof others, and God's reassurance made me understand that it is ok to let yourslef be carried for a time.

Now, entering year 2 of grad school, and with a better elader of college group, I feel ready to walk on my own feet again. I am stillleaning heavily on God, but this is a good thing. He is more than able to support me and provide for me. And I realize now, tha tthough I was walking on my own, yet next to Jesus, when I graduate drom Biola, I believed that I had learned everything about him.

I see now that I am only seeing trees when I want to see people.

I pray that he continues to show me more and more of his character as I walk with him.

Spiritual Growth

I have been aware for some time that the past year has held very few posts on spiritual or emotional growth. Though I created this blog to be my everything blog (thoughts, rants, funny stories, life events, etc) the emotional processing has decreased immensely. This postbreaks that streak, which I hope is a good sign of things to come.

Over the summer I have felt myself beginning to re-stablizie emotionally and spiritually. My prayer life has regained some of it's energy and I find myself in scripture more than I usually have over the last year. But things still aren't the same as they were during my Biola life, and I still miss Biola terribly. I decided that something that might help would be to watch the Biola chapels as they are posted on youtube. This will both help my Biola-sickness, and help feed me spiritually.

The two parts thus far on John 1 have been incredible. I particularly found things sticking with me during Dr. Klink's message, and after Fred Sander's chapel began a read through of the Gospel of John. But I don't have any profound thoughts on truth to share yet, which reminds me of the beginning of my Biola career. I couldn't blog at all for several months being so completely overwhelmed with everything. Perhaps my overwhelmedness (overwhelmment? *shrug*) is a sign of new start for me. The beginnings of new growth that I've longed for for months.

Please pray for me in this time. I am still in a sometimes precarious living situation, intermittent states of fear of being torn down emotionally, and in a secular environment almost everywhere. I know God can grow me anywhere, I just happen to find it more difficult to allow myself to grow here than in the safety bubble of Biola.

6-3 Debriefing and Final Day at Peris

(I'm ashamed that it's 9 months later and I'm still finishing these)

As a special treat for us on our last full day in Romania, Jim announced a "special breakfast edition of hot seat". This was mostly so we could get through everyone before we headed home, but it was fun. Following breakfast, those who still needed to do some shopping (mostly for gifts for sponsors) went to take care of that while the rest of us helped clean up the team house. Most of our cleaning was organizing the things we were leaving for the kids.

When the others came back, we began our debriefing process. It wasn't until I got home that I truly appreciated that this was a part of our trip. I really went through a major culture shock when I got home, which I wouldn't have expected if Jim hadn't told us about it.

Jim had us all go around and say our highs and lows of the trip, and three words we would use to describe our trip. For me they were as follows:

Lows: thinking about the babies at the baby hospital during the thunderstorm, and having to leave the kids
Highs: worship at Alfa & Omega, and Marius' huge smile at Voluntar on Children's Day
3 Words: love, sovereignty, and fellowship

We paused our debriefing here for lunch, and our final visit to Peris. I spent my time there chasing Alina around the play yard, giving her and Ana piggyback rides, and laughing at some of the older boys giving Brinn a hard time about Volle. Goodbyes were hard, especially when some of the younger ones got emotional, but the H2H staff eventually ushered us back to the vans and got us back to Pipera.

We were given Schwarmas for dinner, and then ushered off to finish our debriefing by writing our story in one page, and then in one paragraph. We finished off the night with the final edition of hot seat.

Words Can't Bring Me Down

It has been an interesting week. For starters my mom and I got to check out housing stuff down at State (SDSU) last Friday. One is a studio type apartment attached to someone's house, which a friend of a friend of my mom's has been renting. It's a very nice family and a nice apartment, but it's a little expensive. From the housing office on campus we got a list of nearby apartments, and I've been talking with a few other Biola girls who are or will be students at SDSU.

My favorite part of the day was getting to see my department's building and talk to people there. It's a brand new building as of last semester, which is great. I ended up getting to talk to my program director for a little bit and she told me about the program. It sounds like there are about 90 people total in the graduate speech pathology program, 40 in each class (they have about 30 people at a time who take 3 years because they had backgrounds in other areas). Apparently I'm going to be extremely busy the first year because it's mostly academic stuff along with 1 or 2 clients. I have two courses and two clients in the summer (one in June, one in July) between the 2 years. And they'll send out a whole lot more information in June. I also got to tour the clinic, and I'm really excited to get to work there.

Once Steve was done with classes, we came home and went to dinner to celebrate at Yen Chim Garden. Chinese food definitely holds a special place in my heart. Saturday I packed up my stuff and came back up to campus with my mom and a gil from my church who's thinking about transferring to Biola. We showed Brooke around campus and took pictures for my graduation announcements.

Then came the time to scramble to get homework done. Things were going along fine, until I had a suddenly very angry and upset boyfriend.

Once he had calmed down enough to have a coherent conversation, I found out why.

It started with the words "we need to talk" from his parents. They concerned (to put it nicely) about him finding a job. A fair concern since he's been out of school for not quite a year now. He has looked for a job on several occassions with no luck, but mostly we've been waiting until he could move down here to be closer to me. Mentioning that in this conversation was a bad idea. They don't approve of this idea. In fact, they apparently feel that I am one of many factors that are "destroying" his life. He is on a destructive path, and he must find a job by the end of next month or lose his phone, internet, and car.

Well, don't hold back, tell us how you really feel about me.

Now what? I'm not a fan of the idea of scorning parents and tearing apart families. But...what did I do? I just want to be able to have a normal relationship with my boyfriend. Getting a job there means he won't be moving for quite some time. Not getting a job there means I will lose all contact with him and possibly all hope of ever seeing him again. If he runs, that may open up a whole brand new can of worms.

The most surprising part in all of this to me; I haven't been despairing. I have felt myself turn and cling to God for support. I'm certainly worried, but I've been able to remain clear headed. I have no idea what's going to happen in all of this, but I'm sick of worrying about things I have no control over. God has a plan for me, for Tad, and for us, and I trust that His plan is good and for the best. Perhaps God's lessons this year about patience are finally starting to sink in.

I definitely welcome prayers for guidance and wisdom

I'm Diving In...

Taking on the same theme as last week's post...haha The Steven Curtis Chapman song came to mind when I was thinking about this post, so I figured I'd run with it...er, swim with it? :)

Group was amazing tonight. I have such a peace right now about life--a very nice change from last week's feeling of uncertainty. I didn't have the nerves until I got there. There was so much I wanted to talk about, but I still didn't want to take a lot of group focus. I was the first one to speak, and I basically did word/emotions vomit, as appetizing is that is, sorry. I shared about my frustrations with my communication with my mom, with how that affects my relationships, with how I wish I could change all of it.

The responses I got were wonderful. Reassurances that, my sharing just then wasn't a burden. That others feel the same way about their relationships with their parents. My heart broke from some of the things others shared tonight. A few said it was a relief that I was the first one to start us off. That was something to think about, my sharing *helped* people, not *hurt* Someone also suggested (through question) asking my mom to continue in the conversations with me, and that I may need to tell her when things are hurting me, because we are different, so she might not realize it.

I feel like already we're starting to bond as a group. I want to know more about the others. It's quite exciting because I barely know them, but I know what I can be praying about for them, which is great. I am so thankful God has brought me into this situation, I think He will bring a lot fo growth out of it for me.