I am so … happy.No, excited.No…..amazed?I don’t know.Maybe I’m just falling in love with my God again.It reminds me of what Rev. Tommy shared a couple of Sundays ago.I don’t remember the rest of the sermon, only a desire he expressed: to see believers walking in a fresh revelation of God’s glory every day.His prayer was that Christ would never become stagnant, boring, or anything short of amazing to us.
He’s already answering that prayer (and it’s not like I should be surprised).Every time I turn around, I see Him bringing renewal to another area of my life, just as He said he wanted to do.I feel like I’m waking up again to so many things – my passion, my purpose, my intimacy with Him, my joy – things I’d forgotten, things I’d pushed aside, things I’d buried, things that were crowded out.Everything He touches has new life.For example, I didn’t realize how miserable I was, wandering around aimlessly, having lost sight of the purpose He’s given me.He’s placed me here at this university to bring Him glory.That foundational principle had been shoved to the back of my mind and buried under stress, school, and social issues, which is ironic, because living with that principle in mind is the only way to handle any of those situations.No wonder I was feeling depressed.I was trying to deal with life here without remembering why I was doing it – and Who was giving me the ability to do it.Those are two very awful things to forget.
Life can be so inconvenient. Why is there no one online to keep me distracted while I’m sitting in class? I suppose I’ll resort to writing instead.
Right now, I’m just hoping that I can get through this semester. It’s all weighing pretty heavily right now. Ali and I were actually discussing it a little bit this morning while we were getting ready in the bathroom, and we decided that our goal should be to just get through this week. I’m hoping that by then I will have finished enough of my major assignments to justify some guilt-free chill time, some time without any school-related responsibility on my mind. It’s probably not a realistic hope, but I like to set my ambitions high.
I had fun last week when Lindsey came to visit, though. :) We took pictures, hung out at the Toad Suck Dam playground, goofed off at IHOP, danced at Bop Club…you can see the evidence on Facebook. I wish that I could have seen Lindsey again before she left, but I was so swamped with homework that’s due Tuesday that I couldn’t get away last night. :(
Speaking of Bop Club, I wonder if I can carve out any time this semester to work on forming a dance club. I pushed the idea to the back of my mind as soon as the homework started piling up, but maybe I’ll have a little bit of time to devote to it later this month. If we can finish the process of being recognized as a club on campus and start meeting on a regular basis, maybe then we can start expanding and maybe get some RSO funding. I would really love it if Mike, Kim, or one of the other regulars from Bop Club could come and do a workshop for us. We’ve been ready to step it up for a while now; we just need someone to work with us a little bit. Unfortunately, the ballroom class that is being offered at the HPER right now is only covering the basics that our group has already learned.
And again, speaking of volunteering my time, I was finally able to take care of my table hosting duties for the CPC Banquet on Thursday.
...later today...
I really think that the enemy was doing his best to keep me from helping with the banquet, because I was slammed with fifteen billion crises over the past few weeks. With classes, unbelievable amounts of homework, illnesses, issues with people, and just life in general, I couldn't find the time to devote to it, so all of my invitations were last minute. Logically, one would assume that the results were disappointing, but you know what? God never ceases to amaze me. I felt like I was acting in obedience by going ahead and asking people on short notice, and He blessed it. Ali's pastor wants to talk with the director about the CPC, Jennifer's D-group wants to get involved with the ministry, and I have opportunity now to talk with several people I know within Chi Alpha and my social circle about it, too. I'm so excited -- even I didn't fill a table! I know that God will bring those He wants to bring to the banquet, and He'll use all of the other circumstances to accomplish His will, too. Hmm, this reminds me, after the craziness of this week is over, I should get in touch with the CPC here in town. I wonder if they need any help.
Heh, if I don't watch out, I won't have time to sleep...between being the new French Club President, doing outreach work with my new d-group, and working with the CPC, that's a lot of volunteer hours. I'd rather keep myself positively productive, though. There's no sense in wasting time hanging around the dorm doing busywork when there are more pressing things to be accomplished.
Anyway, it's getting late, and I should get some sleep. I just wanted to catch up a little. À toute à l'heure!
Ps. I think I figured out today why I'm constantly tired, even if I've only been working on homework for a couple of hours. The foreign language homework must be taxing my brain twice as much as homework in English. Doing two hours of French feels just as exhausting as four hours of something else. Now, isn't that convenient? :P It's a good thing I love this language. (Well, there is one cool thing about it: I just start speaking and writing it by accident sometimes, after I've spent a while working with an assignment. And I've even dreamed French, too...) Ok, I really am going to bed now.
So, it’s nearly noon, and here I am still in bed.Ali and I intended to wake up and go to her church in Little Rock this morning, but we ended up falling asleep again after the alarm went off.That was kind of disappointing, but I’m sure we can spend some time in the Bible and in prayer today instead.Hopefully next week we’ll make it there.
As it is, it’s an absolutely, unbelievably *gorgeous* day outside.It took me a few minutes after I woke up to realize that the sky was blue and the sun was shining, because when I fell asleep last night, Ike was blowing through with tropical rains and 40 mph winds.I was expecting rain all day today, as well.Oh well, as much as I enjoy rain and storms, this day looks amazingly beautiful.We probably had enough tornado scares yesterday anyway.I would be in so much trouble if it stormed today, because it’s so distracting, and I have so much to do.
That reminds me – what kind of university designs a dorm without *any* kind of shelter for severe weather situations?When the tornado sirens went off yesterday afternoon, the RAs sent us to the lobby: a 2-story high room in the middle of the building whose walls are covered with windows.We might as well have been in a glass room.There is no basement, and there isn’t even a hallway or stairwell without windows.Whoever designed that building obviously shouldn’t have been contracted in Arkansas.:P
Anyway, it’s a little hard for me to believe that it’s September 14th.As odd as this will sound, it seems like this semester is flying and crawling at the same time.(I just got a strange image of a baby in a superman cape…maybe I should sleep a little more.):PSeriously now, perhaps the academic workload is speeding it up and the relational issues are slowing it down.My class work this semester seems to be more difficult and more involved than anything I encountered last year, so I’m working extremely hard to adapt.At the same time, the spiritual, emotional, and relational issues I’ve been dealing with since I moved into the dorm have also been more numerous and intense than anything I dealt with last year.
It’s a tough mixture of circumstances, but God has shown me lately that He really does know what He’s doing.(Imagine that!)Without these hardships, I wouldn’t be growing.Every single thing I’ve experienced has resulted in exponential personal growth, to the point where the person I was at the beginning of the summer probably wouldn’t recognize the person I am now.
One of the major catalysts in this change has been God working with me directly through Chi Alpha and D-group.The first week of Chi Alpha, I felt like He was calling me to surrender again, because I’d been trying to live life on my own for a while.I pretty much failed that first week, and then God confronted me with it again at the next Chi Alpha meeting.So, He was pushing me in that direction pretty hard when I showed up at D-group last Thursday.Let me just stop here and say that Meghan and Laura, our two D-group leaders, are two of the most Spirit-led young women I’ve ever met.When they pray, I know that I am going to personally encounter God in amazing ways.At the end of our “getting to know each other” meeting, we started to share some prayer requests so that Meghan and Laura could pray for us before we left.Most of the prayer requests weren’t very in-depth or detailed, but when Meghan started praying, she started discerning God’s voice and speaking His words over us.For Ali, God was saying that he wanted to restore her life and gave her guidance for a particular situation.For me, He needed to be a little blunter.His word for me was “renewal,” but He was saying that in order for renewal to come, I have to let go.I have to release my mental death grip on my life.I have to be still, know that He is God, and trust Him.It breaks His heart and wounds him so deeply when I get so wrapped up in myself, in my worry, and in my confusion, because He wants to take care of everything.A confused and burdened mind is not His will for me, and I’m going to miss His best in my life if I don’t learn to let go and fall into Him.After all, He just wants us to love Him, to run to Him, to want to be close to Him.Now, that’s exactly what I want to do every single day.Before, I would have been worrying about what exactly He meant by “renewal” and what exactly He wanted me to let go of.But now, He’s made me realize that all He wants is for me to run to Him with everything and get caught up in Him.That’s what really matters.In other words, even though I’m not yet entirely sure of what He’s doing, that’s just fine with me.I’m perfectly content to figure it out with Him.
So, it’s possible that none of that made sense; for some reason, it tends to be a tangled mess in words.In my heart, though, it’s just an overwhelming sense of peace, and that’s all that matters.
Maybe this will make things a little more comprehensible. Yesterday in the car, one verse of this song caught my attention, and I realized that it speaks in so many ways to what I'm experiencing. Here's the video and the lyrics:
Sanctus Real - Whatever You’re Doing
From the album We Need Each Other
It’s time for healing, time to move on,
it’s time to fix what’s been broken too long
Time to make right what has been wrong;
it’s time to find my way to where I belong
Chorus:
There’s a wave that’s crashing over me, and all I can do is surrender
Whatever You’re doing inside of me
It feels like chaos, but somehow there’s peace
And it’s hard to surrender to what I can’t see, but I’m giving in to something heavenly
Time for a milestone, time to begin again, re-evaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow Your will or just climbing aimlessly over these hills?
So show me what it is You want from me
I give everything – I surrender
Chorus:
Time to face up, clean this old house
Time to breathe in and let everything out that I’ve wanted to say for so many years
Time to release all my held back tears
Whatever You’re doing inside of me
It feels like chaos, but I believe …
You’re up to something bigger than me
Larger than life, something heavenly
Whatever You’re doing inside of me
It feels like chaos, but now I can see
This is something bigger than me
Larger than life
Something heavenly, something heavenly
Time to face up, clean this old house
Time to breathe in and let everything out
