Monday: Not the worst day of the week

Monday's are totally the worst day of the week, I haven't found anyone to disagree with me on that one yet. But today Whitney and I decided to change things up due to my sickness. I felt like crap this morning so I decided that I was going to sleep today instead of the rush of all of my classes. But what made today great was that Whitney and I made our room the most comfortable place ever. We pulled our mattresses out of our bunks and put them on the floor where we have been stationed all day. Whitney wasn't feeling to great either so she and I have been here in our room of comfort watching movies and napping. This is how Monday's should be.

Experiences

Experience. A word that is frequent in the english language and seems to be a word that is prevalent in the language of people my age. We are all about getting experience, having an experience, sharing the experience. It seems as though it is a competition to have more and better experiences than anyone else. You want to be the person who has been everywhere, seen it all done it all, but I think this takes away the mystery of God in some ways. Now, I am a person who is all about the experience I am constantly seeking a new experience if I know I am or not. I kind of think of it as building my life resume, having all of these things in hopes of one day being a resource. We have the things that we want to experience but we have the things we don't want to experience, we don't want to experience poverty, hurt, hunger, sickness, pain, death. Yet there we live in a world of hurting people where they are in these experiences.

For P.A. training this year we have been asked to write our stories in 150 words or less. I have had this assignment since May and have been trying to figure out my story. Our stories should be the basic my life before and after but I feel like my life is in the middle. I can't honestly say "look at what the Lord has done and I am now blank, blank and blank." He is in the process of doing those things right now. I was talking this through with my friend last night and he brought this up to me about experiences, and how yeah I don't have this concrete beginning and end Jesus story but I have a handful of experiences. I'm not talking about my experiences like the countries I have gone to, or the jobs and classes I have taken but the things that I have had to endure in life. The things that were not choices of mine but things that significantly made an impact on my life.

So I had my devotional today which was titled "God is Looking for Experienced Help" and I that's when I clued into the things that God was putting in front of my face. The devotional had good points such as "when you go to work for the God and His Kingdom, He will use everything in our past, no matter how painful it was." But what really got me was " look at how you can use the pain for someone else's gain." I started thinking about how I have 16 freshman coming to Spring Arbor that are going to be my "pride and joys" my blessings, my people to love with all of the power I have, plus God's. These 16 people coming here with lives that I have yet to know about and hopefully my pain will be someone else's gain.

Experience. Have it, find it, share it.

A Thought That Is Always on The Surface

It seems like when you are thinking about one thing and it is something that you don't want to be thinking about you hear about it, see it, read it everywhere. Your mind tells yourself that you're trying to block it out but your brain is actually just searching for it to try and really think through it and deal with it. For me this thought or idea has been divorce. It is obviously something in society that is no longer considered unacceptable or wrong but something that is seen more often now than a successful marriage. In films and on T.V. some portion of almost all of them, divorce is peeking through in anyway possible. In my opinion divorce has becoming something of a game, beating the other person in the marriage to file for it, finding someway to cheat in the game and find a loop hole, add up the most divorces, or just quit the game of love with that person.

Divorce is something that has now been the ever looming thought within my mind. I think it might be safe to say today that at some point in your childhood now a days you wonder if you parents will get a divorce and what it would be like. I of course had thought about it and had always passed by the idea of it seeing as though I came from a household with Christian parents and teachings. In 7th grade one of my close friends got a divorce and that was the closest I had ever come to it and I didn't really know what to do and it was weird that some days I had to call them at their dad's and then at their mom's and it was hard to actually think about how my friend felt.

Now this thought that seems to be everywhere has become a fear, something that I never want to experience. It made me think about the way that marriage is portrayed, how poorly how marriage is the end of ride, something that doesn't bring happiness and something that will only get worse with time. I never want that to happen and I don't want to experience a big bad divorce. But I worry because I have seen the "christian" families fall apart. How do you make it work or fix things? How do people settle in and just lose the purpose to marriage? I don't like sin, it's a rat.

Miami is for adventurous foods

Miami is so full of culture other than American. In fact it is quite the challenge to find something "american" down here because of the majority of the people that live here. I work with people who are all from different countries, Cuba, Argentina, France, Panama, Germany, Venezuela, Peru and so on. So when I am at work I hear a lot of spanish and have the opportunity to get a little taste of their world. I was quickly introduced to Cuban coffee which someone in the office goes and buys everyday at 3 pm without fail. And I thought that it would just taste like a rich coffee so the way you drink it is like taking a shot of it, so I did and it burned down my throat and in my nose! But it is so addicting and literally wakes you up like 5 minutes. Today I had a Lychee which is a fruit that is originally from Asia and grows down here because of the tropical climate and it looks gross but it was so tasty! My supervisor Rose, who makes me try all these things said that she wants me to experience all of Miami while I am here. Rose is originally from Germany but has lived here for several years and knows how Miami works! Rose taught me the proper way to eat the Lychee and explained to me that usually they're about $8/lb! woo its crazy but they're so unique and good! (pictured above) It is so fun to try all these new foods, while being in good ol' America.

Time Gap

Well, I haven't written a blog in awhile. I guess I just forgot about it but I really do love my blog...when I write in it. If you read my blog you probably know that I am currently stationed in Miami, Florida and it feels like it is a bit of a dream. When I have been here in the past it has always been on vacation and not that this isn't vacation but I'm not just here to have fun, I am here for multiple reasons. I am mainly here to make cheddar and heal from the things that life has thrown onto my path. I have now had the opportunity to spread my wings yet still have a good nest to return to everyday. Being down here with my aunt is really helpful she is a great support system on so many levels and having my internship has really kept me going with not getting caught up in the "lazy summer mode". But now I am really working on healing or maybe even preparing for what is happening at home. Things with my parents are real bad and it is just one of those scenarios where I don't think about it all the time but when I do think about it, I think about it a lot. It seems like there is a lot of "breaking up" of homes and families right now and it's really a challenge to know that I am in that boat. It is also really weird to step back and see that so many of my friends actually haven't gone through this type of situation, and the friends that have don't talk about it or when I ask somewhat casually blow me off on the topic. So it's like my brain is in a bubble over here to the left, and my heart is in a bubble in the middle while my life bubble has already been popped and things just aren't coming together.

However, God has really opened my eyes and heart to Faith and what it means to me or having a better understanding of it. I am reading Isaiah and Matthew at the same time and I read Matthew last summer and I haven't read Isaiah before and I just see the Faith that is going on in Isaiah and of course Jesus and the people he encounters. When I read through Isaiah sometimes I find myself going through it and thinking yeah this is just another Bible story and then I stop to think about how big, and powerful and mysterious God is, it is amazing. So as I am reading through Isaiah and thinking these things and I start to think why don't I have the Faith in God that I need to have? This is telling me about God and to not have fear and to just have Faith that God is going to do what he says. So then I look at the Faith of the people that are reaching out to Jesus and have no doubt that he is going to heal them and do exactly as he has said. So I have been really trying to apply that to my life and I have been trying to do a lot of that through prayer and having Faith in what I am praying for and really believing what the Bible says about Prayer. So the first thing was having Faith that I was going to get a job this summer and I never doubt it, I trusted and had Faith because I had already prayed about it so I had to have the Faith and know God was going to come through, and He did, times two hopefully. And I have to have Faith with this job that I am doing because I have such a fear of failure but I know that I have God and his strength and I won't fail because I have faith. So also with reading Matthew and Isaiah I've really noticed the obedience, so I underlined so many parts where someone is told to do something and it says they got up and did so immediately. And I was reading about obedience and how it is something where when God tells us to do something and we don't take action right away it or just ignore it, it is disobedience and nobody wants to disobey God. Lastly, I have been learning about the power of my words. My mom and I have talked about this so much lately so I have been noticing it more and more in scripture so I have been recently examining my words and trying to choose them very carefully

It is quite the roller coaster in my brain. I'll keep you posted blog-followers.

Love,

A Lover.

Education Through Imagination

I seriously can't understand the way that some people process their thoughts. I understand that everyone has a different way of doing that task and usually it differs between the genders. Today however I am puzzled by the thoughts and actions of some gals. Things happen in life that just some what create a "hiccup." Hiccups are always unexpected, you can't predict them they just happen and you have to deal with it. I think that is the best way to explain what is going on.

People challenge each other daily, thats how we work, thats how we grow. Sometimes I find it hard however to see the growth or to view a situation in the light of it being a growing opportunity. It seems to me that the challenges we face are within the areas of our life we feel most confident. Right now that is my education class and my relationship.

The hardest part I feel is the truth that I cannot control other people. I can only control myself. I am finding myself having to look at situations that seem to be a simple thing and look at them in a deep and complex way, or a new light. Each day is a challenge. I wake up every morning feeling the weight and extreme stress of the day ahead of me. The unfortunate truth is that I cannot see past the day I am living in. There are so many things that are due, people to talk to, tasks to complete, emails to send, homework to finish that I have to live hour by hour. Yet in the back of my mind the next day's stress is already looming inside of me. So when these hiccups occur my stress goes through the roof and I find myself getting lost in my day and feeling completely spent. The good news is...5 weeks until Christmas break. Praise the Lord.

Poem from September 2008

Having a view from above can change everything,
What is seen before us suddenly seems small.
A road block becomes a dot.
A person becomes a figure.
A problem becomes a leaf quickly blown away.

A new view of the things seen daily,
Makes the view wider, larger, and vast.
Observing while someone thinks they're invisable.
Watching the steady steps of confidence,
Or the slow scuffs of discouragement.

The looks of lonliness, without the knowledge of watchful eyes.
We always walk looking straight ahead.
We never think to look up,
And realize someone is watching the path you're walking.