I feel like I’m still learning how to trust

Above: Me rappelling/abseiling down about 8 stories.

Below: A view of the rock I went down.

Thoughts: I feel like I’m still learning how to trust. Trusting God, trusting others.  Trust holds such power and potential.  With trust, comes vulnerability and in turn we can be known.  Walking down the side of a cliff with only ropes and metal holding you up requires trust.  Trust in the  ropes, in the person who set up the ropes, in the harness, and most of all in God.  Trust in God’s plan, purpose, and protection.  My fear of heights really centers on whether or not I trust God no matter what happens.  I made my way down the cliff in one piece and definitely learned more about trust.  Right now, I’m still learning to trust God while I’m still waiting and not planning what’s next, but letting Him show me what He has in store.  And yeah….I’m pretty excited

Listening

The thing I love most about teaching is asking the students questions or when they ask questions!  I wish I could sit down with each of them and talk.  Get to know them better, learn more about their lives, their struggles, their triumphs, and really take the time to listen to go beyond the surface.  Too often, I think we default to conversations where we don’t delve into the gritty parts of life and we barely scratch the surface of understanding.  Yet, even those surface-y conversations show love, value, and that someone is listening.  Not only do I want to teach the curriculum, but I want to share life.  Each week, I’m trying to share more about myself and ask more pointed questions to give them an opportunity to share with me.   I love that many of the students I teach ask questions and answer them when I ask questions.  For that I’m thankful since unfortunately I can’t take 40 kids out to coffee.  Maybe someday!  

Teaching

Small groups!

Swaziland!

For the last half week or so, Kelly (the intern director) let us know that we had a surprise coming, but wasn’t able to tell us quite yet. We finally found out today about the surprise! We will be headed to Swaziland on March 28th to serve with a ministry (www.bulembu.org) for two weeks. All of us interns are super excited to go! We don’t know all the details yet of what we will be doing, but those will come in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we know that we get to go on another adventure soon. To top this exciting news off, I found out that not only do I have one package to pick up tomorrow, but I have two!!! I’m really excited about that and to see what’s in the packages.

Twilight

TONIGHT 10:15p.m.

Surprise!

I LOVE surprises.  No lie.  I love surprising people and I love being surprised.  Surprise presents (flowers, gifts, flowers, hot chocolate, tea, stopping by, etc.) are awesome.  Especially when they’re from someone super close in my life.  So, what got me thinking about all of this? Well, airports.  I’m going to fly out in the near future and fly back.  I love the airport pick-up.  So much fun getting picked up.  Picking up is fun too.  Sometime in my life I want to fly in somewhere and skip out on the pick up to surprise someone at their front step.  Not sure who yet, but someone!  That’s all I have.  Enjoy the sentimental, personal explanation  

p.s. I’m sure I could fit how this works into my results from StrengthsFinder if I really wanted to…more about that in another post!  I met with a Strengths coach yesterday–fun stuff. (input, learner, achiever, connectedness, restorative/developer)

House!

Yikes…I have to move out in less than a month!  I’m getting really excited, but at the same time every once in a while the whole thing freaks me out.  I’m curious to see where I’m going to live and with who and how all of this will pull together in time.  I’m ready to see God’s hand work through and with all of the details to something great.  We’re hopefully going house-hunting this weekend!  I’ll let you know how everything goes

 

p.s. I ran/walked outside today and it was AMAZING. I LOVE the warm, happy weather.  Helped make up for the ridiculously busy day of graduation planning aka work.

Bedtime!

I have SO many things I want to write about and share, but silly work and sleep are calling my name.  I don’t have any “plans” for tomorrow night so hopefully I’ll get to some of these blog ideas.  Until then…go read Philippians 2:1-11…aw, plus I love the verses after that especially 14 so read it all!May your night be filled with joy and rest! 

I like big books I cannot lie.

Mark Driscoll is hilarious.  I could not stop laughing on my drive home when I was listening to his podcasts.  Who would think that the subject of spiritual gifts could be so funny?!  I sure wasn’t expecting to be driving alone at night laughing my head off.  From previous podcasts, I know he uses a lot of humor, but I was still surprised at how funny he made the topic while keeping it relevant and important.  I’m sure part of why I found the comments so funny is because I see myself and others as embodying the characteristics.

For example, he talked about the gift of knowledge and some characteristics of those who have this gift.  Granted, he did touch earlier in the podcast about the difference between spiritual gifts and natural talents and abilities, but I’ll refrain from going into further depth on that subject (listen to the podcast!).  First off, he indicated that this is one of his primary gifts, which also helped the humor.

Definition: “the ability to research, remember and make effective use of a variety of information on a number of diverse subjects”

Evidence:

1. You are an information freak.
2. You can’t wait for the amazon.com guy to show up
3. If you get a book written by a dead guy, you dance a jig
4. If you get a book out of print, you immediately run around to anyone in the vicinity showing them the “out of print” book so they too can stand in awe
5. “I don’t even believe in the rapture, but if it does happen I’m going to grab my books and take them with me”
6. You love footnotes and appendixes
7. You like big books and cannot lie.
8. What do you do on your day off? Study.
9. You love to learn and are not content with surface level knowledge on a topic
10. After reading a book, you think: “I know there are other perspectives….I need to get more books to look at all the perspectives.  I’m going to look at all of them just because I can.”
11. You get frustrated when you hear bad teaching from someone who hasn’t done their homework— example: that’s not what the greek text says
12. You are compelled to do long hours of research so that others can benefit
13. You love when people ask questions and are excited to share your insight
14. You don’t like to be more than arms length away from a book. i.e. You keep books in your car, room, bag, backpack, satchel…basically everywhere
15. Reading and knowledge simply make you happy.

Also, Mark Driscoll described his library. Man, I was drooling… I can’t wait to have a house and a library!!  He explained how he has a 13 foot desk like the Starship Enterprise and is surrounded by books.  The books of course are cataloged in the same way as the Library of Congress and he can search from his computer by date, subject, time, author, ect. Finally, the reminder came that the whole point of study is Jesus.  Driscoll called himself a “google for Christ.”  Zach Hubert used this gift to create (in his spare time!) a whole website to “help make the Greek New Testament more accessible to the beginning Greek student, the Greek scholar, or to anyone who desires to experience the Bible in its original form.”

In terms of text, Driscoll used 1 Corinthians 12:8 and also suggested doing a character study on Solomon, Timothy and Ezra if you are interested in the gift of knowledge.

*Podcast on iTunes: Spiritual Gifts, Part 1

*Zach Hubert’s website= The Resurgence Greek Project

Pumped!

The temperature outside is 48!  I’m going running!  Even though I surprisingly enjoyed running in the snow (the air was warm and the snow was pretty) on Monday…I’m thinking I’m going to LOVE running today. So here goes nothing

 

The Obvious Option: Cake Decorator/Dessert/Food Extraordinaire

The last few days have led to scouring the internet and blogs for new recipes to try.  I absolutely love making food…especially for big groups of people or at least giving food away to multiple people.  I’m super excited to bring some sort of dessert on Sunday for Antioch Community Church’s fellowship night!  I haven’t fully decided what I’m going to bring, but I’m thinking Fruit Pizza and then maybe some other things too…I’m still brainstorming and we’ll see what I feel like closer to the date

In other news, I tried a new recipe tonight!  Triangle Crescent Sandwiches.  They were very yummy!  Not quite sure if they are worth all the work…but oh well.  Basically you put half your crescent rolls on the bottom of a pan and then put cheese and meat (I used salami) and then you brush egg on top of the meat and then put the rest of the crescent rolls on top and brush that with egg as well.  Bake, bake covered and then eat!  I just feel like I could get nearly the same end product by having already made crescent rolls and then putting in the rest and then either microwaving or baking.  But sometimes it’s fun to make something with more steps so if you want the recipe, just ask