Struggle

This whole month, really, has been a month of struggle for me in my faith. It's not that I'm doubting so much as just having moments where I can't feel God, or feel like He's trying to tell me something but I have NO idea what it is, or just feel very inadequate. I've been struggling a lot lately with pride, with God's love, with stories, with priorities. It's been rough.

Comfort in Isaiah

I've been struggling lately with my faith. Well, it's not that I've been doubting, it's more that I don't feel God as close as I was feeling Him, and I've had some very uncomfortable questions. I'm tired, and more than just physically. I had creepy dreams last night, but it was still hard to get up--there's something so alluring about evil when you're not thinking straight.

Then I started my reading in Isaiah. It was so, so unbelievably comforting:
-"I'm the one who promises it; I'm here." Isaiah 52:6 (CEB)
-"But my righteousness will last forever." Isaiah 51:8 (NIV)
-"He was pierced because of our rebellions and crushed because of our crimes. He bore the punishment that made us whole; by his wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)

Hallelujah, that we serve a living God!!

Update

This past week was really, really hard. I couldn't seem to focus on anything, and I felt stressed about everything that needed to be done, no matter what I did. I felt like I was missing something important, and had a sense of dread. I'm still not sure what that may have been, what God may have been trying to tell me.

Isaiah 43:1-7

But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
² When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.
³ For I am the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
    Cush and Seba in your stead.
⁴ Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
    and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
    nations in exchange for your life.
⁵ Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
    I will bring your children from the east
    and gather you from the west.
⁶ I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
    and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
    and my daughters from the ends of the earth—
⁷ everyone who is called by my name,
    whom I created for my glory,
    whom I formed and made.”
                  ~Isaiah 43:1-7 (NIV)

These verses are just so beautiful. God loves me, you, and every single person on this earth so, so much. And He will be with us, always.

Isaiah

For the past few weeks I've been reading Isaiah. It's been really really strange, actually. In many ways the God of Isaiah is not the God I know--He is so angry and destructive! That's a part of God that I often forget about--maybe want to forget about. Who wants to remember that God can get angry, that God will destroy sin someday? Because we all sin. What parts of ourselves will be destroyed in that destruction? (but were they really worth saving?) I don't want God to be angry with me.

Looked at another way, this anger is almost comforting. God will destroy the sin in my life. He still loves me. Even during all the destruction and anger in this book, God's love for His people still comes through. Destruction is His final, final, final option. And God has a right to be angry, after all--sin goes so against His nature and His will for us.

Update

I don't even know when the last time was that I posted here; sorry for the long delay. My life has been crazy this past month at school, with just so much to do! So I guess one big thing that I've been struggling with is not worrying and trusting God to be in control and take care of things. That's always something I struggle with, though, especially during the school year. It seems a bit unbelievable that I've been at school for more than a month now. I also feel that that gives me a bit of perspective when it comes to worrying; that thing that I was worrying about three weeks ago? I don't even remember it any more.

The other big thing going on in my life right now is that I have really been thinking about my place at my school, as a Christian. Yesterday I made a commitment, with a few others, to be more intentional about witnessing. We discussed some ways to do so that are respectful and metaphors that we can use. We decided to commit to focusing on two people--not to exclude others, but simply to make the task less daunting.

Worrying

This semester, I've been super busy, but I've been taking a weekly Sabbath every Saturday. This week, though, God said to me: "Alina, I want you to take Sunday off, too."

I was not happy. But I had a very restful day, and taking two days in a row off forced me to think about a few things. For one thing, I had been depending on today to get, hopefully, a lot done. Obviously, that didn't happen. But you know what? It's really OK. God is in control here, not me. My worrying tends to increase as I have more to do. God's in control, though, and my worrying accomplishes nothing no matter how much or little I have to do!

The other thing I've been worried about lately is, oddly, going to sleep. I thought for a few days that it was because of everything that I needed to do the next day, but I realized today that it's actually because of the dreams I've been having lately. No, they're not nightmares, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's more that if I've already had enough sleep, or if I know it's almost time to wake up, or if it's a really exciting dream, I've started controlling and manipulating my dreams. It's become my new Storyland, and one that I'm much less capable of controlling. It's awful; like my mind has betrayed me, at least while I'm sleeping. And it is hard to resist the call to lose myself in fantasies when I wake up after one of those Storyland dreams. Lord, please give me strength.

Excellence

The start of this semester has been a struggle for me, in a lot of ways. Many of those struggles are related to academics and my classes--partly the work and getting everything done, but mostly my motivation and effort.

The Bible says "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him" (Colossians 3:17). Last semester I really, really strove to give my absolute best to all of my classes, and to turn in my absolute best for every assignment. But I've been completely unable to do that so far this semester.

There are a few reasons. Last semester I loved all of my classes, or at least liked them, and they challenged me. This semester I don't love any of them, and two of them have been outright boring and unchallenging so far. The other two are individual, and therefore so unstructured, that I've been having difficulty giving myself goals, let alone meeting those goals. Last semester I also knew that many of my classes could later be relevant to my future career--but now God has completely changed my mind about that, I'm going to seminary, and none of my classes are immediately relevant anymore.

I still want to give my all to all of my classes, even if I haven't so far. But I've decided that I'm going to. I'm going to do everything "in the name of the Lord Jesus," and that means doing it joyfully, doing it morally, and doing it as well as I am able.

Why?

Why didn't God reveal Himself to the whole world? Why reveal Himself to just one nation, the Israelites?

Reflections

I had my fellowship group tonight, and it was the first serious meeting of the semester.

It made me think about a few things. The first is witnessing. I've written here before about how uncomfortable I am with witnessing, or even just with thoughtfully engaging with a culture. But I've really been feeling a calling to really focus on witnessing to others this semester, more than on my personal relationship with God, which I think was my focus last semester. (Not that I'm going to ignore my personal relationship with Him! I just honestly didn't even think about witnessing at all last semester, so it's a very different focus). I'm realizing more and more how it's a vital part of Christianity, loving Jesus so much that you want to tell others about Him. Does not being willing to do that mean that you're not Christian, that you don't love Jesus enough? I don't know, just something I've been thinking about. So I've make a commitment to talking about my belief in God/Jesus more, something that's met with limited succes so far (in terms of me having the courage to talk about it, I mean).

The second thing was wealth. We were discussing Acts 2:42-47, and there's a verse in there where the disciples sell their wealth and use the money to help others who really need it. I have so much wealth, really--I have lots of stuff, and I'm in college. I know there are things I own that I could do without. I really felt a condemnation, really, about how little I've been giving to others lately, at least monetarily.

Sabbath

I took today as a Sabbath (well, it was more of a half Sabbath), as I often do on Sundays. It was, honestly, an amazing Sabbath. I spent the day sleeping in, praying, reading the Bible, spending time with friends, reading fun books, talking with my family back home, and reflecting. It was the most refreshing Sabbath I've had in a long, long time. Thank You, God!!

Back to School

I've been having a really hard time adjusting to being back at school. I'm not entirely sure why--it just feels really weird this time around. I think part of it is that I created this idea of how it would be like to come back, without even realizing it; of course it's not actually like that, so now I feel disappointed. I've been having trouble carving out time for God. Being with my friends again feels weird, and is perhaps not a good influence, since none of them are Christian. I'm worried that the goals I've set for myself this semester are too high. I'm afraid to mention to anyone that I'm planning on going to seminary after school--it's not a very Christian campus. But I don't want to be afraid of who I am--a Christian, who is currently being called to go to seminary--nor do I want to change who I am just to fit in. I feel like I'm denying myself by not telling anyone, even while I can't seem to work up the courage to mention it to anyone.

Please help me to trust You, God, more than anything or anyone else. Please help me to give my worries to You, and trust in Your plan for me.

Summer Goals--Wrap-up

Since I'm heading back to school tomorrow, I feel that the summer is officially over, or practically. So I'm going to run through the goals I had going into the summer and how well I met those goals.

1) Volunteer I volunteered a few times at my church, helping them prepare for Vacation Bible School, and helped teach Sunday School a few Sundays. I had imagined myself volunteering more, but considering that I had a job for the summer, I'm pretty satisfied with how much volunteering I did.
2) Freerice I still can't quite believe it, but I actually reached my goal of getting 2 million grains! Today I hit the 2 million mark, and my final total was 2,011,260 grains. Wow!!
3) Summer reading Considering the fact that I had a job, I was really pleased with how much of my list I finished. The only books I didn't touch were a book about bees and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (which is really too bad, I was really looking forward to reading it). I'm also still working on Parzival by Sir Wolfram Eschenbach; I only have a few chapters left.
4) Book reviews I reviewed every book I finished this summer. I even feel like my reviews have improved a bit.
5) Reflect more Hm. Sometimes I did great on this, and sometimes I did really horribly. I think that I actually reflected more last school year--perhaps because I'm so in the habit of analyzing things, perhaps because my fellowship group at school is more supportive. I did try to reflect, but it was very up and down.
6) After graduation I made a lot of progress in this direction, although not at all in the way I imagined. I scheduled my GRE and then cancelled it; that was what I felt God calling me to do. Then I felt Him calling me to go to seminary. So I researched seminaries, and spoke with three different pastors over the summer about seminary and the ministry (although I'm not sure if I'm being called to ministry--just seminary, at least at the moment).
7) Sleep! Considering the fact that I had a job and no time, I did pretty well. There were very few days when I didn't get at least eight hours of sleep, at least (I tend to need nine).
8) Exercise OK, I didn't do very well on this goal. I rarely exercised more than once a week, if that.
9) Work on thesis I read almost every book that I wanted to read this summer, which really pleased me. I didn't get a chance to read any of the articles I wanted to read, but I'm still pretty happy with what I accomplished.
10) Declutter Some decluttering happened, although not as much as I would have liked.
11) Scholarships Amazingly, I submitted 42 scholarship applications this summer. Wow!
12) Pray for others I made amazing progress on this, actually. I thought and reflected a lot about prayer this summer. I got a lot more in the habit of praying for people and situations that I see, and created a list of things to pray for throughout the year (it includes endangered species and careers). The one thing that I wish I could have worked on a bit more was the list itself--it's not done yet, and I still haven't quite gotten into the habit yet of using it every day.

Peace

The past few days I've been very worried about going back to school. Not even about the schoolwork part of it--although it looks to be a difficult semester in terms of that, too--but about the people at school. It's not the most Christian school, in terms of a lot of the people, in fact they can be downright hostile about it. This isn't really something that's bothered me in the past, but I'm leading a Christian group this semester and pretty certain that I'm going to go to seminary after college. I think my Christianity is going to get a bit more noticed.

Anyway. So I've been worrying. Last night I couldn't sleep because of it, so I got out my iPod, put on some downhere music (my favorite Christian band), played Solitaire, and talked to God about my worries. It was such a relief. I hadn't even realized how long it's been since I've talked to God, I mean really talked to Him, without putting any barriers in the way or having to go do something else in ten minutes. It was such a relief, and so freeing.

This morning I was still worrying. I was having a hard time concentrating because of how much I was worrying. I finally said to myself, "This is completely ridiculous. You're worrying about something that is a completely hypothetical situation in the future. God is in control of the future!!" I promised myself and God that I wouldn't think about going off to college for the rest of the day. And I didn't. It was a total miracle, actually, because I'm not very good at controlling my thoughts. I did some work for my Christian group, had lunch with a friend, read a book and listened to the rain, read the Bible and talked to God about it, and it was actually a completely amazing day. God can do amazing things, even with a day that starts out full of worry!