I wrote the first part of this blog about 4 weeks ago, so keep that in mind for relativity.
Welp, it's 2:30 AM and I can't sleep. I will be up and out the door in exactly 2 hours to take my parents to the airport. My mind is racing, as is my heart. Thoughts of school budgeting, apartment hunting, job searching and things of the like are keeping me wide awake. I'm exhausted physically, but my mind just won't shut off! A few days ago, I was inspired to write about all of this. Sentences were flying through my head and my inspiration was off the hook. I haven't had the chance to pen those thoughts since, however, so it is my hope that they will return. Also, I want to continue to document the craziness that is my life, if nothing else, so I can look back in a few years and remember God's faithfullness. As I will write in the latter half, I have a feeling I'm going to need all the reminders I can get. So to my future self, God's got this, too.
Ah, where to begin. Well in short, let me explain what my past week has looked like. Monday, I began (again) pestering Financial Aid to get some numbers figured out. I had yet to hear from them on Wednesday (and have yet, actually), and I knew a decision needed to be made whether or not I was going to try and live on or off campus. I finally went with plan B and chose the off-camups route. Earlier in the year, I had made loose plans to stay with an ex-roommate if campus housing fell through due to financies (only ex in reality, in my heart we will always be roommates!) and share a room in the house she was going to be living in. She had gotten the approval from her other roommates prior, but when I gave the official ok that I was going to take up the offer, her roommates backed out for whatever reason. So there I was, a week before I am supposed to move to Redding, and I have no place to live and no roommate. Ensue last-minute frenzy. How typical of my life, am-I-right? I just happened to know another friend (actually, ex roommate too) who would prefer to live off-campus, so I gave her a holla to see what she was thinking. To make matters more complicated, we had ONE day left before the off-campus paperwork deadline, AND she technically didn't fit the requirements for off-campus living. However, she was still gung-ho, and just so happened to be going to Redding the next day! So we put together a list of apartments for her to check out.
After a stressful 24 hours on my end, she found a place that seems like it will work great for us; not the closest to campus, but cheap! We are currently still waiting for her off-campus request to be approved, but, we think it's going to work out. (I'm leaving out details as to why, so there is actually a good chance, but yeah.) Unable to move forward with signing leases, etc, until we get the official approval, I'm in a state of limbo. A little stressed, but mostly at peace. The stress comes from the fact that on top of this, I will need to get another job in Redding so I can pay rent, utilities, buy food, have gas in my car, car insurance... The job I have on campus (World Serve Intern) will barely put a dent in my expenses. My parents are chipping in to help cover part of my rent, though, which I am ever so grateful! So as of right now, Sunday night/early Monday morning, I don't have a place/way to pay for a place, I'm doin' alright! I just know--God's got this.
My consolation is found in so many things that God has done for me. First of all, in this current situation, I feel like so many doors have tried to close, yet there has still been hope. Not being able to get answers from financial aid for over three weeks made my first plan of living on campus no longer feasible. My plan B, failed. And I don't think my plan C wouldn't have worked if I had asked any other person. In this situation, while I don't have any solid answers, I feel like the push-back I'm recieving is weaker than my push forward. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, or a wrong thing. I think it's a faith thing; I have confidence that I am headed where I am supposed to be.
As I look back to 2010, I remember how God provided for me in crazy stinkin' ways for YWAM. I didn't know if I was flying half-way accross the world for 6 months until less than 48 hours from my departure. Again, to leave for my outreach with YWAM, God provided a a few thousand dollars within minutes of deadlines. Going to school last fall, I was at Simpson for about 2 weeks not even knowing if I was going to be able to stay; I was waiting to find out about new scholarships that I needed. Again, this past year, I booked my flight to Uganda just a week before leaving, because that's when God provided all of the funds.
I seriously am in awe again at just how faithful God has been to me. It puts me to tears to remember these moments where God reminded me to keep my faith in Him, my eyes on Him my Provider.
Which leads me finally to my future-self talk in the beginning.
Phew. I've tried writing this next bit three times already, but get so emotional I have to stop and erase what I have! Ok.
On Thursday, my mom and I were talking about apartments, and money, and all that jazz, and how my life is crazy. She began to ask me if I thought my life was always going to be like this, that if somehow this was all just a testing point to see if I really trusted God with everything and to build up my faith. In all honesty, YES. In my mind, all signs point to yes. I get so emotional whenever I think about that as being truth. Not emotional sad, but emotional as in over-come by the Holy Spirit. As those words flowed from her mouth, I had a sense of truth hit me. I felt the Holy Spirit flow through me, and that's the only way I can explain it, but the answer is yes. It was a brief, intense feeling that hit my chest and made me feel lightheaded for a few seconds. I remember feeling that exact feeling once before, when thinking about the exact same reality she was mentioning.
This next bit, only a handful of people outside of my DTS know about. For some reason, I feel like now is the time to share it. It involves prophesy, which makes me hesitant to talk about because I know different people believe differently about it. This was basically my first experience with it, and I learned about it really for the first time in YWAM as well. (Personally, I think it can be great and useful and from God, but from what I know, I think it can be overused and under-spiritualized. I truthfully would love to know what you believe and go by regarding prophecy.)
The setting; It was week 3 or 4 of DTS. We were visiting a town and doing local ministry alongside our lectures that week. For some reason, I was feeling a big disconnect. A diconnect from the other DTS students, the ministry, and from the lecturer/topic. We were learning about evangelism that week, which I'd never really done any of before. I was struggling to grasp the ideas he was sharing, and struggling to get anything he was saying, really. I asked God if Yan, the speaker, would just say something that would strike my heart, and I would know it was from God and meant to be for me, and would be something I could grasp and start learning from. It's funny because I asked that Yan would look me directly in the eye so that I was confindent it was for me. HA! God was about to BLOW me out of the waters, and I had no idea what was coming. He answered my prayer with more than anything I could have ever expected.
Less than five minutes after praying, Yan stopped in the middle of his lecture, pointed and looked at me and started prophesying over my life. The gist of what he said was that in 8 years, I was going to have two decisions. One is more radical than the other, more scary and maybe dangerous; both will be of God and good choices, but one will change the world so much more. But it was vital for me to stay on track with God. It will be hard, but if I devote myself to Him, it will lead to greatness.
Like I said before, I've only shared that with a few people before, and have always been hesitant about posting it on my blog. So I do ask that with that knowledge, if you could just pray for me as I continue to grow in Christ and pursue this wild adventure of a life. I feel vulnerable in sharing it, like I'm sharing my diary, but for whatever reason I feel the time is right to finally share.
==
==
In life, I normally take the more challening route. I don't want easy, I want crazy. God knows that, that's how He made me. And all I can think of is WOW. This must be SO absolutely crazy, that God had to give me a heads-up and prepare me, that it might be beyond even MY natural tendencies?! So I can see, without a doubt, that these are all lessons and faith-builders for whatever kind of holy hooplah He has up His sleeves that is about to hit me like a crazy-train.
Will you continue to join me in this journey and adventure that is my life?
Alright, so here are the current jams.
So while I was in limbo about whether or not I would be getting an aparment with a friend, I couch-surfed/dorm surfed (sshhh) for a week. To make a long story short, the off-campus approval for my friend was looking grim. I began to get frustrated that I was having to deal with all of this. Admist my frustration, though, God heart-checked me, and I realized how wrong it was for me to be frustrated. I was ashamed that I was letting anger and doubts creep into my thoughts and I had to take it to God and apologize. Then, another situation arose! I know I know... all of these changes were kind of driving me crazy too! However, this situatuation seemed like an answer to prayers. A family was looking for someone to stay with their elderly mother and help do basic cooking, cleaning, and shopping for her. In return, I would just pay $50 a month for utilities. Now that I could afford! And just when I thought this was going to be the perfect option, another wrench was thrown in the mix. I thought Simpson had updated my financial aid status to off-campus and the numbers I was crunching were from correct financial aid stats. Unfortunately at that point, a week and a half after switching, it still hadn't been updated, so I found out I owed even more money than I thought to Simpson (because I lost some scholarship money moving off campus). Basically this meant that even with the sweet living situation, I was going to need to get another small part time job, and therefore wasn't sure if I would be able to take the offer because I didn't see how I would have the time to take care of her adequately.
With all of this happening during leadership training, I was getting discouraged. And in all honesty, I was beginning to lose faith. I just saw no feasible way it was all going to work out. I mean, I knew God was capable of anything, but I was wondering at what point I should just realize it wasn't going to work out. I'm so disappointed in myself for losing faith, but in all honesty that's exactly where I was. I was on the verge of giving up. It was Wednesday, and on Thursday I was going to meet Cindy (the daughter of the elderly lady, and actually a friend's mom) and talk about everthing. I went to a worship night for all of the students leaders with a heavy heart. After worship, I was getting ready to leave when a friend pulled me aside. He wasn't fully aware of the finanial situation I was in, but said that earlier in the day God told him to give me $50. Even now, at least three weeks later, I'm rocked with emotion. That $50 wasn't going to solve all my problems, but when I was giving up, God was reminding me He was still faithful! I can't even express the radical feelings that were happening inside of me!
Going back to my room, shaken with God's faithfulness, I was wondering what was going to happen the next evening. I didn't really have a solution to my problem to give to Cindy. I knew I just had to be honest and lay it all on the table and see what happened. And you know what happened? God straight up rocked my world again. When I told her how much more I needed, she responded with "We'll take care of it." I'm being completely serious. I had just met Cindy merely half an hour prior. Have I said lately how ridiculously blessed I am?! Again, it was hard to not burst out in tears on the spot, and that's coming from a non-crier.
So that's the end of my long where-is-Jessica-going-to-live story! I got keys to the place, and moved in two days later! YES. I finally found a place! I live in a wonderful house, and have my own bedroom and bathroom. Ruth, my 84 year old roommate (that's just fun to say, I mean come on, how many college kids get to say that?) was supposed to be home last week (she broke her hip and was in rehab), but the doctors wanted to keep her a bit longer. So she will come home in another 2 weeks if all goes as planned! I met her this past Sunday, and I can tell we're going to get along just peachy. :)
I have more to say about what my crazy life has been like since moving in, but I just realized how long this post has gotten, and I doubt anyone will read it if I keep going. So stay tuned to part 2 of my crazy life!
Needless to say, this last month I created a personal hashtag to describe my life. I don't think anything could be more accurate. #MyLifeIsAnAdventure
Amen to that!
Welp, it's 2:30 AM and I can't sleep. I will be up and out the door in exactly 2 hours to take my parents to the airport. My mind is racing, as is my heart. Thoughts of school budgeting, apartment hunting, job searching and things of the like are keeping me wide awake. I'm exhausted physically, but my mind just won't shut off! A few days ago, I was inspired to write about all of this. Sentences were flying through my head and my inspiration was off the hook. I haven't had the chance to pen those thoughts since, however, so it is my hope that they will return. Also, I want to continue to document the craziness that is my life, if nothing else, so I can look back in a few years and remember God's faithfullness. As I will write in the latter half, I have a feeling I'm going to need all the reminders I can get. So to my future self, God's got this, too.
Ah, where to begin. Well in short, let me explain what my past week has looked like. Monday, I began (again) pestering Financial Aid to get some numbers figured out. I had yet to hear from them on Wednesday (and have yet, actually), and I knew a decision needed to be made whether or not I was going to try and live on or off campus. I finally went with plan B and chose the off-camups route. Earlier in the year, I had made loose plans to stay with an ex-roommate if campus housing fell through due to financies (only ex in reality, in my heart we will always be roommates!) and share a room in the house she was going to be living in. She had gotten the approval from her other roommates prior, but when I gave the official ok that I was going to take up the offer, her roommates backed out for whatever reason. So there I was, a week before I am supposed to move to Redding, and I have no place to live and no roommate. Ensue last-minute frenzy. How typical of my life, am-I-right? I just happened to know another friend (actually, ex roommate too) who would prefer to live off-campus, so I gave her a holla to see what she was thinking. To make matters more complicated, we had ONE day left before the off-campus paperwork deadline, AND she technically didn't fit the requirements for off-campus living. However, she was still gung-ho, and just so happened to be going to Redding the next day! So we put together a list of apartments for her to check out.
After a stressful 24 hours on my end, she found a place that seems like it will work great for us; not the closest to campus, but cheap! We are currently still waiting for her off-campus request to be approved, but, we think it's going to work out. (I'm leaving out details as to why, so there is actually a good chance, but yeah.) Unable to move forward with signing leases, etc, until we get the official approval, I'm in a state of limbo. A little stressed, but mostly at peace. The stress comes from the fact that on top of this, I will need to get another job in Redding so I can pay rent, utilities, buy food, have gas in my car, car insurance... The job I have on campus (World Serve Intern) will barely put a dent in my expenses. My parents are chipping in to help cover part of my rent, though, which I am ever so grateful! So as of right now, Sunday night/early Monday morning, I don't have a place/way to pay for a place, I'm doin' alright! I just know--God's got this.
My consolation is found in so many things that God has done for me. First of all, in this current situation, I feel like so many doors have tried to close, yet there has still been hope. Not being able to get answers from financial aid for over three weeks made my first plan of living on campus no longer feasible. My plan B, failed. And I don't think my plan C wouldn't have worked if I had asked any other person. In this situation, while I don't have any solid answers, I feel like the push-back I'm recieving is weaker than my push forward. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, or a wrong thing. I think it's a faith thing; I have confidence that I am headed where I am supposed to be.
As I look back to 2010, I remember how God provided for me in crazy stinkin' ways for YWAM. I didn't know if I was flying half-way accross the world for 6 months until less than 48 hours from my departure. Again, to leave for my outreach with YWAM, God provided a a few thousand dollars within minutes of deadlines. Going to school last fall, I was at Simpson for about 2 weeks not even knowing if I was going to be able to stay; I was waiting to find out about new scholarships that I needed. Again, this past year, I booked my flight to Uganda just a week before leaving, because that's when God provided all of the funds.
I seriously am in awe again at just how faithful God has been to me. It puts me to tears to remember these moments where God reminded me to keep my faith in Him, my eyes on Him my Provider.
Which leads me finally to my future-self talk in the beginning.
Phew. I've tried writing this next bit three times already, but get so emotional I have to stop and erase what I have! Ok.
On Thursday, my mom and I were talking about apartments, and money, and all that jazz, and how my life is crazy. She began to ask me if I thought my life was always going to be like this, that if somehow this was all just a testing point to see if I really trusted God with everything and to build up my faith. In all honesty, YES. In my mind, all signs point to yes. I get so emotional whenever I think about that as being truth. Not emotional sad, but emotional as in over-come by the Holy Spirit. As those words flowed from her mouth, I had a sense of truth hit me. I felt the Holy Spirit flow through me, and that's the only way I can explain it, but the answer is yes. It was a brief, intense feeling that hit my chest and made me feel lightheaded for a few seconds. I remember feeling that exact feeling once before, when thinking about the exact same reality she was mentioning.
This next bit, only a handful of people outside of my DTS know about. For some reason, I feel like now is the time to share it. It involves prophesy, which makes me hesitant to talk about because I know different people believe differently about it. This was basically my first experience with it, and I learned about it really for the first time in YWAM as well. (Personally, I think it can be great and useful and from God, but from what I know, I think it can be overused and under-spiritualized. I truthfully would love to know what you believe and go by regarding prophecy.)
The setting; It was week 3 or 4 of DTS. We were visiting a town and doing local ministry alongside our lectures that week. For some reason, I was feeling a big disconnect. A diconnect from the other DTS students, the ministry, and from the lecturer/topic. We were learning about evangelism that week, which I'd never really done any of before. I was struggling to grasp the ideas he was sharing, and struggling to get anything he was saying, really. I asked God if Yan, the speaker, would just say something that would strike my heart, and I would know it was from God and meant to be for me, and would be something I could grasp and start learning from. It's funny because I asked that Yan would look me directly in the eye so that I was confindent it was for me. HA! God was about to BLOW me out of the waters, and I had no idea what was coming. He answered my prayer with more than anything I could have ever expected.
Less than five minutes after praying, Yan stopped in the middle of his lecture, pointed and looked at me and started prophesying over my life. The gist of what he said was that in 8 years, I was going to have two decisions. One is more radical than the other, more scary and maybe dangerous; both will be of God and good choices, but one will change the world so much more. But it was vital for me to stay on track with God. It will be hard, but if I devote myself to Him, it will lead to greatness.
Like I said before, I've only shared that with a few people before, and have always been hesitant about posting it on my blog. So I do ask that with that knowledge, if you could just pray for me as I continue to grow in Christ and pursue this wild adventure of a life. I feel vulnerable in sharing it, like I'm sharing my diary, but for whatever reason I feel the time is right to finally share.
==
==
In life, I normally take the more challening route. I don't want easy, I want crazy. God knows that, that's how He made me. And all I can think of is WOW. This must be SO absolutely crazy, that God had to give me a heads-up and prepare me, that it might be beyond even MY natural tendencies?! So I can see, without a doubt, that these are all lessons and faith-builders for whatever kind of holy hooplah He has up His sleeves that is about to hit me like a crazy-train.
Will you continue to join me in this journey and adventure that is my life?
Alright, so here are the current jams.
So while I was in limbo about whether or not I would be getting an aparment with a friend, I couch-surfed/dorm surfed (sshhh) for a week. To make a long story short, the off-campus approval for my friend was looking grim. I began to get frustrated that I was having to deal with all of this. Admist my frustration, though, God heart-checked me, and I realized how wrong it was for me to be frustrated. I was ashamed that I was letting anger and doubts creep into my thoughts and I had to take it to God and apologize. Then, another situation arose! I know I know... all of these changes were kind of driving me crazy too! However, this situatuation seemed like an answer to prayers. A family was looking for someone to stay with their elderly mother and help do basic cooking, cleaning, and shopping for her. In return, I would just pay $50 a month for utilities. Now that I could afford! And just when I thought this was going to be the perfect option, another wrench was thrown in the mix. I thought Simpson had updated my financial aid status to off-campus and the numbers I was crunching were from correct financial aid stats. Unfortunately at that point, a week and a half after switching, it still hadn't been updated, so I found out I owed even more money than I thought to Simpson (because I lost some scholarship money moving off campus). Basically this meant that even with the sweet living situation, I was going to need to get another small part time job, and therefore wasn't sure if I would be able to take the offer because I didn't see how I would have the time to take care of her adequately.
With all of this happening during leadership training, I was getting discouraged. And in all honesty, I was beginning to lose faith. I just saw no feasible way it was all going to work out. I mean, I knew God was capable of anything, but I was wondering at what point I should just realize it wasn't going to work out. I'm so disappointed in myself for losing faith, but in all honesty that's exactly where I was. I was on the verge of giving up. It was Wednesday, and on Thursday I was going to meet Cindy (the daughter of the elderly lady, and actually a friend's mom) and talk about everthing. I went to a worship night for all of the students leaders with a heavy heart. After worship, I was getting ready to leave when a friend pulled me aside. He wasn't fully aware of the finanial situation I was in, but said that earlier in the day God told him to give me $50. Even now, at least three weeks later, I'm rocked with emotion. That $50 wasn't going to solve all my problems, but when I was giving up, God was reminding me He was still faithful! I can't even express the radical feelings that were happening inside of me!
Going back to my room, shaken with God's faithfulness, I was wondering what was going to happen the next evening. I didn't really have a solution to my problem to give to Cindy. I knew I just had to be honest and lay it all on the table and see what happened. And you know what happened? God straight up rocked my world again. When I told her how much more I needed, she responded with "We'll take care of it." I'm being completely serious. I had just met Cindy merely half an hour prior. Have I said lately how ridiculously blessed I am?! Again, it was hard to not burst out in tears on the spot, and that's coming from a non-crier.
So that's the end of my long where-is-Jessica-going-to-live story! I got keys to the place, and moved in two days later! YES. I finally found a place! I live in a wonderful house, and have my own bedroom and bathroom. Ruth, my 84 year old roommate (that's just fun to say, I mean come on, how many college kids get to say that?) was supposed to be home last week (she broke her hip and was in rehab), but the doctors wanted to keep her a bit longer. So she will come home in another 2 weeks if all goes as planned! I met her this past Sunday, and I can tell we're going to get along just peachy. :)
I have more to say about what my crazy life has been like since moving in, but I just realized how long this post has gotten, and I doubt anyone will read it if I keep going. So stay tuned to part 2 of my crazy life!
Needless to say, this last month I created a personal hashtag to describe my life. I don't think anything could be more accurate. #MyLifeIsAnAdventure
Amen to that!
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