here i am again

well, here i am. i'm a bit overdue in many respects. it's been a stressful month, but a good one nonetheless.

heidi recommended that i carve out some time for myself over interim break, but that never happened. i need some time to just sit back and reflect, and since i've got about an hour before i meet eric in the basement to get more reading done, i thought it was a good of a time as any to start this process.

when i met with heidi last week, she sensed an uneasiness about me and asked me outright if i was ok. i hadn't even sensed that anxiety about myself, but as soon as she mentioned it i caught myself being really fidgety. I took some deep breaths and was able to start listing all of the major decisions and responsibilities for this upcoming semester and year. she gaped at me, as stuck as i was by the immensity of it all.

so there's a lot on my plate, and i don't feel particularly compelled to begin listing all of those same things here. the point is that i have to keep my wits about me and keep up with the work before me. it's doable, but it requires discipline that i've not mustered up for a while. discipline--there's a word that cuased me to feel guilt-ridden for a while. heidi helped me to let that guilt go, to do my best and move on.

i could say something about my boyfriend now: he's amazing. i've been so lucky to have him in my life for the last month, and i definitely don't regret what some people call "jumping in" to this relationship. as it has unfolded, more and more confirms that it was a beautiful opportunity and we took the bait :) right now i'm looking over at my new fishtank sitting on my desk with a little highfin bullshark swimming around--eric bought him for me just this afternoon. it's also great because eric is studious and encourages me to work hard as well. we actually are able to study together, which helps me to concentrate.

it's sad, though, when i think about my last year and the amazing times i had abroad. i miss glasgow like i miss home. there's a vagueness to it that seems so familiar and warm, but also faint and distant. i have missed my church most of all. i'm still looking for something i can be comfortable with here in GR, but that emptiness aches.

a big thing that i talked about with heidi was my call into ministry. i told her that the urge to go into missions was undeniable, not because i didn't think other vocations were just as worthy, but because what my heart is passionate about. i love travel, and i love serving people. every day i become more sure of the fact that i cannot live in the united states for the rest of my life; my home is in another world altogether, and my "itchy feet" must keep moving, journeying, exploring. i would love to work for crcwm or something like that, where i can be actively involved in different areas of the world. my group minor in missions is evolving into anything BUT "minor"! ;)

so i continue to learn, to research and to debate the issues. my heart is longing for it, but my body is so weak. i struggle especially with effective time management and enthusiasm. it's hard to "settle" for calvin college when living abroad is much more intense and exciting. but, as i reflected walking along the path today, all this is temporary. it's necessary, and i'm glad that i'm here doing this, but it's temporary. in just a matter of years, my life will change again, and i will have even more control over the things that i do and places i go. i'm prepared to face the costs (or rather, the debt) but that won't stop me from pursuing my biggest goals.

i want to teach: but i want to go abroad. i want to be involved with church planting. i want to go where they just need people to help. i'll take my gifts, abilities, doubts, hopes and go. anywhere. right now, i will go anywhere in the world. hands down, no questions asked. leaves a lot up to God, and that's the way it should be. but that doesn't mean i won't chase down opportunities as they come!

i want to go to grad school. seminary, or english. not sure which. but i hope it happens. i'd love to end my life growing old with a scottish accent and teaching literature at a university. we'll see if that happens. :)

i know who i am. i know that my identity is in christ. confession: i long for more. i am weak. i stumble every day, every hour. but somehow i cannot loose myself from those ties; i am bound to my savior whether i am weak or strong. i depend wholly on his quality of grace.

mm. it has been good to reflect, to type for a while. i still have many goals for this semester, like studying hard and volunteering. i'm excited about the opportunites, though a little stressed about not having a job yet. we'll see... all in good time, or rather, God's time. praise him.

♥
betsy joy

a few thoughts on faith (with help from oswald)

It certainly doesn't help the homesickness to have heard the British accent all morning and also in the Jan. Series, but I'll settle for saying that it has been bittersweet. In feeling a certain alienation from the States and a disconnection from Britain, it's a comfort to have read, during Freston's lectures this morning, an excerpt from Diognetus:

"For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe... They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citezens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers."

On a somewhat different, yet somewhat related, note...

Through this class and other things that I've been reflecting on, I'm overwhelmed with the sense that Christianity is oh-so-simple, and yet (as Richard Foster comically comments about one of the disciplines) "It is that simple. I wish I could make it more complicated for those who like things difficult" (Celebration of the Disciplines 17) It seems as though those who "like things difficult" have won out in the end, hasn't it? Our world is full of flighty doctrines and vague ideas about Christ and His life, until we have gotten to the point where, as I have, I may be sitting in a lecture, or in a chapel, and hear profound things about the Life of Christ and God's entity that have never occured in my mind before. I am dumbstruck, alarmed that these things are such new concepts despite that I have grown up in the Christian faith all of my life. It is not because these things are complicated, and that it is only till now that my mind is mature enough to understand them, rather, they are so simple and so ordinary that they've slipped past me, and I fear so many know what I mean, without notice.


Hm.

In Oswald Chamber's book this morning, I felt that one part jumped out at me as a summary of the convictions I've felt in the past few days about being closer to Christ:

"No matter what changes God has wrought in you, never rely on them, and build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives. All our vows and resolutions end in denial [like Peter] because we have no power to carry them out. When we have come to the end of ourselves, not in imagination but really, we are able to receive the Holy Spirit" (Utmost for His Highest 5).

This struck me so much, simply because I am aware of the changes that God has "wrought" in me. It is so tempting for my pride to build up on those changes, and essentially create a flimsy new "character" that will soon crack and reveal the things that were never healed by Grace, rather than building up on Christ for those changes to take root.

I think another key word in that passage was "resolutions" simply because of the New Year and our tendency to create resolutions we cannot keep. I'm guilty of this; right before me on the bulletin board is a list of my New Years Resolutions for 2007. While those resolutions are good and healthy, I must remember that the real changes occur within and manifest into external actions.

Now, dear friends, I have a meeting with an old friend soon, and I ought to get ready for that. I ran into Kristin Bush at the January Series, and we're going to meet and catch up. :)

♥
betsy joy