Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Right Now.

It certainly has been awhile. Since I last wrote I have moved back home, thus left Richmond, went to training, cried 90% of the days since then, learned more about myself than I have in the past four years, raised $15,000, spent a week at my parent’s lake house, saw my family in new jersey, got a slr film camera and bought a bike:) It has been a rollercoaster to say the least.

Truly I could be an emotional drama queen right now but it has come to my knowledge that I have been saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, and I find my peace in that. It has been a hard past 3 weeks trying to get the rest of my needed funds to move to North Carolina as the semester began yesterday. Last week I wasn’t okay with the fact that I was going to be there. And then I spoke in front of the Grace Bible congregation. It was before them that God humbled me to speak reality to myself more so than to them. Its not about me.

In many ways it was about me. It was about me getting there in time. It was about me being the new help at Western. Now its not. Its about me realizing that God is at work without me. He is working hard at Western without me there, and even if I do go there he will be just about the same work. He has been at work here as well, in my own heart.

For the past three months as I have patiently raised money I have been avoiding the many things the Lord has been showing me with in my character and personality. I don’t think it appropriate to disclose every detail of all my faithlessness and sinfulness, but before you I acknowledge that I am just that. And if it weren’t for the grace of Christ paying my debt and counting me free I would definitely be in a bigger mess.

I have learned such a gratefulness through this process that I am so thankful for. Growing up I never knew what it was to be thankful or sincere, but with the love and support people have shown me I have learned to love the hand that gives, and gives generously.

While I am still attempting to raise the rest of the needed money to be able to move to campus, I find day by day my faith and relience on God’s hand in all of this. I pray that it all comes through. I pray that it all happens this week truthfully. I pray that I have faith in His time and not mine own. However I did have the dreaded conversation with my parents about what if. And the response was just as humbling as all of this. Learning to have a loving and sincere relationship with my parents is hard but refreshing. And somehow they have begun saying and doing the exact things I need in these moments.

This week is going to be a bit tough as I have to get quite a bit more commitments from people in order to continue on. However the most encouraging thing happened to me today. I got turned down from a church. True. But that was just the start. While I wasn’t expecting anything really from this church I contacted today cause I have no personal relationship there, what the fellow had to say was kind and genuine. We spoke for several minutes about RUF and what I was doing and how I became a Christian and how he became a Christian and then he asked to pray for me. Here I am calling this guy I have never meet, up at a church I have never been to, who I speak to for the first time and he prays for me over the phone. I don’t know if anyone has had this happen to them, but it brought me to tears. That is the love of Christ. That is the body of Christ.

And so God has been growing me and humbling me and teach me more about his grace and more about the grace others have towards us. I hope I can get to campus soon:)

Note: This was not proof-read before I posted it. With no internet on a daily basis there is no time for that.