It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... (part 2)

So to start out, I will say that there are only 3 dots in my ellipses just in case you were wondering. I decided to write out the full review of what God's done this year in my journal, and then some, and I realized that even with only taking excerpts of what I wrote in my journal, it would be much too long to put into one blogpost. So I'll either break it into 2 or 3. Haven't decided yet because I prob won't decide what an appropriate stopping point is until I get there as I'm writing this.

So what are the things that God did starting at the beginning of the year to prepare me for this trial. It's crazy how God sets stuff up, and I could go back to the year 2002 of how He really started doing things to prepare me for this time (it wasn't even that big comparatively to other things that go on in the world, but that just shows how much God cares for even the smaller trials of your life) , but that would be a story for another time. Specifically the things that occured this year shall be the focus of this post. I couldn't think of a way to really arrange these events, so they're not really in order of signifigance or anything (especially since all things are signifigant with God) so I'll just tell it in the order that I wrote it in my journal, in the order in which the events seem to flow in hindsight of making the most since.

First I suppose I should start off by saying that the feelings of overwhelmingness started about the week before finals. I think that's when all of the "circumstances" in my life really started to hit me. It's not like they weren't already there, but I just really started to feel anxious about them. Anxiety is a lie from Satan. It's funny...this isn't in my journal, but I heard a Pastor say today that the devil loves to keep your mind focused on the past and the future because he tries to haunt you with the past and make you fearful of the uncertainty of the future. (that becomes important later in the story) God wants us to focus on the present and eternity. But the "circumstances" in my life included the fact that I had 6 finals over the course of 4 days the next week and all of my grades were depending on them. To add to that, I had some personal stuff going on having to do with finances and I was going into the summer with absolutely no plan (you can see the uncertainty of the future). The "haunting of the past" comes from the fact that I began dwelling on the past grades that I'd gotten on exams in my classes throughout the semester as well as my past performance on other finals. I'd always done ok, but I needed to do better than I had done in the past and for a moment, I didn't think I could do it. Now I get to tell you how "mind-blowingly" fantastic my heavenly father is. He spoke to me in two ways (btw, I've kinda gone out of the order that I was going to originally write this...) : The first was at our Ignite meeting on the Friday before finals week began. There was a public tongue and translation given about fear, or rather not fearing (i'll come back to this) and the second was something He spoke to me in private. He told me that I am not defined by the events of my past. My identity is in Him and He is a God who makes thing new. He's a restorer and a redeemer and I just needed to trust in Him and He'd take care of me.

I guess that was kind of a side note. But at least it was relevant to the story. But since I already mentioned the prayer meeting in the last post, I'll move to the next event which will cause us to travel back in time to the beginning of the year. At this point, I'd been in XA for about a year and I didn't really have many friends in the group. I don't think I really talked to anyone besides the staff and the girls in my discipleship group, but even to them I wasn't very close to the point where I'd just hang out with them, let alone share the things that were going on in my life with them. Not that it was anyone's fault in the group, it was actually me...I had a lot of trust issues that God has really been changing in me, and I suppose I just didn't really want to be vulnerable enough to make more than superficial friendships. Most times I have real trouble making friends, I lived in a learning community my freshman year and I didn't really start talking to the people in it until like the middle of September b/c we went on a field trip and Megan randomly started torturing me w/ a reed. Weird, I know. But once again, I digress.

At the beginning of the year I prayed and asked God for more meaningful friendships with people who were radical for Jesus. I felt like everyone was nice, and people would invite me to stuff, but I wouldn't go because I didn't know anyone. Then God pointed out this to me: "How do you expect to ever know anyone if you won't go and spend anytime with them?" Guess I couldn't hide behind that excuse anymore, hehe. So I went to Fall Retreat and it was awesome spiritually as well as relationally. I suppose I'd started talking to people before fall retreat but I think after the retreat is when XA really started to feel like a family to me.

Anyhow, the friend thing became important to the time that I've been talking about because since I made friends, that night, after that tongue was given, I wasn't afraid to open up and tell people why I needed prayer. If I was in a room among strangers, it would not have happened, but because these people were family, I knew I could let myself be somewhat vulnerable.

Well, I suppose this post has been long enough, so I'll stop here for now. Until next time, May the peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with you.

Signing off with the other LOL.