Reflection

I have officially been in college for over a month now, so I took some time to reflect upon that. It still seems a little surreal to me that I am now in the midst of the thing that I dreaded for so long. It has definitely been a trying time so far, but I have been learning from it.

I was at the youth group meeting that I attend this past Thursday and the pastor was talking about freedom and how we have the freedom to do what we want to do or to follow God. What he said was good and all, and it is probably new for a lot of the people there, but it's not something that I haven't heard before. However, in the middle of his sermon he veered off a little bit and started telling the story of how the Israelites were brought out of slavery into freedom with Moses and the whole red sea deal. He was explaining this story in great detail and I was getting a little impatient because he kept going on and on and I'm thinking "who hasn't heard this story at least 6 1/2 times?", but then he made this one comment about when the Israelites were on that middle ground between leaving Egypt and getting to the promised land. He made the point that when things got a little rough that the Israelites were immediately ready to turn around and go back to Egypt where they had been comfortable. He was basically just reiterating the fact that choosing the path of following God isn't always easy. He then continued on with the rest of what he had to say, but I stayed there.



I began to compare myself and my situation to the Israelites. I started with comparing Norwalk to Egypt, not because I was enslaved in Norwalk, but because I was comfortable there. This transition has been a hard road and there have been times, especially within the first 2 weeks, that I just wanted to throw in the towel and go back to Norwalk where I was comfortable. I knew how the story ended with God being faithful to the Israelites, so I figured that my lesson to learn from this was that God is faithful, and though the road may be long and the journey hard He will bring me through. That is where my thought process ended during the meeting.



After the meeting when I got back to my room I decided to skim over the chapters in Exodus that contain the story just to confirm to myself what I had been thinking. As I was skimming the chapters I found myself getting a little annoyed with the Israelites. They were continually questioning why God had brought them out of Egypt anytime they got a little uncomfortable. They got a little thirsty so they started questioning God's motives, then God provided for them. Then later on they get hungry, again question God's plans, and again God faithfully provides for them. This process happens a few more times and I found myself really getting annoyed and wondering "When are they going to get it? When are they going to realize that God is going to be faithful to keep His promises and meet their needs?". Right after that it sort of hit me in the face. How many times through this journey have I asked God, "why did you bring me here?, why do things have to be so hard?, and when are things going to get easier?". I have been acting just like the Israelites. God has never let me down. He has continually been faithful and whenever things get a little bit hard I immediately start questioning His plans.



The realization of that just totally rocked my world. I can't believe how I've been acting. I immediately felt the need to repent for my actions. God has continued to be faithful; it's me who hasn't held up my end of the bargain and totally trusted Him. This past month has definitely been a process of learning to trust God and be patient waiting on His timing. I am still on that middle ground between Egypt and the promised land where there are struggles and hard circumstances, but I am choosing to no longer act like the Israelites. I don't take my relationship with God for granted, so I will trust God's plans for me without question because I know that His plans for me are great, and better than anything I could ever come up with.



My trip so far has been quite uncomfortable, but if that's what it takes for me to learn this lesson then I am thankful for it. I'm quite sure that my struggles are not ever yet, but in the midst of them I can look forward to the lesson that will be learned from it and God's continued faithfulness.

A Sad Situation

There was a bomb threat today for the college of arts & sciences building, but that's not the sad part. The sad part is that they closed the building right after my first class, which is in that building so I had to go to it. I got a text message during my second class saying that the building was closed. I was disappointed about not missing my first class, but I have my statistics class in that building later on in the day so I was hoping that I might get out of that. Then in my government class while I was taking notes on my laptop I checked the school website and they said that the building would reopen at 1:10pm. How convienient, my statistics class starts at 1:10. Urgh. I was very sad to have to attend that class. It has got to be the most boring class in the world. When the class started, ny professor asked who was disappointed about having class today and everyone raised their hand. Then she said, "well atleast we got to have class today because there will be times when you want to come to class and you won't be able to". I couldn't help but laugh at her. I don't think that day will ever come when it's statistics class. That is probably the only time all semester that she will be funny. At least she she got one joke in there.

Minesweeper

Everyone has heard of and probably played the computer game minesweeper. It comes on every computer so it's practically unavoidable. I had played it a couple of times, but I didn't really see the point because I thought it was just a random guessing game and I never won. I certainly was not going to waste my time on a game that I wasn't good at. Then, one life altering day Belle enlightened me with a little piece of information about minesweeper. She tells me that their actually is a strategy. Well, she got it out in between burst of laughter at my naiveness. (that is a real word) Since that day I have been attempting to beat the game, but failing miserably. However, today it finally happened. That's right, after 230 games of minesweeper on the beginner's level I won 1 game. It was a glorious moment in history.

Moral of the story: Perseverance Pays Off

The Easiest $100 I've Ever Made

My spanish teacher made an announcment in class today that one of the students in our class needs notes to be taken for them for the rest of the semester, and if we were interested to see her after class. I told her I would be willing to do it because during her announcment she said that the office of accessibility will pay you $100 for being a note taker. She gave me this little paper that I took to the office of accessibility, then I filled out a couple of papers, and I got the job. But wait, it gets even better.

We don't actually take notes in spanish class. she gives us worksheets and through out the class period we end up filling them out. So after each class she will just have to make a copy of my worksheet, and then I just have to give it to the student. I'm not doing any more work than I would be regularly. It's like I'm finally getting paid just to show up to class and do what I would normally do anyways. How sweet is that!?! The only downside is that I don't get paid until December. I could definitely use the money now, but it will come in handy in December too.

Quick Update

I figured I better do some type of update since I haven't blogged since Monday. Classes went well this week. I took my spanish quiz and only missed 1 1/2 points. Of course "el piso" was not on the quiz. Wednesday was Student Appreciation day, so there was a bunch of free stuff. Free stuff is always good. I also gave blood on Wednesday, and I didn't even get a bruise. I'm not sure if I'm happy about that or not. It seems like more of a sacrifice when you get a bruise. Maybe that's just me. My blood pressure was really good. Much lower than say about 2 years ago. So that's a good thing.

Wednesday was also the first time that I met with my small group. It is a group of about 10 people and we get together for a bible study every wednesday night at Starbucks. That went pretty well I thought. One of the girls in the group talked about having a smallgroup party at her house and she has a nintendo Wii. El Grande Nerdo will be so jealous.

I went to the women's soccer game last night. That was really cool. Then today I volunteered at a local homeless shelter with a couple of other people from one of the student organizations I'm involved with. That was a pretty good time too, and it gave me something to do today, which was the real goal.

That's pretty much my week in review. Just trying to stay busy. My faithful readers are all updated now.

I Guess That Was A Bad Idea

I've been working on learning my spanish vocabulary because the first quiz is on Thursday. I have had trouble remembering the word for floor, so I had this brilliant idea. I decided that I could write the word, "el piso" on the floor in dry erase marker, then I would see it and make the association. I tested a little mark on the floor to make sure the marker would come off, and it did. I then proceeded to write "el piso" on my floor. I went away, and when I checked it later it would not come off. I ended up getting it off with my clorox bleach pen,but maybe that wasn't such a brilliant idea. However, I do remember the word now.

Not So Exciting City Life

Well it is the weekend, which in university terms means no classes. I have come to realize that most people that go to the University of Akron choose it because they live near by. That means that they all go home on the weekends. It is really weird to walk around campus and only pass a few people when during the week there are roughly 24,000 students bopping around.

Since I am not one of the fortunate ones that gets to return home every weekend, I have to find something to occupy my time with here. There is of course some homework and reading that I could do to prepare for classes next week, but I didn't want to do that the whole weekend. I decided that to kill some time I would head out into the big city and see what I could find. So I left campus and headed for the really big buildings, but when I got there I found a whole lot of nothing going on. There were some bars and hole in the wall restaurants, but not much more than that. Oh, and there was a Farmer's Market. What could be more exciting than a Famer's Market? Ha.

As I was walking around I saw a car pass that looked like Eddy. It made me wish that I had a car now. If I had a car maybe I could at least find a Wal-Mart or some other recognizable business, but alas I have no car, and no Wal-Mart. What is a girl to do?

I did work out today after my hike around Akron, but I've pretty much exausted all of my options. I will probably have to resort to doing homework now. I guess big city life isn't really all it's made out to be.

Happy Birthday

Happy 14th Birthday to El Nerdo Grande (ha ha, I make myself laugh)

A Wonderful Weekend

I had been anticipating coming home for the weekend all last week, and my expectations were met. I have had a super fun time and I got to catch up with somethings the I had missed even being away only a week. I was able to go to a soccer game, a cross country meet this evening, a smokin' hot bon fire, and just do the whole "hanging out" thing. Now I am sad to say that the weekend has come to an end, but I suppose it is time to go back to school.

I consider last weeks absence sort of a pre- leaving for college time because now it is going to be quite a bit longer than a week before I am scheduled to visit again. I still need you guys to pray for me. I need all the help I can get. But I do want to say thanks to everyone for making this weekend great. I will miss you guys, and I can't wait to see you again. Until then, I'll try to keep updating regularly.

Hasta luego