The electricity is back on! It came on around 11pm last night so we had classes today. Many people were disappointed to have the power on because that meant we would have class, but I was more than ready to be able to turn the lights on again and have the air conditioning work because it was pretty warm in the dorms with all of those people and not much ventilation. Yesterday evening was pretty good though. I ended up going to Olive Garden with a big group of people. I must have a smaller budget than most people if they can afford to pay $15 a plate. I got soup. Only $4.95, you can't beat that. Although, I must confess that I had to get dessert because they had their seasonal Pumpkin Cheesecake available and it's probably the best I've had. I had it once before around this time last year after I won a gift card to Olive Garden at one of the silly programs they had at Akron. Then after dinner I watched a movie with a couple of people. We watched "You've Got Mail". I think that movie is growing on me. It reminds me of being home (in Norwalk), I guess because I've heard it quoted so much. After that I was glad to go to bed, and so happy that my fan was working so that I could actually sleep. So now things are pretty much back to a normal schedule.
~Warning: I'm about to transition into deep stuff and let you know the things that have been going on in my head lately. Again, you have been forewarned. Continue at your own risk.~
Well, you see, the end of one life can easily lead to the examination of your own life, so I've been thinking about my own life: what I'm doing with it, what could I be doing that I'm not, what does God really want me to do, etc. You get the picture. A couple of things have been rolling around in my head as I consider these questions about my life, and they are that quote that I can only roughly paraphrase because I don't exactly remember it, but it says how "out of pain, purpose is revealed" or something like that, and Ecclesiastes 7:3 which says "Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us".
Purpose and refining are the two concepts that have consumed much of my thought life. I've never considered sadness to be refining before I read this verse, but it immediately makes sense.... to me anyways. My attitude towards God throughout dealing with this situation of Daniel's death has been "Ok God, if I am going to have to walk through this circumstance, then you are going to have to teach me something, and I need it to be something deeper than the obvious lesson about the "frailty of life" ". I really want to come away from this situation with an increase in wisdom, in strength and in trust of God, so I've been constantly asking him to teach me and to speak to me.
In doing some reflection I was reminded of a line in one of the verses of a song that I wrote about a year ago. The line says "I can't remember life ever being as hard as it is right now". As you all remember, I had started my first year of college then and I was having a hard time trying to trust God through my struggling. So when I wrote that verse at that time in my life it was true. At that point in my life I was going through the hardest time in my life that I could remember. However, that verse is even more true for right now. Right now is the hardest time in my life, and in comparison it makes last year's "test" seem slightly insignificant, even easy. I have learned a lot from last year's experience, but it seems interesting that what was so hard last year, is so much less in comparison to what is hard this year. It kind of compells me to think of life as a series of tests; however, I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing. If passing one test provides me with the necessary skills to move on to the next test, and if through these series of tests I continually grow in strength, and wisdom and the trust in God that leads me down the road to fulfilling my destiny, then it's almost as if my heart cry has become "God, if this is what it takes, then bring on the testing". And in my head I can't believe that I would say that to God because this sitution has been hard and it hurts, but despite all of that my heart is still so committed to God that I can't help myself from asking for the tests because it's through the testing and the struggles that I will be refined, and my purpose will be revealed.
So I guess so far what I've gained from this is just a reminder of my own committment to God and to accomlishing his will. I've found myself lately just reminding God, not that he really needs it, that I'm not going anywhere, I'm totally committed to him, and that whatever his purposes for me are and wherever that takes me I'm going there and I'm doing it. I'm still expecting to learn much more, but this is a good start.
There you have it. Insight into the deep sea of my mind. Hopefully it all made sense. It's kind of a jumbled mess, but it's the best I could do for now. If you actually made it this far, I'm impressed. This is a long post. I'll shorten it up for next time.
