I keep putting off blogging, because I wanted to do more than just write a second post. There were few things I want to do to “beef” this thing up so when all two of you who come here to read this it isnt just two posts to read. However, if I wait until I have the time to post all the entries I want to post before I start to regularly blog again then another year will go by, and another layer of dust will have collected.
I just moved about a week ago back into my old apartment complex. Its great to be back here and even though its not the exact apartment I use to live in it still has that familiar, homey smell. I moved in with a girl from church who somewhat reminds me of one of my old roomamte I had four years ago. Slender, brown eyed, interesting, sophisticated women who have no clue how beautiful they really are inside and out. They define in my mind what a young, single, professional woman’s life should look like, On the outside at least.
When I lived here four years ago I was just beginning my college career. It was the Spring of 2005. I was 25, nervous, scared, anxious, insecure, and doubtful. Like Moses and the Israelites leaving Egypt, I was afraid God wasnt going to come through for me in this academic wilderness that He called me out to. I was suppose to work, go to school full time, study, have a life, and pay bills. I also had to overcome my past and the belief that I wasn’t good at school, and that I really wasn’t that smart. I was just sure the worst was going to happen. I had heard God wrong, I wasn’t cute out for school, and I would fail.
Now I stand at the end of this journey. Its almost fall of 2008, and I graduate in fifteen weeks. I changed my majors, changed my address, changed my mind, changed my theology, changed my hair, and now I see a changed heart. This long season has been full of faithful building and discipline. School has taken precident for the last four years, and I have died several deaths to submit my will to it. I have sacrificed, cried, been discouraged, complained, and almost quit several times.
The reality is it was not really about school. I mean Ill have a degree in December, and a head full of more knowledge, dreams, and ideas thatI never thought were possibly, but the bigger picture is this. I am very stubborn, strong-willed, prideful….sinful. I like to be right, and subtly prove people wrong even when I dont realize that is my motive. I want my way, my dreams, and my life yet it is not mine. School has been the holy rod in my life that has broken me before the Lord several times over to bring me to a place of submission before Him. It’s been one of the most loving times of my life. Hebrews 12:6-8; 10 says this:
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, ‘My Son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him’ for those whom the Lrod lvoes He disciplines, and He scrourges every son whom He receives’. It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?……but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.
When people in my past and present encouraged me to go to school I was against it. They said it would open doors, and get me a good paying job. I said I couldnt sit in a classroom for four years just to get a paycheck, and college degrees didn’t always mean you knew what you would do for the rest of your life. In the end I think everyone was right. College did, and might do what people said it would, but I went out of obedience to the Lord.
At the beginning of Hebrews 12 Paul gives this great little pep talk about finishing the race appointed to us, to rid ourselves of sinful hindrences, and to “…fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith…” Such words beckon me as I stand on the shore of school, and the waves of homework come crashing against my chest. It’s one thing to know God changes us, but quiet another to see when He is doing it. What grace and mercy. Hope and encouragement.