Lessons in Trust.

Woo. It has been....A WEEK (or two, or three). God and I have been talking a lot lately.

I hate being stressed, but let me tell you--I love the conversations God and I have when I am. At the moment, most of my pressure points are future related. Travel, career, passions and worries all wrapped up in a beautiful mess of emotional outcries. So, given that most of those pertain to my general blogging subjects--I figured I'd share some of what I feel like I've been learning lately.

There are two obscure desires that I have had for a long time. I call them obscure primarily because of their specificity, but also because of what they entail:

1. Adopt kids that are in the 15-18 age range right before they get booted out of the system 
2. Find a way to help under-privileged high school students get abroad

I won't go into the details of why or how I'd like to make these things happen, but I will point out two things about these desires:

•  I don't generally like working with kids. Okay, that's an overstatement. I don't think I'm necessarily GOOD at working with kids, especially not teenagers. Nonetheless, for years these two things have been something I've cared deeply about, and I have often wondered why God would give me such a strong desire to help a group of people that I generally avoid like the plague. (sorry every high schooler I've ever worked with who now think I hate them--I don't, I promise!)

• In order to achieve at least one of these goals, I have to get back into the International Edu. industry and work with students. Most of these jobs require/prefer a Master's Degree, some counseling/advising experience, and previous work in a higher education setting. I don't have any of those things.

As I tried to sort out these thoughts I was reminded by a good friend that sometimes God puts us in seemingly impossible situations in order for us to be reminded that HE is in control. When God met Moses through a burning bush (Exodus 3-4) he commanded him to go to Pharaoh and tell him let His people go. Moses protested with a variety of excuses which God deflected one after another. My favorite excuse however, was this one:

10 Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

In the end, God calms Moses down by assuring him that his brother Aaron will be there to speak with and for him. Summary: God wanted Moses to do something, Moses can't/doesn't want to, God makes it happen anyways.

As I reread that recently, I was reminded not only God's faithfulness, but also that in all things I can trust him. Perhaps sometimes God puts desires in our hearts that don't make sense so that we are reminded that He is capable of anything. His strength is made visible when we do things that are seemingly impossible otherwise.

So, I guess that's where I'm at. I have no idea what the future holds or where I'll be next. I don't know who will hire me or when. What I do know is this: God is good all the time. And today when I have an inevitable moment of despair thinking about the impossibility of everything I want out of life I will take a step back. I will remember that I serve a God who is able to do immeasurably (let that sink in) more than I could ever ask or imagine, and I will rest in that.

Ephesians 3:20-21
الحَمْد لله‎‎

Created by Yahweh

I wish I was better at these posts but there's always too much to tell and half the time it's impossible to describe what's going on. So I apologize for the consistent lateness and length of these posts. Here are the highlights of the past week:

July 4th!

For the 4th of July we had a BBQ near the Bay where we live. We all made dishes, had lots of games going (football, death hack, frisbee, soccer, you name it), and were able to invite people we had met throughout the week, whether that be coworkers, students on campus or just people at the beach. It was an awesome night of food, hanging out, and getting to watch 5 different fireworks shows over a bay. It was also just an amazing reminder of how much God has blessed all of us in giving us the chance to be here. 

July 7-10
So, on the 7th we had women's night and being that this was our first women's time without staff, one of the girls got to speak. Ya'll, I WISH I had her talk to give to people. She spoke about being created in the image of Christ, but instead of talking about how it's what's inside that matters and that's how we're created in the image of Christ, she talked about looks. It was FABULOUS. Honestly I wish I could send it to every girl I know. And heck, guys for that matter. She came at it from the perspective of an artist and it was quite possibly the best talk on image that i've EVER heard. Honestly I'd love to discuss it further with people. So if you all are interested let me know. I'd love to freak out about it a little more=] Anyways, the REASON I wanted to tell you all about this is to set up how awesome God has been this week. Body image is not something i've ever felt like i really struggled with but after hearing that talk God completely called me out on some areas that I do struggle with it in a totally different way. (Part 1)

THEN, the next evening another friend spoke at FNL about freedom from the sins that hold us back from growing in our faith. Well, because of the talk the night before I knew exactly what that sin was for me and was wrestling with it throughout the talk. It was honestly one of the harder talks I've listened to while being here for a few reasons and completely God ordained.

Finally, on Sunday, our pastor talked about how so often we attempt to take the sins that we struggle with and change ourselves for the better and just end up getting frustrated because nothing happens. Surprise, surprise that's exactly  where I was at while listening. But he just spoke on how we cannot change ourselves and have to give it up to God because only he can change our hearts. It was awesome to watch God work in those 3 days and take me from recognition of my sin, to realizing it doesn't have to hold sway over me forever, to realizing that I cannot change myself on my own. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder to see how God's working=]

EXTRAS
 When we went to UCSD this Monday some awesome conversations took place. First, on the bus, my friend Vic and I started talking to this older gentlemen who i SWEAR might be the world's most successful man. his name was Rye and he was born and raised in San Diego, his father was in the Navy and died in the Battle of Midway. He himself was in the marines for a bit, then worked at NASA and then owned an airport for a bit. He married a woman from New Zealand and retired there but is an attorney and currently working on a major case in the federal courts about water company corruption in California, while simultaneously writing the screenplay for a movie called The Battle of Midway (2014) starring Harrison Ford and directed by George Lucas. He's then been requested to possibly help work on a screenplay for a movie called Sharpen your Knives about a woman who gives up everything to go to culinary school abroad. His daughter happens to be a Professor of Chinese at Stanford and his son is a doctor. No big deal. He's just the world's most interesting man. Oh, and did I mention he was a super legit Christian? No? Oh yeah, well he was. If nothing else, the people we get to talk to here are incredible and hearing their stories is one of the absolute best things about sharing our faith.

Later we also got to talk to agirl named Monica and a guy named Daniel, though neither were Christian both believed in God and were so open and willing to talk to us about faith. At the end of our conversation with Monica she even asked whether or not we needed suggestions of good places to go to find people to talk to and pointed us in the right direction! God uses people, even if they're not aware of it. Daniel on the other hand was interesting because he was ridiculously knowledgeable about many things and was definitely searching for God and wanted to find out about religions and who people thought God was. His family and girlfriend are all Christian and so we're just praying that God works through them and continues to draw Daniel towards himself.

Last night I went downtown with some friends and we just all hung out, watched a movie and generally enjoyed chilling out somewhere that wasn't La Jolla, Santa Clara, Old Town or Mission Bay. It was great=] Tonight my prayer team has organized a Concert of Prayer and although i'm a bit nervous it should go over really well and I can't wait to see how God uses it. Tomorrow a bunch of friends and I are going to the San Diego Zoo!! I'm unbearably excited=] I LOVE zoos! Anyways, so that's pretty much my life thus far this past week. I love you all and cannot wait to catch up with everyone when I get back!

Isaiah 40:28-31