Category: Faith

The final week of classes for my third semester is quickly coming to a close. The finish line is finally coming into view. This semester has gone unbelievably quickly, and yet, I find myself completely out of the motivation and the energy to do any more work. With daily work still due and a large project due this weekend, I am in a dangerous position. I have worked hard throughout this semester, and now, in the final week, I am battling with apathy.

Before I came to CBC, I was completely unsure of what sort of a student I would be. Having been homeschooled all of my life, failure was a very real fear. I had never been in a classroom setting, I had never taken notes, and I had never written an essay. The first day of my comp 1 class nearly brought me to tears because I was completely overwhelmed by the thought of writing a seven to ten page research paper.

I was pleasantly surprised (or maybe overjoyed would be more accurate)  by my first test grades. My initial grades birthed a determination to continue to succeed, and not to let my grades drop.That semester I became more stressed than I have ever been in my life. My research paper topic of end times prophecies in light of current events proved to be slightly too ambitious for a first semester freshman. I discovered that there are endless opinions and interpretations on end times events. I pushed through, and I survived my first semester.

My second semester was relatively uneventful. I continued to grow and to try my hardest. I learned not to become quite so stressed because stress simply does not help tasks to be completed well.

This semester has brought a new challenge: exhaustion. I have had a job since spring break, and in the last month, I have entirely lacked motivation to finish my assignments. Perhaps it is because I have had my goal on the wrong prize.

I need to remind myself that the purpose for my education is not the grades I receive. It isn’t the feeling of success or even the degree I am pursuing. The purpose for my education is to prepare me for the purpose I was designed for. Rather than a good grade, my highest ambition needs to be glorifying God in all that I do and working with all my might for His glory, toward the goal He has for my life, because it is not about me.

For the coming week, I will continue to press on toward the finish line. Maybe next semester I will keep my eyes on Christ and His goal rather than on my grades and my own successes.

Isaiah 30:15 “…In quietness and confidence is your strength…” 
 
We live in a busy world, in an era of fast food, microwaves, and instant downloads. Patience, said to be a virtue, is becoming a lost, seemingly unnecessary virtue. We have the world at our fingertips and can accomplish many things, instantly.

The fast pace of our lives causes us to forget that God and His schedule don’t always follow our timetable. Because we are unaccustomed to waiting, when God follows His own schedule rather than ours, we get impatient and try to speed up processes or make things happen ourselves. But the fact is, God doesn’t want us to try forcing things to happen before His timing. He wants us to rest in Him, and trust that even if He doesn’t heed our instantaneous lifestyle, He still has a plan. In our impatience, we may attempt to work things out on our own, but God is calling us to rest in quietness and confidence.

Someone who doesn’t know how to swim may have the natural reaction to flail around when they are in deep water. By doing so, they not only exhaust themselves, but it also makes staying above water even more difficult. It is best for the person to relax and just float.

There are times that God closes doors, it may be permanently, it may be for a season. Yes, it is frustrating, but we have to trust that as He sees the bigger picture it is best left shut.

A few years ago, I worked at a church daycare. It was awful and I knew it was not the job I was best suited to. I quit and started applying for bank teller jobs.While I was applying for other jobs my former manager at my first job asked me to work seasonally. I received interviews for nearly every job I applied for, but after numerous interviews and 5 months, I still did not get hired by any of the places I applied. It was very discouraging and I did not understand what God was doing or why He was allowing me to go though such a long ordeal. As discouraging and confusing as it was, I believe that God did have a purpose in closing all of those doors. One of the biggest lessons He taught me is a lesson I am continually being taught: trust. After all of my interviews at banks, I finally got a part time job as a teller in addition to my very part time job. I was ecstatic. Within a month of working there, a former manager at another job had called and asked me to apply to be her assistant manger. As I was walking into the interview with her, my mom told me about a job opening at her friend’s company. I was offered both the job with my former manager and at my mom’s friend’s company. As I was going through the rejection, I didn’t understand, and yes it hurt. But God had a plan and a purpose and He stretched me through that season. 

 Isaiah 55:9 says, “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Even though we can’t make sense of closed doors and delays, God knows what He is doing. God doesn’t want us to wear ourselves out by trying to open doors that He may have closed for. Instead, He wants us to rest quietly and confidently in Him, for that is where our strength lies.

Growing up as the daughter of someone in the military meant my family moved frequently. Because we lived far away from my extended family, we usually only got to visit once a year. As a result of once a year visits, sometimes we stayed with my grandparents for several months at a time.

Before we moved  when I was 6, we spent the whole summer with my grandparents. It was a wonderful summer! During that summer, my mom planted a garden at my great-grandparents’ house, and we worked in her garden almost every day. My mom also took my cousins and me on long bike rides frequently. I have many memories from that summer, but one memory stands out as especially unique. The whole town was buzzing with curiosity over a rare sight that became common.

My grandparent’s hometown is a relatively small town, with a population of around 24,000. The town has one airport that is owned by the “city”. Because there is not a major airport in the town, air traffic is rare. In 1996, however, that was not the case.

That summer, black helicopters seemingly always hovered over. Rumors swirled concerning why the helicopters were there and what they were doing. One rumor I heard was that they were helicopters that were equipped with technology that made it possible for them to see inside of houses–they could even see the book you were reading inside of your house! To this day, there is a little bit of mystery about why they were in Hastings.

In what must have been an effort to quell the rumors, the airport had an open house that featured the mysterious black helicopters. Like the rest of the town, my family went to the open house. While we were there, we spoke with a couple of the pilots. They told my cousins and me if we saw a helicopter flying and we wanted it to land, all we had to do was stand and put our arms out to the side and flap them up and down.

For the rest of the summer, my cousins and I followed their instructions. I remember standing in my grandparents’ backyard, flapping my arms at a helicopter and wondering what would happen if it really did land in their back yard. I was pretty sure I would be in trouble if it actually did land!

Eventually, the helicopters left, and so did my family. That summer is still one of my favorites, and I still wonder why the helicopters were in Hastings, and what would have happened if they really had landed my grandparents’ backyard!