Going Crazy but Getting Better...

What I really want is God to be on the move...that's all.

I think about everything--friends, my internship and the necessary preparations, family--and it gets so freakin' overwhelming!

I guess a lot of that comes becomes I have felt so distracted since being home. At school, I am consistently in God's presence and around His people. At home...I go to church on Sunday (which I missed this week, because I was sick) and that is about it. It's such a weird switch...and being sick doesn't help. I'm staying in bed and running around the Internet and that can become my whole day! I hate it! I have so little...joy...

But there are things I can do :) I'm listening to the IHOP Prayer Room Webstream and it helps so much, just to hear people praying! I need that! I miss our prayer and worship meetings at school...

I'm changing the way I live...it starts today.

I will wake up and read the precious words of God FIRST. I will only run around on the Internet for an hour at a time ONLY. I will listen to worship music consistently. I will dance and sing :) I will call one friend a day (that might be a little hard...but I really want to).

These are the things I must do in order to stay sane...:)

I'm secretly dreading my internship. Please pray for me.

Here in the Sickness?

Ugh...I haven't been sick in a long time :)

Sickness always surprises me (probably because I don't get sick too often). I never know how to react to it--do I lay still and let it wash over me gently (except that isn't even possible with these sickness, since it has me violently coughing every once in a while just to keep me on my toes)...or do I fight it and keep moving, perhaps ignoring its presence? (also difficult, due to the fact that this sickness has chosen to take my voice--screaming actually physically hurts)

I just had a week which was very difficult--spiritually and emotionally. I get into these weird phases of caring desperately about what another thinks of me and constantly making sure that I'm doing well around them and that they're having a good time--oh &%$# it takes all the fun and authenticity and glory out of life and leaves you feeling like a very small piece of something disgusting with no freedom left. So...it was a good week, but also an intense reminder: don't you do it, Robin! Don't you dare order your life around someone else! Follow God with all you have and heed what He tells you. Always keep in mind that His opinion is the one that matters most...aaaahhhhh!!! Heart follow brain, not the other way round...

So then after this exhausting week, I go home tired: spiritually, emotionally AND physically (yay cold!)

But there are worse things, right? This too will pass.

I'm so tired...

My mom is a sweetheart. Yesterday, my first day home, I was talking with her and started crying. Being home is weird. I literally don't have any friends that I could just call up and say, "Hey, do you want to hang out?" I could make some...but at that point, I was just tired and I needed someone to talk to right then. I've become such an intensely relational person (and a very sensitive person) since starting college that I crave that connection with people. If I'm not having real, honest, beautiful conversations with others--it wears me out. I NEED to connect with other people. So to be home is hard for me...I have to adapt.

My mom was super :) She immeadiately set to work making strawberry lemonade! And then we had a really good chat...which I needed. It's so easy to feel like a failure at relationships, especially when you're just starting to get to know someone, and I think that's what I'd been feeling this last week. God bless it! :) And now (of course) my voice is gone...so the only way I have really communicated today is through this blog...

Funny...

Anyway, here in the waiting, living in a world where sickness still is alive. May Your Kingdom come soon, Lord. I need Your strength.

The Love of the world

I can't believe it's only been a week :)

Hmm...

My room is vaguely unpacked...clothes hung up, my random papers hung on the walls, lots of color!

I have walked...18? miles as I have traveled from the place I volunteer to home...and it all feels great!

I sang a Psalm (#100) as I walked home yesterday and memorized it...I'll be sure and do that again (Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into His Presence with singing)

I'm educating myself as to the predicament that drugs cause and why kids choose to drop out of school (Philippe Bourgois writes good stuff)

My make up was done by a six year old today :)

I played hide and seek with two sixth graders and walked home with my siblings. We talked about "sticky balls". (The berries on manzanita bushes are sticky on the outside before they're ripe...I never noticed that before!)

I got to talk with the moms of kindergarteners and see them delight in their kids...what a pleasure.

We all have a small part to play (and it's usually not that small, it only looks small to us) in the world as we go through our daily lives. Are you connecting with people? Are you showing love? When you leave a room, is there a sigh of relief that follows you (hopefully not!) or a sigh of hope? What do you bring when you walk into your world?

I want to bring Jesus. I pray on the way to school that I would be a peace bringer, a joy bringer, a wisdom bringer, a love bringer. All these are found in our precious Savior. When we walk in His Presence, abiding in Him, the world around us has to change.

Watch yourself. All of us will be judged by our actions. What are you showing the world today?

My God shows His miracles, His wonder working power, every day. I see it in m friend Matt's life who, after being in a car accident approximately 24 days ago, is now ready to move into a rehab center after what should have been a fatal accident.

Should have been...but it wasn't.

My God is good.

And there are people who never wake up from comas. And there are people, many people, who will go to bed hungry tonight.

My hope does not lie in this world. I am waiting on a new day...

But there are glimpses here of glory...and that, truly, is what I live for.

May I be a glimpse of Your Glory Lord, as I walk this earth.

Move in me/ Sing with me/ Delight in me/ Dance with me/ Love with me...

Finally Among the Family

I'm home now...what a funny thing. And what a whirlwind!!! I stepped into all these places which have God's orchestration all over them. I can see that He has gone before me and placed all these things into a perfect sequence so that I walk in and am given financial providence and favor with people...it's just crazy.

Example (from yesterday, the first day I was home): I walk out of church and talk to a friend who tells me there's going to be a missions board meeting that day, would I like to come and talk about my trip? Would I ever! I go, spin my spiel, and they ask me questions (two of the people there didn't know me from Adam and kept a poker face while I talked--a little disconcerting). I leave the room, they vote and I am given the remainder of the money I need to go on my missions trip this summer. Stunning, no? I was a little shocked to say the least.

Then I walk onto a school campus this afternoon and fill out one form and them am invited to help out in the kindergarten classrooms. I had gone to this school when I was in the sixth grade--and people still remembered me. I was literally invited into that place and I hope to spend time in more than the kindergarten classrooms, but I get to start there, and I'm thrilled!

I want to start a prayer group at my church--that was one thing I felt I needed to do when I got home...pray for me, that I move forward on that :) I just need to arrange a space for us to meet on Mondays and I need much direction from God--no, I need every direction from God in how He wants this prayer group to operate. This will be attacked, no doubt. God's people gathering together to link arms and call out to their loving Father who fights for them--that's a powerful thing. We must be on guard against every attack that will come and keep pushing forward, relying on our God for the strength. His is the power, the grace, the protection, everything we need...we just need to ask for it. And ask for it we shall!

Going forth in the mighty name of Jesus. To Him be the glory.