That is Who I Am

Nashville. Hello my old (almost) home from over 20 years ago. I wasn’t planning to come see you this weekend, but any excuse to get away from the craziness of life back home for a few days is worth it.

Although, I’m not really seeing you aside from the dismal view of a parking lot and building roof from my hotel window. I’m here with my sister while she does inventory from late this night until early tomorrow morning. I have the whole hotel room to myself tonight and I planned to be so productive. But how can I when I’ve finally received a chance to be creative, to let my mind wander as it pleases. I’ve been following to-do lists and syllabi for years, watching as my imagination cried out for attention and slowly faded farther and farther away. If i’m not careful, I may lose it all together. It that what people mean when they say they lost their childhood? Is this what it means to be an adult? Giving up the thing that makes us who we are in exchange for coffee fueled mornings, attempting to maintain an adequate contribution to society and pills to help us sleep because we just can’t get anything right anymore?

 I lost myself when I got to college. Freshman year was so hard. I couldn’t do anything but sit back and watch everything that made me who I was, the confident talkative young child, get ripped to shreds. Scattered all over in hopes that one day I would put the pieces back together. Its been three years and I can confidently say….I did not. I’ve sobbed in the darkness of my own room, I questioned everything, I hid from people and built walls all around my brokenness. What was I supposed to do from here? Somedays, when I look back, I like to think i’m one of those people that can say “I made it!” But on days like this I realize that i’m not. I’m still not who I was and I doubt i’m anywhere close to who i’m supposed to be. I’m scarred, I’m hurt, and I still feel alone in a crowed. I don’t let people in anymore. I’m not even sure if I ever did to begin with. And then another thought comes along….what if this is who i’ve always been, but now i’ve just been made self-aware. My innocence as a child simply being the ignorance of myself. Is there, then, any hope of me improving myself? Becoming better, different, new? Or am I just trapped, forced to watch myself make mistake after mistake and dwell on the shame and embarrassment that follows?

 Oh, Nashville. Look at what you’ve done. I haven’t even begun to work on my homework. I’m going to regret this Monday morning as I scramble to catch back up. Perhaps its better for me to remain busy. But i’ve missed the freedom of blogging, and I intend to pick it back up. Its been too long, and I can clearly see how different I’ve become, and the talent that I once had but have now let rust in the dark recesses of my mind. I know I’ll get where I want to be, but to do that I have to remember where I came from, I have to find what made me happy and what I was good at. Welcome back, to The Thoughts of Your Average Teenager. I’m 21 years old now and I may still be just as broken as before, but I intend to fix that. And maybe that’s all I ever needed. A little bit of creativity and a visit to where I came from to give me the motivation to start anew. To finally begin that journey to find out who I am. And maybe that’s all being an adult is about. Not the papers or the bills or the things you keep forgetting to do, but the constant journey of finding yourself in every situation.

 Who am I when everything is going right? Or when everything is falling apart? And better yet, who do I want to be? Am I who I want to be at 3am when i’m chugging coffee as I desperately try to finish a paper i’ve procrastinated way too long on? Am I who I want to be as I relax in my favorite clothes, watching my fiancee’s eyes light up as he passionately tells me about his favorite things in life? Am I who I want to be, and if not how do I plan to get there? Because I can get there, and I know I will. That is who I am. 

Day 7: Some Headphones and a CD Player

Ok, so this day has to be my absolute favorite day of this ENTIRE week so get ready for an insanely long post. Sorry not sorry, haha! First and foremost, we got to sleep in and I didn't get out of bed until 9:30 this morning. It was great. Since we got to sleep in our schedule was pretty different from the rest of this week. We had worship, a lecture, lunch, and then another lecture, which meant we had to leave out quiet time and our "teach one" sessions with our mentors. We were supposed to leave for our nursing home around 2:15 because with traffic we wouldn't be getting there till 3:00 and we'd have to leave at 4:15 to get back in time for dinner. Today our lecture was supposed to last until 2:00, but just like all the other lectures we've had this week, it went over. By a lot. 2:45 rolls around and we are finally loading up to head to the nursing home. So we don't get there until almost 3:30 which doesn't give us hardly any time to go and share with people. I honestly was ok with this because to me our time at the nursing home seemed to be absolutely pointless. People either didn't want to talk to us or they were already Christians. And we'd already met with every person on our wing.....twice. So I was ok with not being there long, and I was basically ready to go as soon as we arrived.

So we start walking and decide to start from the end of our wing and work our way back to the lobby where we would meet the rest of our team at 4:30. Now, let me tell you, this decision to start at the end was a total God Thing. We even chose a hallway that was insanely busy when normally we would try to avoid them. And obviously, there was a reason. We walked down the hall, poking our heads into the rooms to see if there was anyone we could talk to. And again people were either eating, asleep, or had visitors. So in my mind it was just going to be another day of just pointlessly walking around desperate for some random person to share with. Until we walked by a room that had a familiar face in it. This familiar face happened to be the lady I mentioned in Day 4: The Nursing Home. We hadn't seen her in her room the last few days and had even witnessed the staff deep cleaning her room as if she were gone and not coming back, which had really discouraged us. But thankfully we saw her smiling face in her room again as we walked by and we excitedly rushed in to talk to her. She remembered who we were and immediately started talking to us and telling us about how she'd had a doctors visit and forgot to leave a note letting us know she was gone. So sweet. We told her today was our last day at the nursing home which really saddened her. When we left she wouldn't have anyone to pray with her or talk with her, and she still didn't have a way to read the bible since her eyesight was bad. So Jennifer (my mentor) and I again brought up the idea of an audio bible that she could listen to in the nursing home so she wouldn't feel so disconnected from God. "Oh that would be so wonderful" she said over and over again.

Determined not to leave this sweet woman without a way to hear God's word, Jennifer and I decided that we would run out to try and find the rest of our team and ask if we could leave a little early and run by life way to get this sweet lady an audio bible. So we quickly start making our way to the other side of the nursing home and run right smack into another God Thing.

So, backtrack again with me to earlier this week, after our first or second visit to the nursing home. By this time we had already met with most if not all of the residents at the nursing home and I was starting to feel kind of discouraged. Surely theres someone else to pray for besides just the residents. I mean, this place is full of staff members! But they were always so busy the thought of trying to hold a conversation with them or even just pray with them real quick just seemed impossible. But God had kept that on my heart all week, and today as we were yet again going to the residents, I tried to keep my eyes open for a staff member who looked like they might have a minute or two to spare. Of course there weren't any. Until we decided to go look for our team.

As we are going up and down the halls, looking in each room to try to find them, we accidentally run into this OTA (occupational therapist assistant). And by run in to I pretty much mean run into. I stopped just in time to avoid colliding with him as we were walking across the hall, and instead of ducking across in front of him and apologizing like I normally do, I just flat out stopped to let him keep walking between me and my mentor. But instead he takes a few steps, pauses, and then turns and asks me, "Are y'all the ones going around praying with everyone?" ....ok at this point I have like a .5 second freak out, but I promise y'all the Holy Spirit just immediately took over and I was like "we sure are!" and so this man stops and talks to us for a while and tells us about how amazing he thinks that is that we are doing this and how inspiring it is. He tells us about his time in the navy and how he is a believer along with several other things, and as our conversation is clearly drawing to a close (i'm about to just explode with excitement right now as I watch my prayers be answered) I blurt out "would it be helpful if we prayed for you?" And he says yes! So in the middle of the hallway we pray for this OTA and his time at the nursing home, and that God would just continue to use him to bless the people he works with. Let me tell you, I was literally like this confetti cannon ready to explode into a shower of glitter and colored plastic-ribbons after that. I pulled my mentor aside after we parted with the OTA and told her about how God had placed that on my heart and then put that guy in our path and had him start up a conversation with us. Like this was ALL GOD you guys it was so cool! But that's not the end of it.

We finally find our team and they agree to go to life way and help us get this lady set up with an audio bible. So we start this scavenger hunt trying to find life way and Walmart to get everything we need for this lady. We end up buying her a new CD player that she could set in the bed with her, a Life Choices devotional (because the bibles were about $50 for just the new testament), some awesome headphones, and some batteries. We wrap it all up in a gift bag and rush back over to the nursing home to give it to her. I wish you could have been there to just see the joy on her face when we gave it to her. She just went on and on about how God just answered her prayers and how she was so thankful for us and what we did and we were just all so excited to have been able to provide something so important for this woman and just bring her so much joy. As we were getting ready to leave we all laid hands on her and prayed for her healing and for God to just use what we'd done to encourage this lady in her walk. But again this isn't the end!!

As we leave we decide to stop by the therapy rooms to see if the OTA was still there, we figured that since this lady was looking for someone to talk to about Christ and since he was a believer and seemed like he really wanted to integrate his faith in his work, we thought we would let him know about what we'd given her so he could help her work the CD player and maybe talk about Christ with her. And surprisingly (and again this was another God thing) we find him, still there at the nursing home, way later than any OTA would normally be there. He even told us he normally doesn't stay late but for some reason today he had. And so we share with him our story about the lady and he promises to go and check on her before he leaves for the day. And then he starts asking us a ton of questions about what we are doing and where we were from, and then suddenly he asks to pray over us! So we follow him into the gym and he prays one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard. I mean, he had asked us for prayer requests before he began but you could just see the Spirit working in him because he prayed not only for the request i'd mentioned but also for other things for me that i'd been struggling with that I hadn't even told him about. I mean to him the words probably seemed common and like typical attributes that you would pray for but I had never had someone pray for something like that that really hit so close to home and really described what I needed from God. It was incredible. 

Man, you guys, God has just been amazing today. Like all I could see today was Him and how he is just working in every single detail to draw people to him. It was like i'd gotten corrective eye surgery and could now, actually SEE God. He was EVERYWHERE. I don't think i've ever been so excited in my entire life. And even during the worship this evening He was just working in me still and revealing so much more to me than I could ever imagine. Today might have been the last day of our sharing experiences at the nursing homes but we literally went out with a bang. Despite every day before feeling mediocre and just like we weren't making any progress, today just made up for everything. It was beautiful.

The rest of this week is less structured and includes a lot more free time for us, so this may be my last consecutive post of this trip. I'm not sure though, it'll just depend. I may post some pictures tomorrow of our time in LA but after that I have no idea. But i'm so thankful for the opportunity to have been able to come on this trip and to just refocus and really start to break down my faith and build it back up in Christ this week. It has been such a blessing to just see Him and grow so much closer to Him. My last prayer request for this week is that I won't just leave this excitement here, but that i'll take it back home with me. Pray that God will just give me the motivation and desire to seek after Him more when i'm home and that He will just continue to show me more of who He is and who I am in Him.

Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 1:47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

Day 6: Picture Day

We are officially over halfway done with our trip. Tomorrow is our last full day of lectures and nursing homes which is pretty bitter sweet. I've loved getting to hear what the speakers have had to say and meeting all the people at the nursing home, but i've been going non-stop these past few days and i'm ready for a break. Saturday is our "family day" which means we get to go to L.A. for the day and do different activities there. Unfortunately they are planning on making us choose between going to the beach, going to the Hollywood sign, or going to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and maybe a few others, so we are all faced with some major dilemmas right now, haha!

At the nursing home today we got to meet with several of the people we've talked to the last few days and see how they were doing and pray for them again since a few were having a rough day today. We ended up finishing early though and decided to just roam the halls in the wing where our other team was working and just see if there was anyone in the halls we could talk to. We immediately ran into this gentleman wearing a veterans hat decorated with all kinds of awards and decals and started up a conversation with him. He told us a little about what the different awards on his hat were for and about his childhood, his children, and grandchildren. We could easily see that there was a lot of bitterness in his heart towards his kids because of the decisions they'd made in life and how they were treating him, but he obviously didn't want to talk about it much and so we let him redirect the conversation to one of his experiences in war. In my opinion it was one of the coolest stories i've heard, even though all they did was steal 3 cases of wine and 2 quarts of apricot nectar (i believe). By the time he finished his story it was time for us to go, but I would love to be able to go and speak with him again tomorrow. I feel like our conversations have been really short, without much deviation from the set questions we were given which has kind of upset me because you can tell that some people are really just wanting to sit and talk. But due to that i've been thinking about going to the VA every so often when I get home and sitting and talking with the people there now that i'm a little more comfortable with talking. Then I can sit and talk with people for as long as they are wanting to talk. So maybe its a God thing that i've noticed this because maybe theres someone that needs to hear the gospel or just have someone to talk to back home.

We had a speaker come in this morning and talk to us about people with psychiatric disorders and how to help them and interact with them. This man literally had me writing 90 to nothing. He had so much knowledge to share that I didn't want to miss a single thing. For most of our speakers i've taken about a page, front and back, of notes but for this lecture I have about 4 pages front and back. You could just see his wisdom and his compassion for people, and he really wanted us to understand that people with psychiatric disorders are people too and should be treated as such, along with a few extra details of course. I know i've always been fascinated by how the brain works and i've especially been fascinated by psychiatric disorders, so this talk was right up my alley. It also got me wondering if my strong interest in this topic is maybe a clue God has given me to help lead me to the right major or career. I didn't do well in my General Psychology class this last semester because I made some really dumb decisions to skip class some mornings and missed numerous assignments which not even my good grades on tests could make up for. So i've been kinda embarrassed to venture back into the psychology department, mainly because I really don't want to run into the grad student who taught our class. But i've always been fascinated by it. So could it be that I might actually need to consider it, and the devil is just using my guilt and regret for how I acted last semester to deter me from doing what God wants me to do? Who knows, but i'm going to be praying about that too now!

On a less serious and much lighter note, we had pictures today so i'm going to leave several of pictures from my trip; not just from today but from the entire trip so far. I hope you enjoy them!

Welcome to Redlands!!

 Palm tree drive! There are palm trees EVERYWHERE here

 Found this cool map of the states made out of license plates at Wrightwood. They're obviously missing a few.

 First day going to the nursing homes!!

 The food here was beyond amazing. And it was always healthy!

My dress shoes hated me this. 1 of 4 blisters received from this trip so far...

 I made some friends with the wild life. This little guy just appeared on my shorts and decided to hang out for a while :) 

 University of Redlands: our home for the past 6 days. Unfortunately we didn't stay in this awesome building but the apartments we are in are pretty awesome too. Here's all the preceptors (aka our mentors) getting ready for their group picture

The Pre-Pro girls!! And Jan....

 More palm trees! and a sunset :)

 The view from the building we were taking our pictures at!

“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12)

Day 5: Where am I

All day today i've been so distracted, wondering if i'm on the right track or not. All through my high school and college careers, i've been doing things to please people. I've gone where it would hopefully be the least inconvenience on people, declared my major based off what I thought another person would approve of, and kept it so I wouldn't disappoint them. I've gone to a college that was no where near my first choice (I was actually determined to go anywhere but where i'm at now), and i've wondered several times since then if i'm really where I need to be. Did I end up here with this major because this is actually part of God's plan, or was I just too stubborn to listen and now i'm just truckin' along in a halfway decent phase in my life that could have been better had I just paid attention?

During our last lecture of the night I just felt like I was being bombarded by thoughts of majors, schools, minors, careers, etc. They were pounding in my head and preventing me from really being able to focus despite trying to ignore them or write them down so my frantic mind would calm down now that I wouldn't forget its "oh so urgent" thought. Are these even beneficial thoughts? Or am I just wanting what all these other pre-med students around me have? Am I just trying to fit in with everyone else; please these people i've known for only a short amount of time? Or is this really something God wants me to consider. Should I send in applications to other schools just to see if I could get in? Or is that just way too crazy of an idea. If I decide too late would my ROTC scholarship transfer with me, or will that cause a lot of problems for me to transfer after i've contracted.

I feel like there is so much I have to consider and my mind is such a buzz right now it's hard keeping everything straight.

Our time at the nursing home went a little differently than yesterday. There was even more going on today than yesterday, so we were only able to talk to about 5 residents; one of which immediately turned us away. The other three ladies and one gentleman we spoke to were all already Christians with strong relationships with God. They were very eager to share their faith with us and answer our questions. I feel like we were more blessed by their joyful attitudes and strong spirits than they were by us! It has really been incredible to see the difference in health and attitude between those who have faith and are willing to talk to us and those who don't want to talk to us at all, or who don't have any faith. There are actual physical differences between these people. We got to meet with one lady who our partners talked to yesterday and wanted to introduce us to. She was 107 years old and had so much wisdom to share with us. Sweetest lady you will ever meet and in very good health for someone her age!

This evening we met with an organization called Light Power who has services and classes for the adults and kids at their church who have special needs. 2 ladies came and shared a little about their disorders with us and how its affected them and what a typical day was like for them. That was such a blessing for us all as you could really see the heart of Christ in these ladies. They were so full of joy and wanted to talk to everyone during dinner and after the meeting. They also shared who Christ was to them: a loving God, their savior, someone the world would be a much better place with. It was also great to hear from two parents who had children with disabilities explain what they struggle with and how people without disabilities can (and should) interact with those with disabilities.

Today I talked with my mentor about rededicating my life to Christ and really trying to put him on the throne of my heart again, as over the years i'd slowly been pushing him off. I told myself I was just trying to think of everything. To listen and make sure I knew the best plan of action. In reality though I was just picking out what I wanted, making sure it fit into my schedule and my plans for my future. Sure i'd listen to Him here and there, i'd talk to Him ALL the time, but it was really more of a "when it was appropriate and beneficial for me" rather than out of a desire to build a relationship with Him and let Him guide my life. I was basically taking what I thought God was calling me to and trying to make it work, as if He couldn't make it work himself. And man am I suffering for it. I literally had everything planned out and this beautiful little web woven as to what I was going to do, how I was going to do it, when, where, why....everything. And when that web started to fall here and there it was chaos trying to put it back together. Put this thread back here, move you over here, weave you through these and back to this spot....but the more I tried to fix it the more it fell apart and it was impossible for me to keep up. Now i'm not saying I was completely ignoring God, or that I completely left him. I just took over the throne but kept telling myself I was letting God lead me. And sure i'd let Him back up there whenever I wanted Him there, but after that I basically had Him step down; the stage was mine once again.

I told myself there was nothing wrong with my faith. I had it pretty much figured out. Me and God where like white on rice. When in reality It was all about me and I would just ask God for advice, accept it when I wanted or when it fit, and rejected it when it didn't and blew it off as "some crazy idea of mine" that "wasn't what God wanted." My spiritual life was on this crazy roller coaster. Some days God really was on the throne of my heart, and I would genuinely listen and pray to Him. Other days, and most days, I was in control, and I prayed out of obligation like the Pharisees. I just wanted to be showy. I even lied to myself saying I was going to pray to seek God's guidance but I was really doing it to impress myself, to make myself think I was some awesome Christian. How dumb is that?? I finally realized that i've been on the throne way too long and it was time to give it up. I'm exhausted. That job will wear you out. But you won't think so, because you're constantly lying to yourself. Your soul KNOWS you're not supposed to be there but you're constantly fighting with yourself because part of you WANTS to be on the throne and you're not about to give up that easily. If you do who's going to think of this detail? Who's going to decide this? Who's gonna remember this, that....who who who? Well clearly its someone who's got a way better plan and a way better way of achieving it. I just didn't want to believe it. I was doing so well!! You can just wait a second God, cause i'm doing fantastic up here you have no idea. Yeah right. So now i'm in the process of letting go. I have no idea where He's going to lead me but I'm just going to have to trust Him. Because wherever He leads me, He's going to go before me, and He'll be there when I get there. And while i'm going to have to watch him tear down these "beautiful" walls of my life I built, I have a feeling whatever He's going to build next is going to be better than I could ever imagine.

There's a lot for me to think on and consider, and God is no where near done working on me right now. Even though my time here is slowly drawing to a close, I pray I will continue to let God continue to work on me back home. That's where the real struggle will be. I've got this perfect little mold to fit right back into, that everyone is expecting me to meet. These barriers will be harder to overcome as its part of a life I took years to build. I don't know what breaking out of that mold will look like or how it will affect my relationships with those around me, but I pray that it doesn't discourage me from letting God lead me, or encourage me to try to take over my life again. Its easy to go back to how you were before you left; everyone knows you that way and theres no effort you have to put forth either. I wasn't going to share this at first, but then I realized that not sharing was just another way of keeping me on the throne of my life, because it's easy to pretend like you've given your life back to Christ if you're the only one who's aware of it. So, i'm laying this out here so that I can now be held accountable. So that I can really and truly start surrendering to Him.

Please continue to pray that I will learn to daily surrender my life to Christ. Pray for the people we will continue to meet at the nursing homes, that God would just continue to work in their hearts and lives before and after we speak with them. He has already worked in so many peoples lives and I pray that this will just continue throughout this week and the weeks to come.

Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT) Jesus came and told his disciples, "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." 

James 2:19 (NLT) Do you still think it's enough to just believe that there is one God? Well, even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror! 

Day 4: The Nursing Home

Today was our second day back at the nursing home but our first day to actually go and talk to the residents. My mentor and I took one wing of the nursing home and started making our way up and down the halls knocking on doors and talking to several different people. It was a great experience for me to be able to watch her talk to the residents and see how she handled each situation. I have to say, nursing homes are a LOT busier than you would imagine. We probably talked to only a third of the residents in our wing as the rest were either eating, sleeping, or being tended to by the nurses there. We did have several people who, when we told them why we were there, refused to talk to us, but this wasn't as disheartening as I thought it would be. The majority of the people we talked to were open and willing to talk to us, wether they were physically able to speak or not.

One lady in particular really stood out to me, partially because she reminded me so much of my aunt who past away 6 years ago. Her door was closed but we decided to knock anyway and peek our heads in to see if she or her roommate were awake. She opened her eyes as soon as we looked in and we apologized for waking her up and told her we'd come back and talk to her later so she could rest, but instead she insisted we come in and talk to her then. So we go in and tell her we are there to ask some question about the emotional and spiritual care that they are receiving and she immediately says "oh yes I would love to answer some questions! I've been trying to get people to pray with me here but no one will listen to me." Surprised, we continue with a few of our questions and find out that she's desperately wanting to continue her relationship with God, but since her eyesight is really bad she's not able to read the bible, so instead she prays all the time. She said she watches the Christian network and shows on the tv, but she's craving something more. She continues to just pour into us how she's just feeling so distant from everything and struggling with not being able to read the bible or really do anything to grow her faith. We could just see it in her eyes how much she wanted to talk to us, and we asked her if we would be able to pray with her. She says yes, and so we pray. When we finish the prayer she is crying and telling us how much it meant to her that we would come and talk to her and how she had been praying for God to bring someone to her that she could talk to. We told her we would be coming back the next few days and she asked us to please stop by and visit with her again. I really hated to leave because you could just see her longing for someone to talk to about God and faith and just pray. I feel like talking to her was as much of a blessing for us as it was for her, and i'm looking forward to going back to talk to her a little more and hopefully set her up with a way to listen to scripture instead of having to try to read it.

Though not all of our interviews went as well as this one, they were all such good learning experiences. We met with people to immediately turned us away, others who were willing to answer the questions as quickly and simply as possible, and others who would share their faith with us, or who just started talking to us about their family or other random things just to be able to talk to someone. I realized that being rejected really isn't as terrifying or awkward as I thought. I did notice a lot of bitterness, loneliness, sadness, and other emotions while we were there. So many people just wanted someone to come and sit and talk with them, they didn't care what it was about.

Tomorrow will probably be my day to start leading some of the conversations with the residents, and while i'm not as nervous as I was, I still ask that you will pray for courage and peace for me to be able to really be able to minister to these people. To meet them where they are and show them the love of Christ, whether its through my actions or through sharing my faith. This post is probably going to be a lot shorter than the rest since i'm exhausted and there wasn't a lot of crazy, life-changing experiences today as there have been the past few days, but today was just the starting point in some hopefully life-changing experiences with the residents of the nursing home. Please pray that God will continue to go before us each day as we minister to the residents; that He will give us the words that they need to hear, and that we will be open to what He is teaching us too through this experience.

Also, please pray that God will give us the energy we need to be attentive throughout the day and to be able to get everything done that we need to do each day. Many of us are starting to feel exhausted and I've caught myself not paying attention or putting forth as much effort to learn or listen as I have been before. There's so much God has in store for us on this trip and I don't want to miss out on a single thing. We don't have any breaks in our schedule, so we are literally going non-stop from 7:30am to about 9:00-9:30 every night, so strength and rest are something we definitely need prayers for throughout the rest of this week. Our last full day of events is Friday and I pray we aren't completely burned out by then. This trip has still been so beneficial for me, and I have a lot of things to think about, read, and consider, so in a way it was nice to have a relatively calm day as far as spiritual lessons go so I could really let what I've already learned sink in. Thank you all for your support and your prayers as we go through this journey to learn more about God and how to share His love and promises those we will be serving in the medical field.


Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT) Jesus came and told his disciples, "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." 

Faith vs. Belief and Why am I Here?

Originally, I had this great lay out in my head about how I would do one post about my day and my thoughts and another post about my quiet time. But somehow that didn't work and I ended up with 3 posts that i'm now trying to combine into 2. I think i'll start this one off by explaining why I am here. Not just at this conference in Southern California, but why i'm desiring a medical profession, and why i'm considering the military.

When I was about 12 or 13 my family watched a movie The Guardian which is about the Coast Guard. This was my main inspiration to join the military and my heart was set on the Coast Guard. I was already a natural swimmer, so to my adolescent mind I was already 75% of the way there. As I got older and realized there were such things as boot camps and hell weeks, I started to seriously doubt my decision to join the military. Eventually, I dismissed the idea all together because I just wasn't built to survive that rigorous of training. Looking back in hindsight I see where God kept brining the idea back to my attention, but I was quick to dismiss it time and time again because I was so sure I couldn't survive bootcamp. Then, in my junior year of high school I decided to write my major research paper over PTSD. I had never heard of this before, and only happened to stumble upon it after realizing I desperately needed to narrow my original topic down quite a bit. I have no idea what my original topic was, but it had something to do with neurological disorders and their affects on people or something to that nature. To gather my resources for this paper I talked to several soldiers with and without PTSD. I went to the VA and talked to the staff there. I read article after article on PTSD and the limited knowledge we have on it and how so many are suffering from it. Then, 2 years later a friend of mine deployed for about 8 months. This really got me thinking about the army as I was hearing more and more about the war going on overseas and worrying about my friend being over there. Around thanksgiving I found myself looking around on the army website checking out the different careers. I stumbled upon the 68W (health care specialist) and knew that was what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, I would have to enlist to get that particular MOS, and that was just out of the question as my parents and just about everyone I talked to told me I should get my degree first. This was SO frustrating as I was pretty much ready to go ASAP. I'd figured out all the documents I would need for the recruiter, I knew what questions to ask, when I wanted to talk to them, what I wanted to do. I just needed to get it on paper and signed. Then God showed me a different path: Army Reserves Officer Training Corps, or AROTC. They were right there on my campus. I'd seen them drill several times on campus and seen them just walking around. It meant I could join the army and still get my degree, I would just have to wait about 3 more years. This program sounded absolutely perfect until I realized that commissioning as an officer at the end of my 3 years meant that I couldn't be a 68W; my dream job. I still struggle with this one detail, the one flaw in an otherwise perfect program. But I trust that God will place me where I need to be. Recently i've been asked why I want to do ROTC. Why I want to be a medic, and why I want to be a medic in the army of all places. Well, to answer that question I would toss out my typical "I just always wanted to do something medical and the army has been a big part of my life due to family and friends so it basically just fit." What I realized though is that this was an absolutely terrible reason to want to join. So I sat and thought for a bit and came to the conclusion that first and foremost, God has called me to this area in life. From 12 years of age on, He has revealed that He wants me to do something in heath care, and over my high school and even college years He has slowly taken me through each career until bringing me to where I am today. I want to join the army because I have a love and a passion for it. I love the challenge, I love the pride that comes from doing something for my country, for every single person that lives here. But mostly I love the people that serve, and I believe they don't get the right care or the proper respect that they deserve. These people also face death on a daily basis. I want to be there to tend to their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs; and I feel that God has equipped me in two of these 3 aspects, and that He is currently training and equipping me in the third. I follow several 68W blogs on tumblr and I love seeing the pictures of the medics reaching out to those in need, whether they are enemies or allies, or just an innocent bystander. You can see so clearly that they represent strength and power....something that is meant to be feared and respected. But you also see their mercy. Someone that has the power to destroy reaches down to a child and tends to them, comforts them. They perfectly represent the meekness of Christ, His compassion and mercy, His strength, His love, His protection. I can see so much in just one simple picture, and I crave that. I want to be that representation, I want to be that person. This is why i want to join the army, and why i want to be a health care specialist. I want to give hope to those who have none and give peace to those who are terrified.


Faith vs. Trust

**if you want to skip over my insane train of thoughts that I put in here unedited, you can scroll down to my summary :)


Today, during my quiet time I will admit I had no idea what to do. I'd done quiet times before but I was always easily distracted, so I never really learned how to actually have a quiet time with God. I prayed that God would just show me a verse to at least think on or something for the next hour and a half. I started reading through Psalms, and got distracted. So then I started in Proverbs and again got distracted. So with my two favorite books already marked off my list I gave up and went to my verse that i've been posting at the end of each of my blogs: James 2:19. I was a little frustrated giving up and giving into what I thought was just a simple "out" so I wouldn't actually have to read the bible. Boy was I wrong. In this verse two parts stood out to me, so I underlined them. James 2:19 (NLT) "Do you still think it's enough to just believe that there is one God? Well, even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror!" Oddly enough I made a connection with my second underlined section and a verse i'd absentmindedly read in Proverbs 1:7 "Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." I started to find a pattern here and began breaking down each word, learning its actual definition or matching a word or phrase to a different verse in the bible. From this verse I realized a new meaning for the word discipline, one that related to me perfectly. Fools don't just despise wisdom and "being rebuked for something they did wrong", but they despise self control, especially when it comes to spending time with God and learning more about Him. So then i looked up the word Despise, which means to dislike very much. So what does dislike mean? It means you have a feeling of aversion or disapproval. What's the definition for aversion? The act of turning away. So now, in my own words, Proverbs 1:7 reads: "Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools turn away from wisdom and discipline (self-control." It also struck home with me how, in James 2:19b it talks about how the demons tremble in terror. Which means they were afraid. I connected this to the first word of Proverbs 1:7 -  FEAR. Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge. So basically i'm seeing that, 1.) My belief alone isn't enough 2.) my belief is not instilling fear or reverence for God in my heart which means I don't even have that foundation of true knowledge that Proverbs 1:7 talks about.

Then I kept reading past James 2:19 and made a connection between  James 2:20 and Proverbs 1:7. "How Foolish! Can you not see that faith without works is useless?" So who will actually want to believe me if I say I believe, but my actions say otherwise. I came to the realization that I had no earthly idea what the difference was between faith and belief. I knew I had belief, but did i have faith? Again I took to the dictionary and looked up their definitions.

Faith: Complete trust or confidence in someone or something

Belief: An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.

I don't know how i came to this conclusion, but i realized that the difference between faith and belief is that BELIEF is not an action changing trust. It is merely acceptance. FAITH is accepting something as truth and changing your ACTIONS to reflect that. And that's what i've been missing. I believed, but my actions were never affected. I accepted God as truth but I never put my faith in it like i thought I had.

**So through my quiet time I learned that I had been foolish. I'd "turned away from wisdom and discipline" with the idea that I was being wise, and that I could still do what I wanted and believe in God. The sad truth was, if belief was as far as I was willing to go then my previous state of mind was correct. I could believe in God all I wanted and still do what I wanted to do, because I was merely accepting him like I would a compliment. Its great when I want or need it but i'm not changing my actions based off it. What good is my belief if It doesn't change me, If it does not produce that fear that leads to a foundation of true knowledge?


I know my logic here probably isn't theologically sound, or that these verses are out of context or whatever, but i'm not trying to make a theologically sound argument for the Bible, i'm just merely stating what I learned during my 1.5 hour quite time and how that has helped reshaped my previous way of thinking. I also apologize for my crazy train of though throughout the second part of my blog. I am impatient to post this rather that save it and reread it tomorrow so unfortunately this isn't being proof read and it is so grammatically incorrect its almost unbearable. But I just want to get my thoughts out there and maybe i'll come back and edit it later. Until then, don't forget to be open to where God wants to take you and to listen closely for what He has to tell you.

Day 3: Spiritual Histories

Truth be told I'm starting to feel exhausted. I don't know if its from the elevation difference, (a 1,017 ft difference to be exact) or if its from the time change, or if its just from everything we've been doing since we got here, but i'm feeling it. I think i've managed to make it through 2 posts without mentioning anything about the weather here but i'm clearly about to break that and say that I absolutely love the weather. Theres like no humidity here! I can actually go outside and not turn into a puddle and I am loving it. It is really funny listening to some of the students from up north talk about how hot and miserable it is here while i'm dancing around enjoying every moment of it. I'm only getting 8 days of this so i'm not going to complain! Arizona will be a different matter though.

Anyway, enough about the glorious weather here. Today was our first full day of activities, beginning with breakfast and worship, an hour and 15 minutes of quiet time/personal time to just talk to God and read or sit in silence and another hour and a half to meet with our mentors and prepare for the afternoon. Our mentors led us through a lecture they had gone through previously about what spiritual histories are and why they are important, especially in the health care profession. While the title may seem very odd or intimidating, its really just a bunch of simple questions ( 5-7 depending on how far the person is willing to go through the interview) to figure out where a person is drawing their strength from or how they are coping with their illness or current situations. Most of the questions are simple, casual-conversation type questions such as "how long have you been here?" "Do you have family living nearby/Do they come visit you?" and those questions will then lead to deeper questions about their struggles whether its loneliness, bitterness, sadness, frustration, etc. and how God can satisfy their needs and wants. If the person is not religious their conversation might end at the casual conversations and you'll just have to carry on that type of conversation for as long as they are willing to talk, or some may just not want to continue talking. Some however may want to share their faith, or talk about how their faith has weakened during their stay or even how they can become part of the kingdom of God. That's where the last two questions come in and ask about their desire to know God and whether they would like to go through a tool known as the KGP (knowing God personally), which guides them through a 4 point outline that explains how one can have a more personal relationship with God.

Unfortunately for us, we got stuck in traffic and got a little lost on our way to our nursing home, so we weren't able to talk to anyone today. Honestly though I was slightly relieved because, though this part really isn't that challenging, I felt like I was being thrown in head first with no real training. But I realized tonight that, even though I got an extra day to "get prepared" i'm still not going to be able to go in there with all the right answers and all the right words to say. I'm going to mess up, i'm going to have super awkward moments, and i'm going to be scared out of my mind. I'm never going to be completely ready for this, and I can't keep putting it off until I feel prepared. I'm not sure why God didn't end up just throwing me in head first today to show me that, but I know He has a plan and maybe it was beneficial for us to not share today. Who knows. It's all in His hands.

After we got back from our nursing home and ate dinner, the preceptors (in other words our mentors) went off campus for their small groups while the pre-pros stayed for our debriefing and our second lecture of the night. Backtrack with me for just a minute to 10:30am for our fist lecture of the morning by Dr. Harvey Elder, "Kingdom lives in Focus." I related to this man in so many ways as he went through and told us about his college years and how he was just going through the motions of his faith. I have a few quotes from his lecture that I just want to throw in because I believe they are very good points. "If you have no reason to trust yourself, and no reason not to trust God, why wouldn't you trust Him whole heartedly?" "As you let go of the approval seeking and performance trap, you begin to wonder not what people think about you but what people think about God."And my favorite quote that I think is beneficial for anyone trying to figure out what they want to do in life, and what career they want to take on, Dr. Harvey gives this advice: "Sometimes sharing Christ will be natural, and sometimes it will be difficult and you will have to share out of pure obedience. But where sharing Christ is natural is a clue to where you need to go."

Our second lecture of the night did not stand out to me as much as Dr. Harvey's as far as dozens of meaningful quotes and advice, but I do believe God was speaking to me through Dr. James Tsai's lecture. The past several months I have really struggled with my major and whether I am where I need to be or not. And many of my reasons for staying have been that i'm already this far in, and since this isn't my main career focus what does it really matter? might as well just stick with it. Or if I switch i'll just be adding more years to my college career which would then in turn mess up my ROTC scholarship and I just don't want to mess with a whole new academic plan and trying to fit a new major into 3 years. But my reasons for wanting to change were just as bad. I could wear scrubs all day. I'd get to work in a hospital with the cool stethoscope around my neck, I would be recognized as such-and-such, I would be noticed by so-and-so.....and as I thought about it I realized that all my reasons for wanting to stay, and all my reasons for wanting to change were selfish. I want to stay because I want to impress someone, and If I change they'll think less of me or they'll be disappointed. But if I change I could get recognized by so many more people. So selfish. I'm deciding what I want to do for the rest of my life based on what others will think of me. How long is that going to last? "Are we willing to be led down a different career path if God calls you somewhere else?" - Dr. Tsai. I don't know where God is calling me as far as my major goes. I don't know where He's calling me academically. But I now know that my logic in this area has been so far off track, and now i'm able to start getting myself back to where I need to be and stop asking "where will I get the most approval?" and start asking "Where does God want me to go?"

God has definitely given me a lot to consider over these past few days, but I honestly feel like i'm starting to get myself back on the right track. I'm starting to ask the right questions and consider things from God's point of view rather than my own. I guess God does have a better plan laid out for us sometimes ;) it just takes surrendering our pride to see it. So here's to the first of many walls coming down, and hopefully staying down for a long time. I'm not expecting it to be easy, but i'm hoping I will keep my motivation to surrender daily.

"I can't put in half hearted effort and expect to be permanently changed" - yours truly.


James 2:19 (NLT) Do you still think it's enough to just believe that there is one God? Well, even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror!