Transitioning

So I am officially back at the GC (aka Gordon College). Now most might think that I was thrilled to be going back after a year away, but to be honest I was more apprehensive than anything else. I was going to be "the new girl" who didn't know anyone on campus. Well, this was and still is quite true (though it seems to be getting slightly better). What I didn't expect were all the other emotions that were going to come with going back to campus and how God would be so real to me in my time of need.

The first few days in my new apartment I was terribly homesick, but God provided for me in that time. He sent my friend Anna over to comfort me. She came over when I was home alone so that I didn't have to feel alone. She listened to me as I cried and she understood probably better than anyone else the things I have been struggling with. Basically the first few days I cried a lot...

About half way through the week I had to face going back to school and also had to face my finals left over from the previous semester. This put an enormous amount of stress on me for a number of reasons. The first reason was of course just because it was the start of a new semester and everyone gets nervous on the first day of new classes. The second reason is that I couldn't study for these finals and therefore I felt very out of control and I know I couldn't do my best. But the third and most stressing thing was the fact that one of the papers I had to write was what I had been working on when Antonio committed suicide.

This, as one could imagine, brought up a lot of emotions and Thursday night I just got totally overwhelmed. I had a horrible stress headache and I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. Before I started the paper I decided I was going to do my devotional for the day. It's a good thing I did. The lesson was on a passage where Jesus heals many people of all different ailments and emotional ailments were listed among them. At this point I just cried out that I wanted Jesus to take the weight from my shoulders, I wanted to be healed too. In that moment I could feel him there with me. I cried (literally) for joy because the headache and the stress were gone. I could feel that great, big hug from Jesus and I could just hear him saying that I could do this.

I finished my finals and I finished the paper. Was it my best work? No. But I did it! As Jesus once said "It is finished" (I suppose it was in a slightly different context but that's how I felt when it was done). I was able to reward my hard work with a weekend at home. Now I am getting back into the swing of things, I'm keeping busy and that's good. I've got classes, babysitting, and Gospel Choir to keep me occupied. Despite the fact that I am transitioning I have no doubt that there will be other points in the near future when again I must cry out to Jesus to take that burden off my shoulders. But God is faithful so I know that I can do this! (with his help of course)

A New Chapter

So I never will finish blogging about my time in Spain. For that I apologize, but the circumstances under which I left Spain didn't exactly lend themselves to blogging. So now I am back in the states for a while, but I don't feel that I should stop writing about my life.

 This begs the question of where do I take this blog now? It's not like my life is terribly exciting most of the time. I don't like to share my feelings with my closest friends and family so I certainly won't be sharing them for the whole internet to view. But perhaps that's just the thing, my life doesn't need to be as exciting as a Hollywood film to write about it. This is just the start of my life and someday I'm going to want to look back on this. So no promises on how often or if I will blog. But if I do it will be a combination of the things happening in my life, the lessons I'm learning and the way God is revealing himself to me.

So right now I feel like I am starting a new chapter in my life. This doesn't mean that the past chapters haven't happened but I feel as though the last chapter ended in a cliff hanger and now I am just waiting to see what the next chapter has in store for me. I think if I could title the last chapter of my life I would call it The Year of Transition and Change. Now I feel like something great is coming and I'm really excited to see what it may be. I'm heading back to Gordon after a year away. I have changed so much since I was last there and I can't wait to take the good old GC by storm. (Okay that's not exactly my style but you know what I mean.) So here we go! Let's see what the next chapter has in store!