Quick Update

Hey Friends,

This week has been an interim week in my summer.  I don't have any class, summer class is over, and fall classes start up this coming Monday.  I'm still doing a lot though.  Had to get my books for my fall classes, I'm taking two accounting courses, and had to turn in my financial aid appeal form.  Hopefully that will go through without any problems.

Overall, I'm fine.  Actually, no, that's a lie.  I'm not fine.  I'm nowhere close to fine.  I don't have words to explain how I'm doing, but it's not fine.  I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but I guess, please just pray.

Prayer requests:
 - Pray that I would know what to ask for when people ask for prayer requests.  Right now, I have no idea what to say.

 - I guess pray that I would be struggling with God this week.  To find out what's going on in my head.  To process through some things.  And to hopefully get some wisdom and guidance in a few areas of my life.

I'm Done!

With my summer class that is.  I thought I'd have plenty of time now, but I had a long to-do list today, but I only got about half of it done.  Thankfully the other half didn't have to be done today.  Other than that, there's not really anything new in my life to report.  Still talking through hard stuff with Jen, still working, but that's a little more stressful at the moment, and still trying to balance work, school, church stuff, and friends well.  Feel free to ask any questions you may have, I'm just not so great at coming up with things to say.

Prayer Requests:
 - Pray that I would prepare for my fall classes well.  I need to reteach myself lots of accounting stuff in the next two weeks.

 - Pray that I would continue to talk to Jen well, and that God would lead our meetings.

 - Pray that God would help me catch things up at work and to feel less stressed about work.

 - Pray that I would be having good time with my friends that is encouraging to all of us, instead of just running to them because I'm bored, or something like that.

 - Pray that God would show me where he wants me to start doing ministry.  I think he's telling me to do something with high school students, but so far that's not been very easy to find.

 - Pray that I would learn to manage my money how God intends me to, in a way that honors him.

Thanks for reading friends.  Oh yeah, and I made the blog private again, at least for now, too many people were having issues reading it.  If I notice lots of odd people reading this though, it may get switched back.

-Nicole

Over halfway there!

I forgot to post last week, sorry about that.  I would remember, but be doing something else at the time, so I couldn't post, or I would be going to bed when I remembered or something like that.  So here's a quick update about what's been going on.

I only have 3 more days of my summer class, so that's good.  It's going ok.  I'm not really learning much, but I'm memorizing it for the daily quizzes and the exams.  I just can't wait to be done.

Other than that, not much has changed.  My mom and I went to Illinois this past weekend to visit my brother Pat and my nephew Landon.  We ended up helping Pat move from one small town to an apartment in another town that is closer to his work.  I didn't get much good sleep (I was sleeping on a very uncomfortable futon), so I'm still catching up.  My moods have still been weird, but I see my doctor next week and I'll ask her about it.  I don't think I'm depressed, and I don't think I need to go back on medication, but I just want to keep her informed.  She's a good friend of mine too, so it's nice to update her.

The biggest thing that is going on is with Jen my psychologist.  This evening we started to work through my most recent trauma, which would be the date rape that happened March of 2007.  According to her, I did really good tonight.  I pretty much had to re-live the whole thing in as much vivid detail as I could.  I started not doing so well emotionally and physically about halfway though, but I knew I just had to keep going.  The only problem with this is trying to stop dealing with it when I go home.  Jen said I have to learn something called "containment."  I have to learn how to access these thoughts and feelings while I'm in counseling at her house, or journaling about it for homework, but then learn how to put them away and "contain" them so they don't interfere with the rest of my life.  Since I used to stuff everything and I've really only been learning to feel things and deal with them for the last year or so, this is really hard for me to comprehend.  I have to stuff some things, but not others?  I've never been very good at this balancing act.

But, that's enough of a rant, so here's some prayer requests:
 - Pray that I would work hard to finish out my summer class and not slack off because it seems easy.

 - Pray that my moods would start to be more positive more of the time, and I that I would figure out what, if anything, is causing my funk.

 - Pray that I would keep working hard with Jen, and that I wouldn't shut down as it gets more difficult.  Pray that we would figure out a way for me to work through this trauma, and be able to keep moving on to the deeper issues in my past.

 - Pray that I would learn containment.  And also that beginning to drag up this stuff wouldn't have harmful effects for me.  I've already noticed an increase in not so good thoughts and feelings, but so far I'm doing okay with them and looking to truth.

I think that's all everyone.  Thanks again for caring.