3 summer school days down, 7 to go

After the first week and a half of my summer class, I'm not sure what to think.  The class is supposed to go from 5:30-9:30pm, but so far we haven't been there longer than 8, and I'm pretty sure the teacher wants us to be done by 7:30 at the latest each day.  He makes a powerpoint presentation, then prints it out with some blanks that we have to fill in.  Then he says to study that in order to prepare for the daily quizzes.  The 2 exams then are comprised of 70% material from the quizzes also.  So I'm having a hard time getting motivation to actually read my book or study for this class at all.  Hopefully I'll be able to do well in this class.

Prayer requests:
 - Pray for motivation to study.

 - Pray that I would not lose ground or backtrack in my walk with the LORD, that I would continually be seeking truth, telling myself the truth, and believing it.

 - Pray that I would be content where I am.  I'm still struggling with God in the fact that I know he wants me to do missions, and I want to do missions, but he keeps saying not yet.  Which is hard to hear.

 - Pray for my mood.  It's starting to be all over the map again sometimes, and that worries me.  I don't think I've become depressed again, at least not yet, but it is something I'm keeping a very close watch on.

 - Pray for time with community.  Thanks to many people, I've been able to still have Godly community even during my class, but I'm noticing more that I'm still struggling a lot with crowded loneliness (feeling lonely even when you're around people.)  And I guess this goes with the contentment thing too, because I'm trying to remind myself that God is enough, and that I don't have to feel lonely.

 - Pray that God would help me to find where I'm supposed to serve.  I definitely have a void now that the Feys are gone, and I miss them terribly, but I also want to be able to still serve, whether it be another family, or an individual, or something else.

 - Pray for my time with Jen tomorrow.  I haven't seen her for a month, due to my crazy schedule, and then she got sick last week.

Thanks for sticking with me folks.  Always feel free to ask me if you have questions about anything in my life, I'm really bad at coming up with things to post on here.

Oh yeah, and I think I'm starting to go through cupcake baking withdrawal, so I want to make some soon.  But I would need people to eat them, so if you can think of a way for me to bring you, your family, your community group, etc. cupcakes.  Please let me know.  I have a couple recipes I'm deciding between.  I think next up is either Amaretto Wedding Cupcakes, Mixed Berry Crumble Cupcakes, Chocolate Ice Cream Cupcakes, White Chocolate Devilish Cupcakes, or Cappuccino Cupcakes.

Last Day Before Summer School

So, I've already gone more than a week, but I thought I would give a quick update.

God has changed my life in the last week.  Last Friday I found out I may not be eligible for financial aid this fall, so I felt once again like my life was falling into chaos.  Last Sunday I was having another really rough day, I'd been having many of those in the past couple of weeks, but didn't know how to change things.  I finally got myself to spend some time with Jesus, and I prayed that he would show me the verses he wanted me to see, because I had no idea where to start.

I looked up "Seeking God's Direction" in the back of my Bible, and started there.  I read the first three verses, and didn't get much, but then I read Ephesians 5:20, which says "always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;" (NASB version).

I felt God telling me to thank him, which I thought was crazy, I mean, I had just possibly lost something else in my life, and he wanted me to thank him?  But I decided to go with it, and thought it would probably take a couple of minutes max.  I ended up spending over an hour writing a list of what I'm thankful for, and sobbing. I won't go into details, but I ended up with almost 3 journal pages front and back of things I'm thankful for.

I say that God changed my life, because my countenance has totally changed now.  I'm not fearful of the future.  I'm believing truth again.  I'm even remembering to use truth to fight lies.

Other than that, things have been going ok.  I visited a friend this weekend, and had a nice, relaxing time.  I needed that.  I'm a little worried about school starting up tomorrow, I'll be working 7 or 8 hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, then have class for 4 hours each on Monday and Wednesday night.  Then I'll come in probably on Tuesday to make up a couple hours I'll miss for leaving an hour early the nights I have class.  I know, it's a little confusing.

So, prayer requests:
 - Pray that God would continue to be working in my life and teaching me truth.
 - Pray that I would be looking forward to my meeting with Jen (my psychologist) this week.  So far I am looking forward to it, so I'm hoping that stays.
 - Pray that I would handle my new schedule well, and be able to excel in both my class and at work.
 - Pray that I would find time to still be with people and get community, even during my busy schedule.

Prayer Requests

A couple of days ago I asked God to help me come up with some prayer requests to share with my community group, thinking I'd get one or two, but he gave me a lot more than that, so I thought I'd share them with all of you.  Here they are, in no particular order.

 - Pray for these next weeks as I'm taking a summer class and not going to be able to see my friends as much.

 - Pray for my memory.  I've noticed it getting worse again over the last few weeks.  I'm having a hard time remembering conversations with people, or even what I did a couple of days ago.  I'm worried this will affect my performance in my summer class.

 - Pray for my time with Jen (my psychologist.)  It's really hard for me to go, and I don't really like it, but it's good for me.

 - Pray I would keep fighting.  I think I may be depressed again, and medicine could possibly help, but I think if I went back on it, I'd stop fighting to fix things (beliefs, lies, etc.)

 - Pray I would learn to believe truth in my heart, instead of just knowing it in my head.

 - Pray that I would handle the Feys move well.  They move today, and I'm not sure it's really hit me yet.  But I'm going to have to find something else to do on Tuesday afternoon.

 - Pray for good time in the WORD, and that I would continually seek truth and believe it.

 - Pray that I would be able to see how far I've come and how much God has changed me in the past few months (and years.)

 - Pray that I would continually be overcoming fear by running to God instead.

 - Pray that I would manage my finances more wisely.  That I would learn to steward them well, the way God wants me to, and then actually do that.

 - Pray I would find out where I fit in my church, and where I should be serving.  I usually help with the children's ministry, or nursery ministry, but I have a strong sense that I'm supposed to be doing something else.  Pray that I would begin to learn what my spiritual gifts are and find a place to use them to God's glory.

 - Pray I wouldn't feel guilty asking for, and hopefully receiving love, affirmation, and especially prayer.

Explanation

Just in case you didn't get my second e-mail and are wondering why you have to sign in to read my blog, I'm going to post my explanation again here.

I'm going to try to re-start my blog.  This time I'm doing something a little differently and making it private.  I plan on posting updates (hopefully weekly) on how I'm doing, truths I'm learning, and prayer requests.  You don't have to read them, but you got an invitation because I trust you enough to show you these postings.  Because I made the blog private, you will have to sign in to be able to read it, I'm sorry about that, but I thought this way I could be honest without having to worry about random people seeing my junk.

I also have an opportunity for you to help me out if you want to.  I'm going to try to post weekly.  I would like your help in holding me accountable to this, at least for the first couple of months, then I'll re-evaluate.

Please let me know if you think of anyone else who may wish to see these posts.  I don't have everyone's e-mail address, so I couldn't add some people.  And thanks for caring enough to read this.

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