This week’s blog prompt given to us by one of our alumni team leaders, Alyssa, was to write about what you’ve learned so far. When I heard that prompt, suddenly everything I’ve ever known/learned flew out of my head, leaving me with absolutely zero ideas. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple days, and I just now gathered enough information in my scattered brain to write a coherent blog about something.
So, without further ado, my blog topic: patience, trust, and releasing control. All things I definitely struggle with.
For a lot of my life, I’ve been very good at creating false pretences when it comes to these things. What this means is that I looked like I was super chill and relaxed and go-with-the-flow on the outside, but on the inside I was often a bubbling pot of lava almost ready to erupt if something didn’t go my way. Some might’ve called this “anger issues” and they might’ve told me to “go get that fixed” (pshh whattt??) but I saw myself as the bigger person in most cases since I was often able to keep the anger and the frustration on the inside. What I didn’t realize was that I was either numbing the frustration and anger through social media and other means, or I was saving up all the negative feelings until a later time when I’d take it out on a sibling or a friend or myself. You’ll notice that no part of this process involves me taking time to stop and ask God why I was so frustrated. I used to think that I had to wait until I calmed down to talk to Him. I thought that He wouldn’t want to speak with me in a crazy state like that.
That’s one of the things I’ve learned while I’ve been here. God wants to meet us where we are, at any time, any place, any emotion, etc. He’s literally our heavenly Father, and most of us know that fathers don’t shy away from anger or frustration. God wants to help you find the source of what’s bothering you, whether it be an internal or external factor, and He wants to help you fix it. Nothing good happens when we’re drenched in negativity. And He only wants good things for us. You feel me? You feel me.
You may be wondering, “Now where exactly does trust, patience, and releasing control come into SJ’s life right now?” You see, living in a house with like 50 other people is a bit crazy at times. We also have a schedule that we have to follow every week, but the public transportation can make it difficult to stay on task/on time. The weekends are my off days, but even those days can take a lot of patience because everyone needs to do something different, but we need to stay in groups of people. The buddy system is a super safe and beneficial system, but it can be so hard when all the buddies want to go their separate ways. With all of these factors, I have had to learn how to take a step back and ask God some things like, “Hey, why does the fact that the kitchen is full make me a little frustrated an impatient with my squadmates?” and “Can you help me see your perspective and your timing of what’s going on today? Because I feel like I have no control right now.” A lot of times He’ll just tell me “Uh, yeah, because you don’t need to have control, you need to give it to me. Duh.” It’s the “duh” that really gets me. In hindsight or a from a bystander’s perspective, it’s really obvious that a lot of frustration and annoyance can be gotten rid of with a quick internal fix with some help from my homie Jesus.
So yeah. I don’t really know if that made a lot of sense, because sometimes I don’t even get it, but basically I’ve learned how to come to God no matter how I’m feeling. And usually He’ll let me know that the fault is pretty much just on my end and that I need to check myself before I wreck myself. I can always count on Him to be brutally honest like that. Everyone needs a friend and a Father who will do that for them.
ALSO! PSA! I am doing yet another fundraiser (I know, I know, you’re too excited to contain yourself. Calm down.) This fundraiser is called “Adopt-A-Box” and how it works is that the boxes in the picture below are all up for adoption. When you choose to adopt one of the boxes, you’ll donate the amount inside the box (i.e. box 34 = $34, box 2 = $2, and box 70 = $70). When 40 of the boxes are adopted, everyone who’s adopted a box will have their name put in a drawing to win a souvenir from one of the countries I’m going to (Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala, Cambodia). Each box you adopt will earn you another ticket in the drawing.
If all of these boxes get adopted, I will be fully funded!!! Praise the Lord! My goal is to have them all adopted by Christmas, so if you don’t know what to get me for Christmas this year, get me a box!
BONUS PICS!
Kenzie, me, and Dan. All three of us got our noses pierced on Saturday. Also, rockin’ the frontwards backpacks.
Two of my favorite pups. Lula (left) and Guapa (right), two of our hosts’ dogs.
