love it, love it, love it

When asked if he wanted to go over to his grandparents house, my sweet cousin Craig Alan said, "Will I love it, love it, love it?"

I'm sure he heard it said somewhere before, but I can't get over the honesty of his response. Tell me if I'm going to love it and then I'll tell you if I want to go. That's a pretty transparent picture of human nature. How will this decision benefit me (or hurt me)? I find myself analyzing situations all the time with that in mind.

Well, God has a way of really stretching us in the areas we are weakest. Sometimes I start feeling the painful stretch before I even realize I was weak. Since I've been in Honduras, I'm feeling stretched in areas I never knew I had! For instance, let's just take this moment to give you a little snapshot into my stretching and confusion.

I am sitting in the Guidance office, but I have no desk, nothing to cover my wall space, a total of two binders and everything else jammed into my backpack. I am simultaneously trying to plan for my first year teaching psychology and also work on preventive guidance measures so I can promote good behavior instead of dealing so much with bad.

The constant cry from our apartment windows is "be flexible!" because we are all very much aware of our ever-changing job descriptions and of the greater mission: to live out the Gospel. We are each passionate about pursuing the Lord and we bring our unique gifts and talents as an offering. I have been so built up by relationships in our apartment alone and I praise God for His provision!

But, because God is great where I am weak, our failures will most surely show! So, I've made a few missteps the past couple days. It will take awhile to get used to this system and reach some level of comfortability with my position and purpose.

I've been reading through Romans and God is blessing me daily with reminders that He is infinitely more gracious than He has to be... and that His work is accomplished with or without me. I just must make a decision, as Esther did, to step into a time such as this for what the Lord is planning.

I guess sometimes we can't anticipate how or why we will love it love it love it. And maybe loving it is not about our enjoyment as much as it is about His glory? Either way, I do love it so far, there's just a lot of learning in the loving.

Please visit the webpage - I updated some links with new pictures of the market, the feeding center, and the choir trip!