week 2 addendum: confession

OK, I ended up chatting for a few minutes with D.Rob on gmail (aside: YOU SHOULD GET A GMAIL ACCOUNT AND THEN YOU COULD CHAT WITH ME... along with a ton of other great features!!!) and then I went upstairs and got ready for bed and was reading a couple pages of Newsweek (sadly, Pluto is no longer a planet and interestingly, Paramount released Tom Cruise from his contract) when Sarah came home. We chatted and debriefed our days - she was at a birthday party for a girl in her program and had a good time. Then I had lights out and just couldn't really stop my mind spinning at that point - which doesn't happen often.

So I ended up going to bed at 11 (normal these days) and not going to sleep until almost 11:30. :(

Maybe tonight I can get some extra rest.

week 2: brief note

I'm tired tonight. Yesterday's class and discussion of "The College Student" (specifically learning models and developmental theories) wore me out. Then today i started at 8am meeting with a student, met with another friend at 9am to talk about student stuff and went until 7pm with only 30 minutes at home. We went to Rosa's for our Tuesday night date and now I'm at home. Its almost 10pm and I'm about to hit the sheets.

Here's some ways the Lord blessed me so far this week:
1) great experience at church on Sunday that is still blessing me this week
2) made eye contact with a handsome guy that i have seen but not met yet sunday and today (the key here is I didn't just cut and run, but actually made eye contact - hooray!)
3) great conversation with a chaplain of a fraternity here this morning, totally blessed me
4) great conversation with a girl I met, really, yesterday and found a kindred spirit on a lot of spiritual stuff
5) great conversation tonight with a girl in my cohort, who shares my heart on a lot of issues, too.
6) the ability to go to sleep early without feeling guilty

And on that note... good night. I hope you are doing well.

Love!

Sabbath Reading

Its my earnest desire to make Sundays (my roommate and I are trying from after dinner Saturday to dinner on Sunday) my sabbath. Sabbath means a lot of things to a lot of people. To me it has various meanings depending on what my soul needs: 1) a ceasing of striving/working - a conscious rest from the daily anxieties of due dates, assignments and household chores, 2) a simple time of rest, maybe even just napping, 3) spending devoted time with God - reading sacred texts, reading texts to encourage or challenge my soul and mind, praying, 4) time to spend in relationship without the burden of work pressures - phone calls, hanging out, entertainment.

Hopefully my sabbath time always includes these parts. I love to spend time with friends on Saturday night, enjoying the end of a week of labor. I also love the time after church on Sunday, to take shelter in my home and read or nap or phone call (or all three) or hang with my roommate and watch a movie.

Today I had some phone calls to make. I spoke with Jenn and am hoping to speak with Erin and Liz before the sabbath passes into study time (t minus one hour). While I was waiting to hear back from the latter two I was trying to read as much George Muller as possible. I love this book (George Muller of Bristol). I do. But its also taken me a long time to read it. It's deep. So today I read two chapters and then had to come up for some air and I thought I would share some brief excerpts with you. Enjoy:

From Ch. 16, regarding his marriage, his first wife and her passing:

"Mr. Muller's solemn conviction was that all this wedded bliss was due to the
fact that she was not only a devoted Christian, but that their one united object
was tot live one and wholly for God, in which thy were heartily united; that
this work was never allowed to interfere with the care of their own souls, or
their sessions of private prayer and study of the Scriptures; and that they were
wont daily, and often thrice a day, to secure a time of united prayer and praise
when they brought before the Lord the matters which at the time called for
thanksgiving and supplication." (p.235)

"To her husband she had been a blessing beyond description, and to her daugther Lydia, at once a wise and tender mother and a sympathetic companion." (p. 238)

From Chapter 17, regarding his travels around the world preaching and making disciples of Jesus:

"God's real answers to prayer are often seeming denials. Beneath the
outward request He hears the voice of the inward desire, and He responds to
the mind of the Spirit rather than to the imperfect and perhaps mistaken
words in which the yearning seeks expression. Moreover, His infinite
wisdom sees that a larger blessing may be ours only by withholding of the
lesser good which we seek; and so all true prayer trusts Him to give His own
answer, not in our way or time, or even to our own expressed desire, but
rather to His own unutterable groaning within us which He can interpret
better than we." (p.245)

During his speaking engagements:

"He first urged that believers should never, even under the greatest
difficulties, be discouraged, and gave for his position sound scriptural
reasons. Then he pointed out to them that the chief business of every day
is first of all to seek to be truly at rest and happy in God. Then he
showed how, from the Word of God, all saved believers may know their true
standing in Christ, and how in circumstances of particular perplexity they might
ascertain the will of God. He then urged disciples to seek with intense
earnestness to become acquainted with God Himself as revealed in the Holy
Scriptures, and carefully to form and maintain godly habits of systematic Bible
study and prayer, holy living and consecrated giving. He taught that God
alone is the one all-satisfying portion of the soul, and that we must determine
to possess and enjoy Him as such. He closed by emphasizing it as the one,
single, all-absorbing, daily aim to glorify God in a complete surrender to His
will and service." (p.257)

George once said to the author of this book, at one of their meetings:

"... You will never get at the truth upon any matter of divine revelation unless
you lay aside your prejudices and like a little child ask simply what is the
testimony of Scripture." (p. 261)

All quotes above taken from: Pierson, A.T. (1999). George Muller of Bristol: His Life of Prayer and Faith (2nd printing). Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI

So, I hope you are enjoying your sabbath and that you get some enjoyment out of these words about George and from A.T. Pierson.

Blessings today, friends!

Pics of the Ferg kids from my weekend in San Antonio

This is Ryan re-enacting the Pony Express. Did you know that the riders of the Pony Express, in order to get the mail delivered on time, didn't have time to stop for breakfast? Their girlfriends (in this case, his sister - Andi) held out donuts on sticks and the riders grabbed them as they went by!
Jared and Andi, making funny faces
The new cat, Hannah (she will hopefully grow up to be a mouser)
John and Ryan, on the tractor, coming up the drive after getting the mail
Andi took this picture of Jared and me. I think she's pretty excited to know how to use my camera. The rest of the weekend she kept saying, "now can i take more pictures?"

Maybe next weekend, Andi, you and I will take a LOT of pics!

_______

Final Pics for now. These are from my weekend (last weekend) with the Fergasons. Next weekend I'm headed there for a three day adventure (its labor day and we don't have class on Monday!), so I may end up with more pics. I think my roommate is going to come with me and get to enjoy the cabin and an ETBU football game (Dave Banks is now the Defensive Coord. at ETBU and they are playing at Trinity U. in San Antonio - he was going to get us on the pass list.... but then it turned out they don't charge admission there, so no list, but getting in free nonetheless. ) I'm looking forward to kid time, seeing Banksie and cheering for an ETBU Tiger win!

more pics from the apt.

The window seat
my cute jelly jar office supply holders! bethany - i thought you, especially would like this touch.
my bed and night stand - its too hot here almost always to use the comforter... maybe in the winter "the cloud" (my bed) will return??
my desk. the only recent change is that I just put some christian living and reference books on the shelf instead of textbooks - it was getting too hard to keep adjusting the speaker (which acts as a book end). Instead I put the textbooks on the top shelf of my little bookcase (below):
bookcase and my dry erase board which houses some affirmations and whatever I'm learning from the Word. That week it was revelations from Prov 31. Next week it might be some exerpts from Daniel's prayer for his people in Daniel 11 (I think). I rewrote the prayer in the TEV (tiffani english version) to help me think about how to pray for me and my country, my students and my family.