Week 1...

This is me on the first day of school =) I cannot count how many of these pictures from childhood we have over the years! Crazy to be taking a "first day" picture again!

Meant to have my backpack on and my lunchbox in my hand...oh well!

So...here's the good news...I survived the first week!

How was it? People keep asking.

And I keep saying I'm not sure the adjective to pick.

Wonderful...energizing...exhausting...terrifying...hard as crap...confirming...overwhelming.

It's been a lot of things. But the best word I have found is "tension."

Tension: the act of being stretched or strained, discomfort

I have found myself feeling a lot of tension between all kinds of things:

Tension of my new life: For example, the Young Life banquet was on Tuesday. So was a "Welcome Dinner" for our PA class from the older class at Bearden Banquet Hall. I knew that's where I should be. Even though every part of me wanted to be at the YL Banquet. But it's time to start choosing my "new world" right now...that's hard sometimes.

Tension with new relationships: I really really love the people in my program. Esp. a group of about 8 girls who I feel like I have known alot longer than I have! (Probably because we spend every waking second together it seems!) We sit together, stress together, laugh together, and even have formed a study group. I really love spending time with them. But I also have all my "people" that I had before...all of YOU. My friends, my family, my encouragers, the ones who have travelled with me and gone the distance. I feel like I live in 2 worlds relationally right now and that creates some pull.

Tension with time: Well I have none. Seriously. None. Ha! But the few windows I do have, it is so hard to know how to best use them. Take a nap? Run a few overdue errands? Clean my room for the love!??! Spend time with people I've had to neglect? And at that...Who?? Write a letter? Read a book? Study some more? Go on a walk? Lay on the couch and watch Oprah?!?! I am really praying to know how to be a good manager of my time. To know what the best and wise thing is to do each day. I literally need the Lord directing my steps at all times. He has certainly been gracious.

So, there's a few of the highlights of where I am feeling the tension. I feel stretched and strained. But I think that's good. I'm having to trust. I'm having to be dependent and find my rest in the Lord. One of the definitions of tension is "discomfort" and I would say it is by no coincidence that I find myself here... I know that one of my biggest "idols" is comfort...wanting everything to be safe. controlled. comfortable. feel good. It tends to be my chief aim in life. To stay in the comfortable. Well...so much for that! I think God is totally stripping me of that little issue...that's good for me.

Yesterday I was reading about Jesus feeding the 5,000 and I have found that to be a good prayer...that God would take my measley bread and fish...what little I have to offer to Him and to those around me right now and multiply it. Multiply me. my time. my energy. my efforts. my joy. my dependence. my gratitude. He's done it before...he can do it again! And in the mean time...may I be grateful for the tension and let the stretching and straining grow me to be more like Christ.

One week down...9 to go! (in this quarter!)

Happy Sabbath.