Hey there! Its been a long time I know. I had to write a letter to my church giving an update on my semester so I figured I would share bits and pieces of it so you could be updated. So here it is:

I would like to start by giving you a bit of background information. This summer I ended up living in Columbia instead of going back home to Goose Creek. It was a very hurried decision and thankfully God provided a place for me to live with people who have always been like grandparents to me. Looking back on this summer I can say that there is something sacred about it. I had great support from friends and the people I was living with. However I felt like a lot of the time it was just God and I. There were many bumps through out the summer such as the sudden death of my grandmother. I read a great book by John Eldredge called Waking the Dead, which God used to breath life into my heart. Through the transition, times of loneliness, dealing with loss, struggling with the past, and sweet times, God was present teaching me and showing me more of His character. I feel like God took the three months of summer and multiplied them greatly, I am not sure I can write this letter without including this part of my journey.

This past summer I got a job at Starbucks, and I decided to continue working there a few hours a week during the school year. God continues to confirm that it is a place He wants me. Not that I would tell my manager this, but working at Starbucks is my ministry. I work with amazing lost sinners. I get choked up thinking about it. I go to work, as I am, sometimes not in the best of moods. I don’t pretend to have it all together and allow my co-workers to see me for who I am. They know I am a Christian, and I believe they know that I would never judge them or look down upon them. God has given me such a heart for these people. When they are dealing with hard things in their life, my heart hurts for them. All I can do is pray and continue to show interest in their life and show them that I care. Not all of the people I connect with in this way but there are the handful that God has given me a burden for. Several times this summer small opportunities came up to share a piece of my faith with a couple of them. And I have loved seeing these relationships grow.

Transitioning back to school this semester was not the easiest. I had plenty of expectations for myself, only to find that my expectations were unrealistic and were not the ones God had in mind. My thought process was that last semester I had a really hard time with my studies because of life circumstances, but I had all summer to spend processing through things, so I would be ready to go at high gear. I was wrong. I was struggling to pour the amount of energy I wanted to into being an on-campus student at CIU. I found grace from the school and professors that were willing to work with me and pray for me. There is definitely value in asking for help and how thankful I am for those in leadership at CIU.
Not to just portray the hard circumstances because there are so many rewards and highlights to my school life. One of the classes I am currently taking is Hermeneutics, in which we go to class only to get a project to work on in the library. The projects are to teach us to dive into the Bible, research the Greek/Hebrew meanings of words, study the context of passages, and the history in which the assigned Bible passage was written. The projects are extremely time consuming, but very valuable in learning to be a student of the Word. I am pretty certain of sticking with my major, Family and Church Education, but I am now considering focusing (essentially a minor) in psychology. The idea of graduate school to obtain a degree in counseling is a future notion. Whether I go to graduate school or not, I figure psychology would be a good thing to have under my belt when going into ministry.
Dorm life this semester has been a good bit different from last year. I am rooming with one of my friends who I spent a lot of the summer with. We have been through different things together that have caused us to bond. There are many great women on my hall that I have loved getting to know. My roommate from last year and another girl from my hall last year live on the same hall. Between the four of us, we keep each other encouraged. It is amazing to see how God placed me on this hall with girls that have similar things going on in their life. There is such a rich opportunity for ministry, encouraging and exhorting one another. I have found such a great friend in my RA who God has used to become another piece of my inner circle community.

Before I started to write you I thought it would be interesting to read over the past two letters I sent you concerning last school year. I found it interesting how to some extent I am still learning some of the same lessons that I told you about, only in a different way. A friend of mine reminds me that I am not simply going around and around the mountain, but I am going around the mountain and working my way up it in a spiral motion. God lead me into a place of deeper intimacy with Him this past summer and desires for me to follow him into greater intimacy with Him. He continues to heal my heart and reveal more of His character to me. I am learning what it means to give myself grace, after all God has extended His grace to me. Recently God has shown me how the depth of my depravity and weakness, seeing that my strength that I rely on so often is only an illusion. His strength is what provides me with energy when I can’t find any. His strength is not a last resort, but a necessity to fighting for Life. He has also been teaching me what it means to rest, which has been more a struggle for me than I ever would have imagined. I like to be productive and busy, but God’s shown me that I love to rely on my strength to remain busy, instead of rely on Him for rest. Still trying to dwell on these things as God shows me more.
While in talking with someone God gave me such a clear picture of where He wants me. Two words describe this place, pure weakness. Pure weakness is not a place like I had been thinking, but it is Christ. After all He was pure weakness while He hung on the cross. It is relying on Him completely, being completely satisfied in an intimacy with the Father. God was quick to point to what was stopping me from living in pure weakness, that being sin. You see there is this wall, on one side is Jesus and on the other side is me. I am perfectly fine and strong. However the wall is my pride, knowing there are areas of my heart God needs to touch but I won’t let him. I shut him out by building this wall. In my picture Christ comes through the wall and reaches his hand out to my chest and touches me. I feel immense pain; I’m scared and uncomfortable. Yet at the same time I feel comfort and love from Jesus as with His other hand He cradles me. I am sitting there and God has led me to a place of repentance. I felt such godly-sorrow. God lead me in love to my sin so that He could do greater work.
I wish I could take you to each place in the past couple of months that God has spoken Truth into my life. He has taken me from looking only to my pain and sitting in despair to focusing on Him and seeing there is hope. I’ve been learning what it is to take heart and that taking heart is actually worth it, for God’s kingdom is coming. 2 Corinthians 4 has been a great encouragement. I have learned to listen to and take my hurts to God allowing Him to restore me. I’m gaining wisdom in the area of boundary setting with other people and with myself, through a class on Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s Boundaries. A quote by Oswald Chambers has been a great challenge to me, “No love of the human heart is safe unless it is fully satisfied in God”. I have seen how much of a difference it makes when I go to God to be satisfied. He can use me more in my community, I don’t depend on people for my needs, and I have peace.
It was in the furnace that God showed himself being with Daniel’s three friends. The furnace was turned up much hotter than normal and the three men trusted God. They trusted Him if they died, they trusted Him if they were spared. It was in the furnace they saw His face. After a group of my close friends and support had gotten done praying over me, my friends’ dad told me this. To trust God and to not bow, but to stand because it is in the furnace that God shows His face.

The College Girl