My Building...

My building…
So since they started building the new School of Religion building I have referred to it as ‘My Building’ I have always thought of it as mine and no one else’s. kinda like the seagulls on Finding Nemo.. I thought that this building would be where most of my life was consumed, I was wrong. Now those silly statements that I would make kinda sting now when I still say them or someone mentions it. I have realized how powerful the art of suggestion really is in this last year. With enough prompting/teasing/mentioning of a certain subject you can feel either very positively or negatively about that subject. The power of suggestion is astounding.
Because of this I have learned to feel a certain way about many different things and topics. Sometimes this is good and sometimes this is bad. The way you feel about things should not be confined to how others feel about things. We have a free will but it seems to be more rarely used. Often times when we are asked why we feel a certain way about a certain topic we cannot verbalize a reason at all. We feel the way that we do about many things because that how our friends/parents/siblings/co-workers feel about that subject. Free will has seemed to almost disappear. Even in places where opinions are different as different can be and conflict arises, there are very rarely people who can stand up and give a reason as to why they think and believe what they do. And if someone does rise to the occasion they most generally believe what they do solely because of the power of suggestion that someone else had over them.
But what happens when these suggestions conflict each other? What does the individual do? Do they listen to the louder and more numerous voices or the quieter and smaller group of voices? What if the voices are the same volume? What if it is just one voice against all others? Does the individual go with the crowd or against it? Unfortunately most commonly the individual realizes the consequences of listening to the small voices and uses ‘common sense’ and listens and is pulled into the crowd of loud voices.
I suppose all of this was said so that I could say this:
Am I at peace with myself whether or not this is my building? Am I at peace with being an Education Major? Am I at peace with the decisions I am making right now in my everyday life? Or have I had so much suggestion poured into my life that I am falsely at unrest with my decisions? Have I decided to be at unrest or is it the many voices that conflict that have put me where I am today? Well I suppose that is enough rambling for now…
All from the beautiful library in ‘my’ building…

Stress in my life...

So anyone who has been paying any attention to me this last week has probably noticed that I am a bit less ‘me’ than usual. There has been so much going on in my life this year that I cannot even begin to spill it all. I may not be able to finish writing what I want to anyway. I’ll try to hit every point one at a time...
School: school is beginning to overwhelm me. There seems to be no time. I am trying to be organized with my time… but when it seems like there is no time to organize then what can a girl do? I also changed my major this semester to education instead of youth ministry… I don’t feel the same in my education class as I did in my mission classes… I don’t know what I am even doing anymore… I feel like something is wrong with what I am doing... If I don’t have that same passion that I did before than why have I changed? More issues are voiced in this area when I start talking about God…
Friends: who is helping me and who is hindering me? What am I doing with the friends I am with? What kind of friends do I surround myself with? If people around me are a source of stress then why do I associate myself with them? I have had to deal with a suicidal friend and now an acquaintance (Caleb Baber) has had a life threatening and completely life changing accident….
Voices: All I can hear are the voices around me. I don’t know what my voice even sounds like anymore. I can’t decide what I feel or what I think anymore. Other people have dictated my life for so long that I can’t seem to find my own path that I want to travel down. What voice is mine? And how long do I have before I can’t hear my voice at all?
God: What am I not listening to? I feel like I know what I should be doing but I am turning my back on Him to do what I think makes others so much more happy. I don’t know what to do anymore. I ask Him what he wants of me and all I can hear is Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” This is a comfort to me but at the same time it is more frustrating than you can imagine… I know that God has plans for me… and I believe that He has shown me what much of it entails… but I want to know the specifics… I am so scared to take a step of faith and be let down…
Faith/Doubt: I have so much trouble putting trust in anyone or anything that could possibly let me down… I know that this is why I am so worried about taking even one step in faith… because if I do it just gives me a chance to be let down and hurt and it could pretty much lead to disaster at this point in my life… I don’t want to be wrong and do something if it is not what God wants…. Even when I am 99.9999999999% positive it is what God wants me to do… all summer I have been hearing that still small voice talked about in Isaiah… but I have acted on what the loud voices are saying instead… I have listened to the voices I can audibly hear instead of the voice I feel in my heart…
Me: The seat of all my frustrations ultimately lays in myself… I feel like I am a hypocrite… I say that I trust in God and that I am in His will and listening to His voice. Others tell me that I am a woman of God and a good example to others… when in the ultimate reality of everything I am blatantly ignoring His voice that everyone believes I am listening to… it pretty much disgusts me how easy it is for me to fool those around me into thinking that I am perfectly fine… I just feel like I want to throw in the towel and that it would just be so much easier… it seems like one of the only things that keeps me going is the fact that if I actually quit so many people would be unhappy with me… well I guess that enough for now… ill add some more later…
Peace out…