Perseverance

Life is so crazy...
For so long I looked forward to coming to CanIL. I loved it here the first little while, and then when the work started getting harder and more frequent and my marks began to drop my love for this slowly deteriorated. Besides, I thought to myself, I don't even know how this fits into my life. Why am I applying myself so much and stressing so much? In some ways, this was a good realization. Realizing that stressing myself out is not why God brought me here was good. But he also didn't bring me here to slack off or give up (besides I'm a Reimer and we DON'T give up and we DON'T slack off- we work hard and persevere through all).
James has been on my reading list lately and he says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
Now this may seem a little drammatic but it is how I've been feeling lately. I do find this time a trial. I am frequently frustrated, overwhelmed, exhausted and sleep deprived. I don't feel smart enough to be here and I sit in class wondering how many more topics will go over my head. Yet James says, consider it pure joy when you face trials. Joy. How can I have joy? I choose joy. I choose to say ok I didn't get those last four terms, but I understand this one! And although it took me three times as long to do my homework as everyone else, at least I finished! I need to stop focusing on my situation, my problems, my frustrations, and remember God is good. That never changes. And what joy I can have in that! God is good and will never leave me. I know that when I am up till 2 am working on homework and all my friends have long since gone to sleep, God is still there. I know that when I am at my breaking point and feel like I can't do anymore, God can. I know when the coffee is not keeping me awake, relying on God will get me through. This is all testing how much I trust God.
Do I trust God to get me through what he brought me to? Do I trust God to use this time to grow me and for my good? Do I trust God to be my strength when I have none? Or am I relying on my own strength? If I rely on God all this will produce perseverance. And do you know what perseverance equals? Maturity, and completeness!! I want that so badly! I want to be mature and complete, lacking nothing! I have hope that one day I will be. One day when I have made it through this mess that we call life, I will be mature and completely, not lacking anything. That gives me hope. That gives me joy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SAD... Replaced with JOY!

Image
SAD... have you heard of it? Not the emotion but the Seasonal Affective Disorder. Although I have never been diagnosed, I do believe that I have this problem in my life. It affects me during the winter or even during grey days. Luckily I moved to Spain where there is a shorter winter, but each day was a lot harder due to culture shock and living in a new country. So... a couple of months ago my organization asked for our yearly goals. I struggled for a while with what do about this, but I just kept hearing health. Emotional, Physical, Mental and Spiritual. These past couple of months I have been seeking to improve on these things. Today I decided to go for a walk/hike through the hills around my little town. I had often noticed how beautiful it all was as I drove up the hill but I had never actually gone and explored. So, today was the day! I went for 1 1/2 hrs with the goal of 10 000 steps! I had my Spanish Christian music in hand and really truly experienced God in such a deep wa
Read more

Trusting Is Tough

This week has been a tough but interesting one. One in which I have really learned to rely on God. Lets start at the beginning... Exactly one week ago I was on top of the world. I loved my life, my relationships, my classes and jsut all around felt completely loved by my Father and by those in my life. But Monday brought this all to a crashing hault. I received an email from BUGirl (a program which young adult women speak to teenage girls about their value and that they are loved by a Creator), telling me that one of their interns had dropped out. Now let me pull you up to speed on this. I had applied for this internship earlier in the year and they had told me that they were all full and that I should apply again next year. So anyways, I heard about this and was so excited! My dream is for young women around the world to know that they are valueable and that God loves them and this was my perfect job! But a few mins after I read this I realized that I was now in a relationship and th
Read more

Not Quite as Easy as Driving Miss Daisy

Image
On March 14 I wrote my final exam for last semester and I am so happy to say that I passed all my finals! Two days later I went on an amazing trip with two of my friends from school V and T. We went to Mallorca (Ma-yor-ca), for those that don't know, it is a Spanish Island located east of Spain in the Balearic Sea. We travelled most of the country in the 5 days we had (although we were called crazy for taking a bus 1 1/2 hrs each way!). It was a great trip and I enjoyed getting to know a new part of Spain and practice the Spanish that we had been working so hard on. I've learned it is one thing to be able to pass an exam, but it is a completely different story to be able to use proper language in daily life. After the trip we returned to Madrid and I have been enjoying a different pace to life. I was supposed to start language study with a tutor last week but due to a few circumstances, it has been postponed to next week. However, my biggest focus at this particular moment is
Read more