Puzzle Pieces

Imagery burns in my mind.  All week Frank, my co-RA, and various students have worked on a world puzzle in the dorm living room.   As I see them labor over where to place pieces and intently search the box cover to locate the placement, I think of the huge, complicated puzzle my life seems to be right now.

I want to hurry up and get a section together because it helps me put the next section in place.  But piece by piece, as each issue comes up in my life, I sense God's beckoning to trust:


Trust.
Trust that God is good.
Trust that God cares.
Trust that God is able.
Trust that God wants to lead and is leading me.
Trust that the pieces in my hand make sense to Him, even when they are jumbled and overwhelming to me.

Unlike our dorm's 1,000 piece puzzle, I do not need to strain my eyes and labor to perceive where to place one specific piece, a step or a decision about next year.  Recording artist and storyteller, Jason Gray, captures the reality that I am poignantly grappling with these days: "No Thief Like Fear" by Jason Gray (click to listen).  Although I am tired and confused about various things as I seek to faithfully serve in the dorm for my fourth semester as well as prepare to be married and transition in August, my anxious heart is challenged by the reality that "there is no thief like fear."  As I seek God, regardless of whether or not I feel clarity in certain pieces, I am free, ironically.

This week Ryan came to talk to me. Ryan, a senior at another boys dorm, is a deep thinker and fellow song-writer and musician.  His dad is a lead pastor in France.  He comes after school to hang out with some of my dorm guys. Yet, he is always intentional to come talk to me about things he is processing about life, love, and faith.  After last time we talked, I recommended that he read Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung, which greatly shaped my current perspective on seeking God's will in life and decisions.  Ryan is seeking genuine faith and is turned off by what he feels is performance-based Christianity.  Since my guys respect Ryan, when we talk my guys eavesdrop and seem to ponder what we discuss. 

----> Pray with me that as Ryan continues to seek the true God, may he voice his questions to God's "face" as he draws near to God, rather to him "back" as he walks away.  May his searching of authentic faith also draw my guys to Jesus as well.

"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." 

Kitchen Construction

At the end of last year, the plans were in place for a kitchen to go in my current room to turn it into an apartment.  After numerous worker illnesses, setbacks, and unresolved details, God provided a couple of people to volunteer to do parts of the project from shopping, preparing, and the beginnings of installing.  Timothy, a student from the States, helped a man in the community turn my bare room into this in three days of hard work.  Now, we are just waiting on the counter, sink and final things.

I am excited for how God is going to open up opportunities for serve, rest and entertain, using this kitchen in the next months for me and onward for the next female RA.

What Does it Take?

What Does It Take?         

       

A college friend recently wrote me, asking about what tools I have found helpful in working with [cross-cultural] students here.  As I brainstormed an answer, I discovered how much I had grown over the last four semesters since my beginning to work in Maug boys' dorm.  Ironically, it is not about what I brought into the job; rather, what has made the difference in my "effectiveness" has been what God has grown and is growing in me over these years in Germany: 

Teachability / Humility / Not trying too hard / Listening / Vulnerability / Servanthood / Being a learner / Availability / Assuming nothing / Not grouping people / Understanding gradual growth and human nature / Adaptability / Confrontation as a mirror to oneself and an avenue of growth / Asking forgiveness and admitting when I am wrong / Not lying and acting like I have it all together / Having people who call me out when necessary / Asking questions but also sharing one oneself / Giving grace but not oozy / Serving and working alongside / Seeking to build up and get to know co-workers / Learn to be still and just read 

Training for Christian Ministry is fantastic.  I am grateful for my experiences before here; yet, I realize that if I had gone into a girls' dorm or some other position that was "better suited for me" I would have missed out on the extensive growth and brokenness that has brought forth the greatest change in me.
Yes, I would have rather been in my "element," but I would not trade Maug for anything.
Yes, I have had to grieve and reorient to why I am here, but God knew that without "exercising weak muscles," as Anna, the girl I mentor, told me, "you wouldn't become a well-rounded person."  Anna is learning that she "would rather be sorry than safe."  This made me think.  I afraid to admit it, but I agree.  Without risk and getting out of comfortable areas, we will miss out on some good, hard growth and relationships that will not come with a shield of protection and anxious preparation.

"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."