Reflect Deflect

i'm in a weird place right now. this is my last night i'll be spending at usf until september, i've said goodbye to most of my friends, taken my finals, packed all my stuff, lent out many of my possessions, and now here i sit. contemplating everything. it's going to be hard for me to leave all of this behind so that i can fly across the world and do whatever God is calling me to do. what's my struggle, you may ask? i'm too strong and independent. that might sound like a good thing to the world, but it isn't in comparison to God's power. who am i to think i can handle this? i can't! i'm terribly flawed and yet i try to rely on my own strength, and i'm stupid for it, but i also know that i'm not alone in this. i have a tendency to distract myself with stuff if something negative is happening in my life, i try to pretend like everything is all right when it legitimately isn't. it sounds ridiculous, but i've recently learned that i can be sad, sadness is a normal emotion and it doesn't make you any less of a person if you cry. hooray for revelations.

my life has drastically changed over the past year and i am almost positive that i would not have felt ready to take this big of a leap at that time, but i know i'm ready now. i'm not going to write about my testimony in this blog, but i would be more than happy to tell you it if you would like to hear it sometime. i've been stretched and attacked, loved and traumatized, but i would not be who i am without these experiences. i've felt the Holy Spirit surround me (Jesus forcefield!), experienced His protection and humor, and felt God's voice speak to me. sometimes i doubt whether or not i made the right decision by taking a semester off of college and leaving all my friends and family behind, but He always always always reassures me that He is the one calling me and that i should always follow. i know i need to be a sheep, but most of the time i feel like a goat.

thank you for helping me both spiritually and financially as i've prepared for this trip, i'm really looking forward to this next step in my life, but i still need your prayers. this is going to sound kind of weird, but i need prayer that God will weaken me and take away my strength, His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in weakness. i need to be weak in order to learn and absorb everything that's going to be flying at me during the next six or seven months of my life.

Romans 1:16!!