an exercise in humility

I am currently applying for graduate programs in sociology. Actually, I'm about finished, with only two due dates ahead of me and my active roles all completed. I am applying to nine Ph.D. sociology programs and have already received notice that I have been accepted into one program (as I haven't heard from any others, that makes it 1 for 1, I guess).

When I came down here to Mexico it was for several reasons, but one was that I wanted to practice trusting God, if that makes sense. I wanted to leave my comfortable and under-control life and let God lead me with cultural struggles, raising money, unsureness about the future. Looking back on my journal through the past year I can see that I have grown in how I trust God, but I still don't trust him completely, as these applications have shown. I was a little bundle of intrusive worries - worries that would subside as I focused on my work or my friends, but which surfaced with pinches of awareness in how I still had to finish this and send that off and oh no! I don't think I changed that information before I attached it to the email!

Currently, as I have finished my part, these worries surface when the online status updater lacks my GRE scores or my transcript. What in tarnation? That should have been there since October. I have to stop and tell God again that I want him to be in control. I place this application in his hands. There's not much I can do, but I want to practice trusting.

I also have to practice humility. I didn't start off needing to, as I didn't have much confidence in being accepted (I thought I had weak research experience.) There was a huge difference once I heard from the first school, though. It began with a grateful acknowledgement that now I have an open door to receive a Ph.D. But before long I was thinking "ah, this personal statement is fine. It's already gotten me into grad school," and expecting to hear positively from all of my other schools as well. Is there such a thing as gluttony of schools? I can only attend one at a time, but I want to be accepted into all of them.

Oddly, I think often of the people with whom I attended high school, thinking how I will increase in their estimation. People for whose opinion I have cared little, but over whom I still desire superiority. Odd the workings of our human nature, hm?

Isaiah 26: 12 - Lord you establish peace for us. All that we have accomplished, you have done for us.




I shall also have to be careful in my social life, for, as Jane Austen says "A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can." (Northanger Abbey)

Not a finished product

We had a song on a kids tape when I was growing up, and the words were
"He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.
It took him just a week to make the moon and stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient he must be - he's still working on me."

Five days until graduation! I'll be all shiny and clean and one of 550 other blue-gowned graduates. Like Wheaton is a tube of toothpaste that annually shoots out a big glob of educated young adults. Not finished, in process, a step along the way.

It's an interesting feeling to be graduating and thinking that I should be somewhere I'm not - like I should have squeezed more out of my education. Similar to the feeling that I should be writing incredibly profound and insightful things in my blog - that one day I'll put it in a book that will bring hope and joy to millions.

I leave with you this thought "God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal, 'the Lord knows those who are his.'" 2 Tim 2:19. I do not have to prove myself, I do not have to act like a finished product. He's still working on me, and he knows those who are his. I rest and trust in his work, delighting in the adventure he has set me on.

The first step of the adventure I have some idea about - at least locationally I'll be in Mexico. Step by step, because he's still working on me.

Isaiah 43

When we come to Jesus, we are not promised instant change. It is not a Jesus pill. It is a relationship. Regeneration happens over a lifetime, though sometimes the changes are immediate. Trusting God does not mean that it will all work out the way you plan. Trusting God means that you know that all things work together for good, even when we cannot see the good at this time.


Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name - you are mine.
When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.
When you walk through fire you shall not be burned. And the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel,
Your savior.


Walking with God does not mean that we are always in the green pastures - he leads us through valleys, through the waters, through the fire. But he promises his presence and that will be enough for me.

Fresnillo

I have pretty much decided that I will spend the next year working in Fresnillo, Mexico at a church. It's an Anglican church, and that's really attractive to me. I've grown up in low-church settings, but taking Historical Theology this semester has brought the fullness of Christian tradition to my attention. I want to learn more about that, walking through the Church calendar with a community.

The organization is called Christ for Children, International. I will be working especially with the kids in the church and in the neighborhood, organizing and leading Kids Clubs. I've taken three years of Spanish, but it will be an exciting challenge to learn how to effectively communicate the gospel cross-culturally and linguistically. Working with Mexican kids will also probably be a lot different than working with the Midwestern elderly, as I do at the nursing home. God's always leading us.

I'm also really excited about the community that I'll be joining. It's quite scary and sad to leave my friends and community at Wheaton. I know that no community of Christians is perfect, but I think that this will be good for me - to step into this rather than step out on my own (though I am never really alone).

Interview Schminterview

I have an interview this afternoon! I will be going to a place called Geneva Foundation which works with adolescent boys who are aging out of the foster care system. It seems like a neat place. If they like me today they'll ask me back for a second interview, so I won't know for a while if I have a job offer.

So many choices. Americans are faced with a plethora of choices and then supposed to choose wisely. If things don't work out, it's our own fault because we could have chosen something else.

My choices are bifurcated. I can apply for and accept a job here in the Chicago area or I can do something totally different; go to Zacatecas, Mexico, and spend 13 months working with kids there. I would be going from a safe comfortable place where I can make my crockpot meals, chat with my roommate, take the El to work, and make wise financial choices. Or I can go to Mexico, a decision which would cost me at least $17,000.

I do not want my life dictated by monetary concerns. Good stewardship, yes. Wise choices, yes. But generosity! Values! Concerns! What is important in my life and do I allow these values to change the way I act?

"we could really use the help down here."

"I called you because you are poor."

I've been applying for jobs in the social service sector of Chicago, jobs where I will be "helping" people who are "less fortunate than I." We've been talking about this in our sociology capstone course, particularly because our discipline of study has given us tools to be able to help others. Yesterday one of my classmates shared the following passage from a book by Jean Vanier entitled Befriending the Stranger. Vanier founded the l'Arche communities, which work with people with disabilities. He has this to say about being in community:

God's ways are not our ways; God's choices are not the choices of society.
God chooses "the poor, the weak, the needy",
those who recognize their poverty -
not just a material poverty but an inability to cope with life.
...
the problem is that we refuse to admit our weakness, our needs, our poverty
because we are frightened of rejection.
We have been taught to be strong, to be "the best", to win in order to become "someone".
Since society tends to marginalise those who are weak we think that weakness means rejection.
So we try to hide our poverty for as long as we can
and to pretend that we are strong;
we build up an appearance of being in control.

We need to hear that gentle, inner voice of God who tells us:
"you do not need to pretend.
you do not need to hide your weakness.
You can be yourself.
I didn't call you to community first of all to help others
Or to prove that you were generous or efficient.
I called you because you are poor,
Just like the ones you came to serve,
And because the Kingdom of God is promised to the poor."

Just keep swimming, swimming swimming.

Is trust like letting go and floating,

Or is trust like swimming,
swimming when you don't know how far shore is, or even which direction, and it's starting to get dark, and you're getting tired.

But you keep swimming.

Here at the end of all things

I'm celebrating a fake holiday today.
It's March 25, and the Ring has been destroyed.

What a great day! An emblem and embodiment of evil and power and control has been done away with, due to the tremendous efforts and sacrifice.

I'd rather we celebrate our New Year on a day like this, when the seasons are actually changing, and the March wind blows a change, than a cold, bitter day in the midst of winter. This day has meaning.

"...the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach." (The Return of the King pg. 199)

"They stood now; and Sam still holding his master's hand caressed it. He sighed. 'What a tale we have been in, Mr. Frodo, haven't we?' he said. ...But even as he spoke so, to keep fear away until the very last, his eyes still strayed north, north into the eye of the wind, to where the sky far off was clear, as the cold blast, rising to a gale, drove back the darkness and the ruin of the clouds." (Ibid, 229).

Moving target

I want my center to be in Christ and I want to live in the reality that my identity is found in Him. Yet as soon as I center myself I allow myself to be distracted. What I need is a staple gun, to staple myself to Jesus, yet I'm afraid I'd just take out the binding ligatures. I run around in my life saying "Jesus help me" as if I'm playing tag with him, getting so close and then jumping just out of reach.

What I need is for Jesus to staple himself to me, 2 Tim. 2:13

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.