Back in October I wrote a note entitled "Where do I go from here?" (Which you can find on my facebook, if we're friends.) I was really wrestling with a lot of questions after watching a video that World Impact staff members came to share with Greenville's campus during Global Impact week. This message that Beth and Jason came to deliver reverberated in my heart so loudly that I could not ignore it's presence. I felt God both convicting me and calling me. I knew that I needed to do something, but I wasn't sure what that something was. After attending the video presentation during Global Impact week I decided to attend Urban Plunge. During Urban Plunge weekend, my heart was once again stirred with a passion for serving the inner city. Again, I didn't know where to go with this. In the spring semester I attended Urban Plunge for a second time. I spent the weekend learning even more about the plights of the inner-city poor. Once again, I felt called to do something. However, this time, I knew what that something should be. Instead of writing passionate heartfelt facebook notes or spending weekends learning about poverty, I needed to become a part of the effort to deliver hope and love to the inner city. I decided to take an application and fill it out to become a summer staff member with World Impact. Making the decision to be a part of World Impacts summer staff has been really tough. However, each time I came up with a reason I shouldn't go, God showed me a stronger, better reason that I should go. So I have officially decided to spend the summer in St. Louis, bringing my piece of God's love to the inner city.
I know this is a very long and drawn out post, but I just wanted to
give you all the opportunity to join me in pursuing God's calling for
my life.
If you are interested in supporting my ministry this summer, whether
that be through prayer or financial support, please let me know so that
I can keep you updated on what God is doing for me and through me this
summer in the inner city!
So, life has been one crazy roller coaster ride for me lately. Funny story? I hate roller coasters, especially the ones with lots of upside down loops, twists, and high speed turns. Needless to say, I don't really approve of this ride my life has decided to take. Starting in the middle of May, I'll be moving back home. My stay at Greenville College is officially ending. It's been a good experience, and I guess I've learned a lot about myself being here... but this just isn't the place for me. I'll do a year at IVCC and get an Associates of Social Work degree, and then transfer to Illinois State to complete a BSW degree. I'm hoping that I can get an apartment before I start ISU, because I know my mother and I can't live under the same roof for too long. Oh, right, I"m not living on campus at ISU. My dorm life days are over. I LOVE dorm life...but, when it costs an extra $7, 200... I think I'll pass. It actually turns out that I will manage to get out of college only owing only $5,464 for my education...stupid Greenville.
I'm ready to start a new chapter in my life...again.
I think I get really discontented with life really fast. I long for things to happen, and when they do... I'm ready for the next big thing. I'm really ready for college to be over. I don't think I'm really cut out for it. I just don't like it. Maybe it's just that I don't like the college I'm in... but I don't know. I feel like college has been keeping me from taking control of my life. Like, I know you supposedly have "more freedom" once you go away to college.. .but I feel like I've actually become even more restricted in what I can do since I've started college. I don't know what I think moving back home is going to do for that... but, it's really what I feel like I need to do. I have a new plan for my life... and I'm sure, just like my old plan for my life, it isn't going to go the way I want it to... but, I can still plan and hope.
I know what it is to be hopeless, and I know what it feels like to be poor- but, even more than these things- I know what it is to be saved from despair by grace and I know what it feels like to be rich in the love of Christ. 1 Samuel 2:8 says “He raises up the poor from the dust: he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and on them he has set the world.” My story, is this story. My story is only one of many stories that is embodied in this story. I have had an encounter with a God who raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, and that is the story that I wish to tell you.
I was born and raised practicing a religion that I did not understand and that was not my own. I went to church on Sunday mornings because that is what good Christian girls did. God seemed to me to be a faint and distant God who was pleased with me when I did the things that good Christian girls do. I only knew what other people told me about God because I had never even thought to question these beliefs. At about the age of thirteen this image I had built up of God began to crumble around me. By this time in my life my parents were divorced, and my father was suffering from a drug addiction that caused him to shut me out of his life. My mother had begun to suffer from mental illness, and the responsibility of caring for her fell on my shoulders. My now single mother could not work, and the responsibility of providing for our family became the responsibility of my fifteen year old brother. Government support became the only reliable way of providing for our physical needs. After a string of abusive relationships my mother’s condition worsened, and she herself became violent. I could not understand why all of these things were happening to me, after all, I was a good Christian girl who did the things that good Christian girls do. All of my “goodness” had gotten me no where. I began to feel that I was not good enough for God and that he had abandoned me because I did not quite measure up to some intangible standard. I became extremely depressed, and had no hope for a real future.
During my teen years I always identified myself as a “Christian,” but I never understood what that meant. I believed that a God existed, but my vision of God was of a God that could never be pleased with me, and so I gave up trying. During this time my life spiraled out of control. I found myself in and out of mental hospitals dealing with my depression, self injury, and multiple attempts at suicide. On the outside I continued to uphold my façade as a good Christian girl who did good Christian things, but on the inside and in privacy I was beaten and broken. Getting out of bed in the morning and putting on a smile was often the most difficult part of my day. This continued until my sophomore year of high school, which is when God revealed Himself to me for who He really is.
At the age of sixteen I met a woman named Caryn who became God’s way of showing his love for me. I could talk to her about all of the problems in my life that made me feel hopeless. When my mother’s mental illness worsened and I felt trapped, it was Caryn who rescued me from my abusive home and gave me a home among her family. Caryn became the support through which I could begin discovering myself and most importantly a real image of God. After Caryn came into my life, I could no longer be angry at God. He had shown me through His gift of her how much He truly did care for me and love me. I began attending Christ Community Church, where I found the love of God poured into my life. In this supportive environment I slowly began to reconstruct my view of who God is.
I no longer see God as a distant God who is pleased solely by my good works. God has become to me a loving God who delights in having a relationship with me. On this journey I have embarked upon with God, I have learned that things are not always as they seem. I still struggle at times to believe that God loves me in spite of my sins and that when I am not a stereotypical “good Christian girl,” He does not turn His back on me. When I find myself in this position I look back on the parts of my journey where I felt abandoned, and see how they have shaped the person that I am today. In those moments of my life I see that God was not abandoning me, He was strengthening, preparing and laying down the foundation in me that would allow me to do His work.
My journey with God has taken me places that I have never imagined for my life, and He continues to guide and direct my life. God has placed in my heart a calling toward the people who are poor in spirit. People who have been beaten by the circumstances of their lives, and can see no hope. God has called me to share with them the hope of my story. For once I was hopeless, and now I abound with hope because someone shared with me the good news of Jesus Christ and helped me to discover God in a real way. It is my hopes that through interning at World Impact I can be the bearer of God’s amazing, wonderful, awesome news to a people who feel hopeless.
What aspect of your personality could use a little work?
If I could change anything about my personality, I think I would be more confrontational and tell people how I feel. My inability to confront people or express my feelings sometimes makes my personal relationships really difficult. So, I guess I would change that.
This year's theme for chapel has been "Learning to listen for God." We've heard sermon after sermon on listening for God in other people, learning to listen for God in music, learning to listen for God in classes, learning to listen for God in scripture... but, we have yet to learn how we are supposed to listen for God in our trials and struggles. Right now, that would be a really useful lesson for me. I know God is attempting to teach me something, there is something I need to learn or something I need to do...but, I cannot figure it out. What does God want from me? Have I not been listening for Him enough in my music and my classes and the scriptures and all of the other countless ways I've been taught to listen to God? Why is he using all of this pain and stress and confusion to try and teach me something? How is he attempting to mature me right now? I am by no means angry at God right now for my circumstances, because I know that I have to go through them for a reason. I just want to understand. I know from experience that I won't understand until I get through everything and look back on it...but, sometimes I just feebly hope to know something before then. Ok, this is turning into random stream of consciousness writing that is about to stop making sense, so I'm going to stop writing.
If you could teleport to any place in the world right this second, where would you go?
I would go to Kigali, Rwanda or Kampala, Uganda.
*sigh* two more years.
So, in light of a lot of recent events, I have come to a conclusion about life that I have never quite stumbled upon before. This conclusion is that you have to live life big. This sounds really cliche, and I realize this. However, it occurred to me yesterday that I definitely live life on the sidelines, with so many excuses for why I can't do things: "I don't have enough money," "I don't have enough time," "I could never really make a difference, so why try." And I have come to realize that these are all just excuses that are overlaying a much less intricate excuse: fear. I live my life on the sidelines because I'm afraid of the risk it takes to really do something and to really make a difference. I'm afraid to risk upsetting my fairly comfortable life. My life is predictable, I know roughly what will take place and when it will take place. The events in my life are fairly constant. The faces rarely change. But I wonder what would happen if I decided that my goals were worth the risk? What if I decided 'You know what, I'm going to spend a summer in Africa working with orphaned Children?" or "I'm going to intern at World Impact, and maybe I'll make a difference in the life of someone." I think my life would probably be better. But then there is always that possibility of loss, and thus the necessity of risk. I tell myself 'Stephannie, you are working towards doing the things you want to do, you are going to college to get a degree so you can do the work that you are passionate about." But, do you really need a college degree to pursue a passion? In the long run, I will probably utilize my degree and that is a valid statement... but for the here and the now... I'm stagnant. I'm not going anywhere or doing anything. I'm not pursuing my passion for right now. And, three years down the road isn't guaranteed to me. There is a very real possibility that I will not live life long enough to complete my undergraduate studies in social work, get a job, and start making a difference in people's lives. So, I realize that I have to get involved now. I have to stop making excuses for my fear, and face it. M Scott Peck writes in his book "The Road Less Traveled" that the only way to solve life's problems is by solving them. At first glance this seems redundant and rather silly, but in all honesty... it's true. I can't solve anything until I take the risk involved to face my fear and solve them.
How do you keep calm?
Submitted by L33tchica.
I write. Or I draw. Or I color. Or I listen to music. Or I drum my fingers and tap my feet.
Thats all, kind of.
I'm not entirely sure why I now have a vox blog, other than mild boredom after my environmental science lab this morning. I already have a livejournal, that I rarely ever use, so why do I need another blog? I just don't know. Anyhow, I guess I should write about something other than my confusion about why I'm writing.
Today is the third day of my second semester at Greenville. The experience thus far has been quite...stressful, to say the least. First semester was a blow off for me, and I never really had to do much to get my grades. This semester, however, promises to be no cake walk. I have statistics, which in the first fifteen minutes of class made me cry. I have research and writing, in which my first paper much be sixteen pages long. I have COR 102, in which I am expected to become a bible scholar. And, as if those three were not enough, I have developmental psychology, which at minimum requires forty pages of reading a week. I have one blow off class, which is environmental science. I am very glad for those four credit hours that will require little to no effort on my part. This semester is also going to be a challenge for me because I have to re prioritize some things in my life. First semester I was really unfocused, and allowed myself to be distracted by a lot of things. I got lucky in getting the grades that I did. So, this semester... things have to be different.
In other news?
I need to go to class.
