Reflecting upon Fall 2013
This past quarter was the hardest quarter by far for me. There were times where i wanted to break down in tears. Through it all, I've realized how blessed I am. In the midst of all the crappiness; God continually gave me things to be thankful for. This is my quarter in review:
Fall 2013 by far was my hardest academic quarter. Even though I took only 13 units, they were all engineering classes. Homework piled up, with projects, and midterms for 4 weeks straight. The killer was when I got one of my midterm scores back. I got a F even with the curve. In my mind, I was like "oh crud, I've never failed a class in my life." All these thoughts were going through my mind that instant. "My dad's going to kill me if I don't pass","There goes my summer", "Poop". I couldn't enjoy my Thanksgiving Break at all. After a day into my break I came to accept my grade. I've always known that grades don't define me, and that God is always going to be the same despite on how I do in a class. That piece of knowledge became a lot more of a reality after failing. So just being confident in where I was in God's plan, I studied my butt off. If I passed, God is good. If I failed, God is still good. As long as I tried my best and gave Him the glory in my studying, that's all I cared about. He could use whatever outcome to draw me closer to Him.
Getting a job this quarter was a blessing and super humbling. I got a job with food services on campus. I cooked customized pasta for people, tossed custom salads, moved storage, and cleaned. My favorite part was interacting with people. It seemed pretty intimidating to begin with, but after a while it became enjoyable. I got to cook for my fellow students, and talk to them at the same time. This job experience was a nice break from the christian bubble for me. It was nice getting to know people out of fellowship, both my co-workers and customers I interacted with. God was always reminding me that I was there at work to rep His name. To me it was nice that I had extra cash but it came with a price. My physical and spiritual health took a toll. At the end of the day I was always tired, and on top of that I had to study my butt off to pass my classes. So at the end of the quarter I decided to resign. I came to the conclusion that I can work all day after I graduate. Plus I felt super anti-social this quarter. I didn't have time at all to catch up with people or invest into new friendships. So with all those factors in mind, I quit. Through it all, I was able to learn what hard work really meant. I'm grateful that God humbled the heck out of me. I've gained mad respect for people that do food service for a career. They work their butts off for minimum wage and to support their families. Mad respect!
Roommates and being sick:
With all the work that came with academics and a job, came the physical toll. I got sick at least 3 times this quarter. This was probably the most I got sick. There were some days where I had to drag myself to go to class. I used up boxes of tissues because my nose was running for daysss. I did feel grougy a couple of times and didn't want to be near people or talk to anybody at all, so sorry if you caught me during one of those times. I think to add on top of everything I had issues with one of my roommates. I got along fine with the rest of my roommates, but it was just one in particular. I'll be honest. You couldn't tell anything was wrong if you saw me at home, but in my mind I was hecka frustrated. There were a couple of times where I didn't even want to be home. Yeah, so I am not sure how things are going to work out next quarter. But if anything, God is teaching me a lot of humility. I haven't had that good of a relationship with my roommates of the past.
AACF has been so much of a blessing in my life. They've been really welcoming in my return back. I really love the them of Grace upon Grace. God's grace is lavished on all of us, and we just have no choice but to overflow that kind of love. I was able to realize that by getting involved with outreach. Outreach has an event called free prayer every week where a group of us go throughout campus and pray for fellow students. We break up into pairs and take time blessing people in prayer. One of the most encouraging moment's of the quarter was during free prayer. I was walking on ring road with Andrew (the person I was paired with), and we saw people sitting in front of the social science area. It was pretty crowded, but for some reason this one guy stood out to me. In my mind I didn't want to talk to him. He looked pretty thug, and I just knew he was going to flat out reject us. But at the same time, I felt God tugging on my heart to talk to him. I was like what the heck, I'll go for it. When asked if he needed prayer, he began to open up to us. To my surprise he was a senior ( I totally thought he was a freshman). It was pretty amazing. He talked about his application for grad school, as a bio major and about current family issues he was dealing with. After listening to all of this, we prayed for him. Right after we prayed, he told us that he felt God answered his prayers by sending us 2 to pray for him. In my mind, i was like oh dangggggg. God is so crazzyy. I'm such a judgemental jerk, but God is able to use me in the midst of my weakness to encourage someone else. Yeah, the whole day I was pretty astonished, and encouraged. I was able to get his contact info, and I hope to follow with Him up soon. Yeah, free prayer has honestly been challenging and stretching me in my Faith. Large groups have been great as well. This quarter's them has been about what God has saved us from. In order to fathom what God's grace means we need to know what grace delivers us from. From reflecting on my own life, I already know God's gotten me through a lot. I owe him everything and nothing less.
Thanks for bearing and reading through all of this. I hope this was an encouragement to you, and a testimony of what God is capable of doing. God is just so good in the good and the bad. In both times, never forget to reflect and give thanks for the blessings He has given. His grace is always sufficient enough for me.
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