Well my last week of school was tough in multiple ways.
Finals were rough... Well, actually just one... Chemistry, my major. That's always great, right? The outcome of that test was not pleasant at all, but hey, my teacher curved a huge amount, so I passed...yay! So much stress was lifted after that. Had I failed, I would not be finishing college on time. Thank God for that blessing, I didn't deserve it at all.
I had made my final decision on which school I am attending next year. I am now a University of Southern Indiana Screaming Eagle... Woo Hoo! That was a huge stress reliever as well. Another decision blessed by God.
This made moving out super hard. I was not just leaving the people I had grown close to for just the summer, but for the rest of my college career. Needless to say a few tears were shed. It makes me thankful that my home home is definitely close to Uindy... I can definitely visit, and that makes me feel a ton better.
The transition home was different, home is different in so many ways... Empty room, empty spot at the dinner table, watching the bus pass by our house everyday and having no reason to stop, and no one to take out the trash.
Even though there is a lot of emptiness in our house, I still feel peace from God, which is amazing. I don't know what others in this situation feel when they don't have faith in God. I couldn't imagine feeling hopeless. I don't want to.
God has already blessed me so much lately... with family and friends and odd jobs to help with my lack of cash flow... it's absolutely crazy. I am so in awe of how amazing He is, and all I want to do is live a life worth for him.
Another crazy thing is how I don't feel worried about hardly anything anymore. I know there are things that I am expected to worry about like funding for college, classes that I need to take being full, and other college junk... but I have decided to put all of those questions into God's hands: I pray about it and I'm given the answer whether it isn't what I wanted. It's so freeing.
My goal for the rest of this summer is to pour out God's love into the middle school kids I lead at youth group, study my bible more, and just to follow my Savior in every way possible. There's a Superchick song that says "Everybody dies but not everyone lives." I wanna be in the group of Christ's followers who lives before they die. Who wouldn't?
There is a song that I listen to daily... "I Will Go" by Starfield. It pushes me to get up and figure out what God's plan is for me, when all I want to do is feel sorry for myself. Hope you enjoy it.
Starting my second semester of college, I never thought the events that have occurred could ever happen to me. I've always been the girl that has a fairly simple life... I did well in school, in my sports, and in my music, and I also have a relationship with Christ that I am proud of. I had the mentality that nothing bad could ever happen to me.
Well, something did happen that changed my life forever;
This is my younger brother Isaac. He was the typical 14 year old boy, a punk who did hardly anything but eat, sleep, and play his video games. One night, while staying at a friends house, he got really sick. He stayed really sick for the next few days, and on January 23, my parents finally took him to the local children's hospital in Indy. By the time they got to the Emergency Room, Isaac's heart had stopped beating and nothing the doctors could do could bring him back. My family and I later figured out that Isaac had Peritonitis, an infection that slowly shut down his organs until his heart gave out on him.
That day was the worst day of my life.
You remember me saying that I thought nothing bad could ever happen to me? Well, let me give you some background information to show why I this was my mindset:
I had just finished my first semester of college at the University of Indianapolis. During that semester, I made many new friends, still managed to stay connected with friends from home, continue playing my clarinet in the amazing Ensemble at school, and still pulling off almost all A's. My relationship with Christ was not as strong as it had been in the summer before, but hey, I was going to church, and no one really cared too much whether I was acting like I loved Christ or not.
So I started my second semester of Freshman year with a little bit of a harder schedule that I had the first semester. That was okay, though, I did well first semester, so I would do well this semester.
I had been back at school for a week before this happened.
I found out after my last class that day. I was getting ready to go to dinner, when I looked at my phone. I had a lot of missed calls, and not soon after I checked my phone I received another call. My sister told me what had happened, and I just froze. What else are you supposed to do? I sought out my amazing friends God had blessed me with, and they stuck with me until I was done packing and ready to leave. When I got home, no one was home. Soon after, though, my best friend came over as well as my youth pastor and they both just sat with me and my sister until my pastor, his wife, and my parents came home. My mom's weeping was the worst sound I have ever heard, and it never stopped that night.
That week I was so angry. Angry at all of the people who could only say variations of "I'm Sorry"(I'm not still mad at them, but when you've heard that phrase literally hundreds of times, it's hard not to be fed up with it), angry at myself for being the strongest person possible for my family, and most of all, angry at God. Why did this happen to me and my family? What did we do to deserve this kind of punishment? The answer to those questions will probably never be answered, and that fact still makes me angry time and time again.
That week God also made himself very known through my friends, family, and my church. One night, the youth group that my brother and I were very involved in got together and just remembered the life of my brother. So much prayer went on there, and so much comfort came from that night. The group of girls I had done small groups with for the last year just sat there with me, even though they had no idea what else to do. My co-leader was also there just holding my hand while Isaac's friends came and shared stories about him. On the night of the viewing, hundreds of people came to comforting my family, but in all honesty, my family was comforting them. We have so much faith in Christ, that He was using us to show his love to other people who aren't lucky enough to have that relationship with him.
That next morning was the funeral. God made his presence known there too. He gave my Mom and Dad and older sister the strength to get up and talk in front of the hundreds of people celebrating the life of Isaac. My cousin then played "Give Me Faith" (Elevation Worship) and "Beautiful Things"(Gungor) on his guitar while the audience worshiped with him. After that, my pastor got up and shared the gospel with all of the people there. I don't know how many lives that changed, if any, but even though I have heard the gospel many times, his words still touched me. God proved to me that morning that if I could put my hope and faith in anything, He was the one who deserved it.
I finally went back to school and decided that I would act as if nothing happened. I would do all my schoolwork, and I wouldn't cut myself slack. This tactic did not work well at all. I had some really easy classes that didn't take much effort, but I mentioned before that I had a harder schedule this semester. I had two very important courses that directly applied to my major, and I kept failing tests and quizzes. This didn't help my anger at the world in any way, shape, or form. But, I kept going, thinking that I was going to keep ignoring the problem, and that my grades would get better.
During this time, was just so confused. I started losing my passion for Physical Therapy, and for the University of Indianapolis. I had built both up in my mind so much, that I did not give myself any room for imperfections. So I decided that I might want to change both things. I had a growing interest in the funeral business (weird right?) as well as an itching to leave Indy. I decided that I was going to look at another school and another major. I did both of these explorations during the week of my spring break. I job shadowed in a funeral home, and even though I didn't see every aspect of the business, I saw enough to know that I had a passion for it. I also visited another college and absolutely loved it! As long as everything works out with money and a few other things, I could maybe take this step in my life.
Before I went back to school to begin the last half of the semester, my mom told me that she was going to schedule an appointment with a chaplain at school. It had been a suggestion from a man who I knew loves me and cares about me. I was so angry at him for suggesting this. What gave him the right to tell my parents that I needed to see a counselor? What gave my mom the right to tell me what to do. I'm 18, I'll do what I want. Anyways, she scheduled a meeting for me, and even though I didn't want to, I went (mostly because she would get off my back about it). That morning, I sat in that office and cried, while telling my story to a guy who didn't even know me. He showed me so much love though, and when the whole meeting was over, said a prayer for me. God had made himself known once again, and I realized I could not keep living the way I was: saying I had hope in Him while in all reality it was slowly fading. (By the way, being hopeless is one of the most painful feelings in the world.).
Life in general has gotten better for the most part since that conversation with the chaplain. I had a plan for my academics, and I also felt more comfortable showing my emotions to the right people. God had given me an amazing friend who loves Him, and who, on one of my bad days, just asks "What can I do?" That question alone takes away some of my initial pain. What did I do to deserve someone who cares about me that much? Nothing. That's the way I feel about both the friend and God. I don't deserve either of them, but they are always there when I need them.
So everything has started to fall back into place in my life, and I have slowly but surely made significant progress through Christ alone. Without Him, I'm not sure that I could have made it as far as I have without breaking past the point of no return. God has been with me through everything: getting my grades up, making my decision on schools next year, landing a summer job (which, by the way, is working at a funeral home and hopefully being able to do some ministry there), and also just taking some time for myself to deal with my horrible loss.
The rewarding thing about it all is that I can still show my faith, which keeps growing every single day. People notice, and are amazed that I can get through each day the way I have. I'm not perfect, and I'm not always happy with the cards I have been dealt, but the countless blessings I have been given from God make life worth living.
Well, hopefully I haven't lost too many of you in this really long blog... Sorry about that.
One last thing though, is that there is an amazing song by Fireflight that was introduced to me by my cousin. It's called "He Weeps," and it just talks about how God weeps up in heaven when we go through hard times. Being reminded of that has helped me a ton lately. Before that reminder, I never really thought about how God was feeling during all of this. I just knew how I felt, and that is not really an emotion I can put with words. I guess the pain one feels when they hear the word "weep" would be accurate. Either way, here is the song:
I guess I have now joined the blogging world. This will be interesting...
Anyways, I guess this blog is being created not only to get things off my mind, but so that the people reading can begin to understand what's going on in this crazy thing called life.
We'll see how this goes.
