My Recent Experiment

Hey y'all!

I really don't know where to start...I've been having kind of a difficult re-entry, in part because I haven't been able to transplant the personal healing I experienced in DF to El Paso. I think I've fallen into a lot of the same traps I was in before I left; however this time I'm not planning on staying there. I think though that most of the issues I've been having can be attributed to the fact that I've been driving myself into the ground since I've gotten back. I've felt a lot of pressure to "get back into the swing of things." School must go on....IV events have to start up and since I'm chapter president this year I feel as though I have to "hold it together" for everyone else in the chapter and when I lose it I feel like a really crappy leader. I know in my head that I can't keep it together and that God alone can, but I just wish my heart would get the news. Unfortunately, I'm feeling really apathetic about school some days I just want to bail and help out with flood relief in Juarez (we've been getting insane amounts of rain around here lately), but I keep telling myself that my degree will be a useful tool soon.

Despite these difficulties I'm not all doom and gloom. I've been getting a lot of support from the chapter and our women's small group has started off well. Yesterday I took my first step in "experimenting" and "exploring" (the words I kept hearing from God all summer) by going to a new church. I didn't want to because I've always been a denominational transient---a perpetual visitor--having been everywhere but belonging nowhere. Even though I was having issues with the church I had been attending for a year, I didn't want to leave it because it was an area of stability in my life. However; I went, feeling unsure of everything and as I looked up at the liturgy up on the screen and listened to the rock music reverberating through the cathedral I finally admitted to God how tired I was. Tired of searching for stability and indentity in everything but him. So I sat and cried through the announcements, birthday blessings, communion, and the benediction---understanding at this point of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion that I am fully unable to function--deficient but for God who is filling me, restoring me, and refreshing me.

In the next few weeks I'm going to try and get plugged in as a volunteer and begin the second phase of experimentation. Here goes something....

Hope y'all are all doing well!