Sleepy Day

It's a rainy day today and will be for the next couple days. That means they are also sleepy days. I wanna take a nap, but I prolly won't. This way I'll sleep better tonight. I have less than a week left before arriving back on campus at Moody. I'm waiting with great anticipation at the semester ahead. It will surely be a busy one. What I'm not eager for is dealing with the confusion about my school bill... I thankfully decided to take a look at it recently and I'm glad I did. Somehow I have a remaining balance from last semester of $2,000. I sent an email to ask about this and they said it was true and that the payment plan also needed to be payed for at $35. They said the deadline for this was two days later... how often am I able to check my email while here? By the time I checked it... time was up. They said the system would knock me out of the payment plan and I'd have to pay it all up front (including the $5,200 total Fall bill). Needless to say... this is not desirable.

I'm kinda frustrated here because I'd assumed if I registered for the payment plan the money would automatically be subtracted from my account... like it should be if you say that's what you want??! I'm already registered for classes so I don't know what's going on here. They've yet to write me back about it. If I have to pay it all up front though, I would certainly have to trust God next semester and likely work myself to death. Lord... umm... I'm trying to trust Ya here.

I taught Sunday school yesterday with the last lesson on Jehovah's Witnesses. I reviewed some of the common passages the JW's twist and shared some exegetical insights. For the most part the truth was seen within a few verses from the one they were distorting. Context is still king. I love the quote: "A text without a context is a pre-text for a proof-text." I also discussed the details of how they start a conversation with you as they come door to door then gave a few approaches on how to respond and witness back to the witnesses. We had most of the high school group and all of the junior high in one room. It was a large group. Partway through I had to speed it up due to time and as I did so I realized that I had forgotten the nervousness of not having regurlarly taught this group and my excitement about the truth I was sharing matched the speed I was teaching. The youth were hooked and interested. I wasn't disoriented as the class ended and I praise God that He used me to help those kids and teens articulate God's truth. I'm continually amazed at what God does and how He does it.

I face a busy week. The packing part is not what I'm talking about. Currently I work 32 hours, have 2 meetings with friends before I leave, plan to help someone move, gotta fix this school bill thing, wanna schedule a doctor's visit, gonna visit my mom, and who knows what else in between. One of those meetings is with a former co-worker who isn't a Christian that I've been talking with for some time. Our conversations have been fruitful every time and I appreciate how I see God drawing him. Please pray for those conversations.

After the last blog entry I feel I should clarify something as I was asked to. My ex-girlffriend read my blog and felt it would be right to call me, explain a few things, and give an update. This was a call I was surprised to get but it left me with a bit of relief and also got me thinking... as I suppose it would have anyway. She called to say there was bitterness, but there isn't anymore. It had been dealt with for a couple weeks now. I didn't know that when I wrote the entry. It's interesting how God works. It turned out we were both praying about and for eachother individually for some time now. God really has been working on hearts. For this I can only praise Him more and know that He is good. I feel also that clarification is needed on my part. Some may read that entry and see it as gossip, slander, or a sob story from a victim. None of these things were my intention. The entry was simply an expression of my felt perceptions. I was being openly honest about how I felt. That's where it ends. That's it. That's all. Consider this illustration: There's a counseling meeting between two people... one says to the other "you are always angry at me." The other says, "Why would you say that? I don't feel angry at you." The counselor then says to person B, "For person A your anger toward them is real and exists for one reason or another. The solution won't come though by arguing over whether or not you are angry, but rather why they perceive you as angry and if anything they're perceiving is valid... it needs to be worked out. That needs to be dealt with and understood before reconciliation can happen." Usually by the time they've reached the counselor, whatever relationship the two had is almost completely dissolved. A perception and miscommunication or no communication can simply explode into further steps and create more and more drama.

I say all that to say I believe this is similar to what happened here. For those who read this, please don't give me more or less credit for anything, don't eisegete or read anything into what I'm saying :/

I throw my hands up in surrender.