One more week

Yep, there's one more week until I leave for Virginia.

Many have told me I'll be lonely at first, but I will try my best not to become isolated. I have set out to join a church and spend time with people my age that I meet there. I have a tendency to isolate myself, though, and can overcome the temptation with Christ's strength and wisdom. I used to throw pity parties for myself when I was younger (on two or more occassions at my birthday parties), but ever since I came to know the Lord on a more intimate level, I don't do that hardly ever. Pity parties were for the young Gail who only thought about herself, not for the Gail who knew she was loved A LOT by the One who's opinion matters the most. Even if I don't have close friends for a while in VA, I still have Jesus and I want that to be enough. But why doesn't it seem like enough for me to know the Lord at times. I feel bad for saying it, but I sometimes feel like I am unsatisfied with simply knowing my God loves me so much. That's just the thing...I "feel" unsatisfied, so I don't know what the truth is about where my heart's at. My feelings make me question what's true.

And I feel like a traitor for hardly ever pushing myself to do things I don't want to do. When I just do what I want to do, it seems I am happier and less stressed out. Yet then I lack the motivation to do much for other people, it seems. Or if I do actually want to spend time with God, it sounds so good that, like dessert, I save it for last. But then at the last of the day I'm tired and decide to go to bed instead. Will you help me have discipline, Lord, where I need it? I'm confused and scared of what's to come, if I am in this dry land only after 4 weeks out of college. But plenty of people are out of college and still have a close relationship with the Lord, so that gives me hope. Like my cousin and a few others were telling me, I'll find out plenty of things about myself.

I don't want to do things out of fear. But I don't want to do things only when I FEEL like doing them. I am really glad I forced myself to do humanitarian acts and visit my neighbors when I didn't feel like it, but I did it many times out of fear and worry, not out of love. So when I choose not to do things out of fear, my heart looks ugly to me in its desires for laziness, selfishness, and greed. But even though my heart looks ugly to me, God sees that sin, too, and yet I hear Him saying "Your forgiven, my daughter; move on because I have and I'm going to mold your heart to look more like my Son's". And I simply have to trust that He means what he says! Oh that's so good to hear.

I also want to have feelings and praise God in the good and bad, not just shove feelings to the side due to other peoples' stories of how they went down the wrong road because of those feelings. I need to learn how to live in His grace and I trust that I will, in time. I won't set aside His grace. Thank you, Holly Hoppe, for giving me that book by C.J. Mahaney "Living a Cross-Centered Life" :).

Virginia

The church service today was moving. Mrs. Jones gave me kleenex for a good reason...haha. Along with pastor Dale's sermon on being involved with kids' lives, there was a skit that Erica and some students did and it was bothersome. Bothersome in a way that I really wanted Erica's "attackers" - money, drinking, boys, good looks, and suicide - to just quit keeping her from experiencing the love she first found in Jesus Christ.
Oh man, did it resonate with my heart when Jesus (dressed in a white robe with a purple sash) came to her rescue, standing between all of the grasping attackers and her. That act brought light and joy...a huge smile...to her face! I wish I could say I knew exactly what happened after that, but I was overwhelmed enough by the saving act to take the kleenex out and only see that she got to walk off the stage with Jesus.
I had a hard time not crying this morning at church because it was my last service there for who-knows-how-long and lots of "little" worries kept popping up about family, moving, friends, and my future relationship with God and others.
I'm graduated, though! I don't think it will feel official until I get my actual diploma...I think it comes in the mail but I don't know. I drove home today, realizing it would be a while before I have to make that trip ever again. No more dorm room! An apartment with a kitchen sounds good! Yes, I know I have to clean the kitchen, but that will be worth not having to limit myself to the same microwaveable ingredients and I'll be able to cook things for people. More than likely bake things.
I cried easily today because I was thinking about all of the changes I'll be encountering and so many things that I have set aside in my mind due to my desire to finish classes well. Now it's different and I'm in an unknown area of life when it comes to living without being graded. No wonder, I was in graded-living for 16 years or so. It's exciting, but it will be a challenge for me. I feel like I am unprepared for a lot of things:

• My doctor's appointments this week. Hearing and otherwise. I won't be surprised if I have waited too long to get help with my hearing aids. I really don't understand why I don't use my hearing aids like I should and like I know would benefit me. I think it's because sometimes they help, sometimes they don't, but mostly because I think of the soreness they cause the inside of my ears. I could probably get used to that, I suppose. I need to suck up my pride and go talk to my audiologist.
  
• My trip to Germany (I get to live with two girls and their family for 10 days starting May 17th!). I don't have things planned out specifically, and I don't know how much to plan out and how much I should just let go and fly by the seat of my pants while I'm there.
  
• My trip to Arkansas with my family at the beginning of June. I would love to get to know my family better during this time, to take advantage of it.
  
• And last but not least, my trip up to Virginia. I need to get paperwork filled out and therefore a date set for the exact day I am leaving Carlsbad. Also, I can make the trip up there by myself, but I think it would be fun to have someone come with me. That person is an unknown right now, but I can't expect whoever it is to randomly ask me if I would like company...I probably need to ask others if they have a few days off in the middle of June.

One more thing. It is hard for me to read the Bible when I want to. I don't understand why, but I don't have to. There is so much wealth and goodness in the Word, but I hesitate so often to read it, based on not knowing if I will interpret what I read correctly. But that's where the Holy Spirit helps, no? I would like to ask Him just to help me see and understand the truth in what I read, as well as incorporate it into my life, no matter how long it takes. The Bible is sweet to me, but better than sugar because it doesn't leave my teeth with a gritty-feeling. It's after-effects on my mind and my life are good, unlike the after-taste of chocolate or food. I want it, so I would like to take much more of it in and trust God to help me hear and believe the truth in it!

I'm slightly scared

I feel out of place and like a jerk for not keeping people up to date better on my life, but I've come to learn that not everyone needs to know most of the details of my life. Who said all of your friends should know everything about you at any given time? No one, but I put that burden on myself and I want out of that.
I have only to graduate and then I'll be heading out to either Virginia or some other place unknown. It is exciting, but I am having a hard time concentrating on what I'm here in classes right now for. I get this idea that since every senior I've ever talked to says that they just want to have fun this last semester and so they just don't care as much about their classes, that I should give into that, too.
I don't agree with that, because so far it has only stressed me out more. I am here to learn, but I still don't understand where having fun comes into the picture when my major is looked upon as something to loath. I don't hate Math, it's just that I don't love it. Which aggravates me because I've been spending 4 years learning this subject. So was the time wasted? I don't think God wastes anything, but it's so hard for me to see that right now. How does God do it, or is it true that He doesn't let anything I do go to waste?