If you are reading this, I would greatly appreciate your prayers for wisdom about the future as to whether God is calling me to stay on withRUF at Maryland for a 3rd year with hopes of going on to get a Christian Counseling degree, and if so for wisdom about where I should go to Seminary. Or, if God is calling me to pursue a masters in Early Childhood Special Needs Education. All of these are possibilities that I am currently praying and seeking discernment about.
While the above is all very important, the real reason I wanted to make sure that I got a blog posted is because I have really been seeing God move in the life of one the girls I have been meeting with and befriending over the past year. So on to that.
Wednesday was quite a whirlwind with Patrick, my co-intern, and I caught a flight back to Dulles, from RUF October Training in Atlanta, in order to make it in time for Large Group Wednesday evening followed by intramural flag football. As we headed back to Maryland my head was swimming with the numerous things I had learn and been encouraged with at training. It is my hope that I will be able to fully communicate this to you as the following was very earth shattering to me. Anyways, during our final seminar on Tuesday Keith Berger began our seminar with the simple question, "What is the Father's view of the Son?" Well, as we know according to the Bible, "The Father's view of the Son is, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well please" (Matthew 3:17). Keith went on to talk about the reality that as children of God and heirs through Christ, that when God looks at us he sees his Son. I know that I often forget this is true, but it really rocked me to the core, for a lack of better words, to reflect on the fact that when God views me, this is what he sees. I don't know about you, but I am all too aware of my deprave sinful nature, and often fall into the mindset that I'm not doing enough as an intern or a child of God. This training, however, I was reminded that above all I am called to faithfulness as I serve here at Maryland. A means of being faithful require my remember that I am a beloved child of God not because of what I am doing or not doing, but because Jesus Chris is my Savior and the one that God sees when he looks upon me.
The realization really has been such a transforming reality. But now on to why I really wanted to blog.
I returned to Maryland excited to be back among the students I've come to love so much and was immediately meet with so much evidence of the Lord at work. Wednesday night a student that I often long to see at large group, but very rarely see just because she is so overwhelmed with work, was at large group. We had a chance to talk afterwards and she shared with me that she has really been struggling because she feels like she's failing to balance all that she is called to do as a student, and also as a Christian. She feels so overwhelmed that she can't do both an has been seeing her self to a large degree as a failure. It was at this point that God placed it upon my heart to share with her what God had been teaching me in that his view of me is really his view of the Son which is, "this is my son with whom I am well pleased." This had been such an earth shattering reality to me I couldn't help but long for her to know that as a christian that is God's view of her, and from that we are free and able to glorify God with our lives. We parted our ways at the end of the evening, with my not having any idea of how God was working in her through this conversation. The next afternoon she sent me a text message simply saying, "You helped me reach a breakthrough last night. I am now here trying to think of all my worries through the lens of the Gospel and what God think of me, not what I think of myself." Reading this brought tears to my eyes as I along with all those who work for RUF long to see students begin to look at the world through the lens of Gospel. It seems abrupt to end this post here, but that is truly one of our greatest desires for the students we meet with and minister to.
Praise God for what He is doing, and please join me in prayer that His Gospel truth will continue to go forth here at Maryland.
