back from tanzania and grace/sin excerpt from way back

got back from Tanzania barely two days ago, so i'm back in town. things were great, truly amazing. getting to be immersed in a different culture, getting to work at an orphanage, getting to escape from everything i've known for three weeks and start over. so i must admit that a chunk of my heart is still in Africa with all of the orphan girls i have been blessed to have relationships with. the orphanage/organization we were working with was called JBFC (http://www.jbfc-online.org/new_page_1.htm).

and so, we will be leaving again this upcoming Friday for Michigan, a youth group mission trip for about two weeks. i am looking forward to it immensely - i even get to be a small group leader, which is something i've wanted for a while. and i think we'll see God there. things will be different, for at least two weeks. so i think no amount of preparing will precedent what will happen on this trip.

things that have been going on:

i'm jet lagged. i didn't think it was so bad, but i went to sleep at around 6 or 7 without dinner and woke up around 4:30 in the morning and can't really go back to sleep. which prompts this - i think i'm gonna go running. it's pretty dark outside, so i could even drive somewhere like Turkey Mountain and catch a sunrise, or i could ride my bike some mad distance and just relax, which might be the better idea.

and i went in to see Jojo and get supposed training yesterday at New World Buffet, if i wanted to work there. i guess they're understaffed. anyways, Cynthia was there, because yesterday was apparently her first day since they hired her on the spot. haha...i worked there for around an hour and a half making cheese wontons. i think if i want a job there, i could get one, for the four or so weeks between the time we come back from Michigan and the time i leave for OU. well, i would like to enhance my people skills, no matter how intimidating it is to start (part of me just doesn't want to embarrass myself by making the elementary mistakes, but i want to get a job at OU to meet people...)

and i'll be putting up my mission trip journal from Tanzania, i'm writing a lot of it now - i'll probably have cut and uncut versions so that people from school don't have to weed through spiritual jargon. but anyway, i'll get that up ASAP and, in the mean time, i'll leave you with something i wrote a while back (haha, and i don't know when i wrote this, but i found it on my desktop):

it had never occurred that sin, though essentially the barrier between us and God, could not be broken by God. i was wondering whether i couldn't see or feel God or whatever because of my sin and realized that God is so much larger than that. it's wrong and all - but i think He realizes we struggle with this because He is an understanding and just God and He knows that we cannot reach His standards of perfection.

what i try to say is that i walk around in sin, and God probably doesn't like to see that, because life is just like a love story that we have fallen away from. in the definition of love, it is like God says our sin isn't a part of us, like it is something that we can escape from - that the brokenness of life isn't actually something that will stand in the way of its Creator. though we have turned our backs, God somehow says He'll take us back. That while we are really so wretched and unstable beings - that we have taken so long to get to the point when it seems like a right to be able to look at a girl and only see her body and not her heart, or that it seems a right not to listen to someone because they disagree with you - that while we are truly wretched, God doesn't see us that way. God wants us back - He acts like He is the one who owes us something, when in fact, He doesn't even need us.

it's like i walk around with my head cut off, testing things i'm constantly learning are stupid and lead to God. There's a Sanctus Real song that says "I'm not alright, I'm broken inside, broken inside. And all I go through leads me to You." And how we keep on turning our backs to God because we think there's something else that can keep us from being broken and we never get that kind of satisfaction or justification and we have to come crawling back with our nothingness once again. but as the race progresses and faith takes a step towards real seriousness or dependence, it should be noted that these "falls" become less frequent and perhaps more intolerable, because we are closer to realizing that God, for the nth time, is right, and we can't go around living without Him, because we fall on our faces and fail. it should then be noted that this sin that stands in our way, or in our faces - it's got nothing on us. Jesus died so that sin wouldn't have dominion over us, so even though it has defiled our pasts, we can have something more than brokenness, at least in the face of eternity. But the only thing more than brokenness is...perfection. we will be made perfect by His love.

though i keep falling down, disillusioned and discouraged, sin doesn't have dominion. though i keep losing faith in times of crisis, it can be done. my faith can resolve because sin doesn't have control - it's God. And God must realize this (well, duh) because He doesn't look at the sin in us - though He sees it, He doesn't condemn us to hell because of it. He looks at obedience and faithfulness because everybody has already fallen down, and now there's a wonder as to who will get back up. and whoever gets back up will undoubtedly face more and more failures and challenges - and he might hate that everyone seems to be speeding through life because they have just chosen to stay down. but seeing how far you can get in life is meaningless if you've never gotten up from being down in the first place - if you can never get past the idea of being broken and needing some kind of Savior to redeem you.

[everyone wants to rely on themselves and make a lot of money or have a lot of friends so that they can redeem themselves from brokenness - i don't think they pull it off. it never worked for me, at least - though i always thought if i had more money or more friends, that would make up for everything. the pursuit doesn't satisfy - just like drugs or lust or money or winning big at a casino. you can't stop following them because you don't want to believe that it's not going to be worth it. on the other hand, the same could be said about Christian faith. except i think we know our faith is true and justifiable, more unlike lust or money, because this whole faith idea is a promise from God that says if we keep going with it, He'll give us true life. and i think we know it's right because we can feel it and how it makes sense and how God leaves us with the Holy Spirit to interact with.]