If I ever have anything intelligent to say on here ever again, I will be surprised. And I'm not sure that anything I ever said was in fact intelligent. But now, my conclusion comes from the fact that I am plum tuckered out (yes, that's southern-speak).

Randomness of the day: there was a guy who plays MN football in my Latin American class today, and he is from Atlanta...he went to Lassiter High School, and I know lots of people who went there. It's in the same town as 'my' high school - Pope. Even though I went to Pebblebrook. It's complicated.

Also, I am now taking my first summer classes ever. I don't think it will be that bad. But add work and fundraising to that, and I think we've got a fast-paced, I'm-going-to-need-time-off-when-this-is-over summer. We'll see how this goes. God promised He would be there. So I'm going to believe it. It's funny how at peace I feel about this now, when before I was so not sure about it at all.

So, let's talk about trust. There are, I think, two kinds that play out in life: the first starts in your head and heart. It's more of an idea, kind of like "yeah, I could trust this or that," and the second is practical trust - the kind that plays out in your life. It comes from the first kind of trust. So I would say that the first can exist without the second, but the second cannot exist without the first. I had the first kind of trust for a long time. Mostly because I didn't take any risks. I had the IDEA that God was trustworthy and faithful. And it played out well - I saw it a lot. But it was a passive seeing. I wasn't experiencing it to the fullest extent. And I'm thinking that this is why the EDGE decision was so difficult. I'm good at trusting God for things that don't require much on my part - no risk taking or possibilities of being hurt or anything. I'm not good at trusting Him with the things that really cost me something. And I'm pretty much getting the feeling from some time I had with Him that it's only going to get harder - but also that He'll be right there with me, not rejecting me, not casting me off. But I still find it to be difficult. But what is faith, if I don't let Him work. I prayed for deeper intimacy with Him. I prayed that I would be broken so I would not try to do life apart from Him. I prayed that I would matter for His name and renown on the MN campus. Did I think that would be easy? Did I know what I was praying myself into? Do I know, even now? I don't think so.

But I know that I'm at least feeling emotion now. I recognize more often the times when I turn to idols. I've heard His promise that He will answer when I call, and He will cause me to defile the idols and altars I've set up. I'm working out of a broken, bleeding, hurting faith. I have nothing to give, even though I still try to make it look like I do. I look at myself, wondering how God can work with a mess like me, and why He even wants to. And then I find myself wanting only to lay facedown at the foot of the Cross. I don't want to be anywhere else, ever. Where else can I go? Who else can heal me from my sinfulness and my hurt and my emptiness?

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered [and will suffer] the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-- that I may know him...

Those verses are going to mean a lot to me in the coming months.