Days when I feel not-so-23-years-old...

I can't believe this is still only the first week of class...it feels like this has been going on forever, in some respects. Today was another day that somehow ends up going from 8am to 10pm with seemingly very few breaks...but again, the schedule is actually not the problem. :)

Today it was finally my Cross-cultural outreach class and syllabus that broke me--I at least managed to wait until almost everyone was out of the room before crying for a good 45 minutes. For a 400 level course there was nothing out of the ordinary expected of us...but I just can't do all of the writing and service learning and all of the things that are only supposed to take me 30 minutes a day and instead take me hours... I'm used to turning in a paper and knowing that it's good, or taking a test and knowing that I passed. I'm not used to simply shrugging and saying, "It was the best I could do...and I don't know if it's good enough."...Sigh.

Even more than the assignments and expectations though was the vocabulary of the course itself. For some reason, we seem to equate missions with "going" and "doing" and "learning" and "serving"...never just sitting and being filled by God. Even the questions based on the Bible tonight were "doing" questions rather than resting questions, and while it could just be the time of life I'm in right now, it seemed that we needed more emphasis on what God does through us rather than what we can do for God. This is, of course, offered in the humble opinion of a 23-year-old who is still a student. :)

What the "doing" questions really make me think about, however, is not necessarily doing missions. It makes me question all of my reasons for wanting or not wanting to be a DCO in the first place, and it makes me want to throw off all of these DCO expectations that I seem to have and focus on something that I love for once...like literature, for example. Why can I never seem to take a literature class?!?! Why does God have me going down this path that does not seem to fit with my focus or passion...

Well, it does fit in my mind. And apparently it does in some others' minds as well...I had a discussion earlier in the week about the difference between "inreach" and "outreach," and the conclusion that was reached was that they are all part of the same thing. How do I go about explaining that to profs and others who just want to "do"?

But, as is always the case, God is really nice to me. After crying in the ladies' bathroom after class, feeling like I was about 6 years old, I wandered outside and ran into a guy I knew from cross-country...he is no longer a student, really, but is sometimes around campus, and is the only guy who offers safe hugs in my mind... After biking past me without me noticing him, he turned his bike around and came to ask me how class had gone, tell me goodnight, and offer me a hug.
Then, after walking around for awhile to ensure that my eyes were not really shockingly red any longer, I headed into the common area for studying and found another guy that I've been studying with who said, "It's like a sense...I thought you were coming..."

Provisions...people...a place here...a sense that even though I'm 23 and just don't have it all together, it really will be ok. :)

So we made it through another day...by the grace of God...which, I suppose, is the way to go. :)