Is This Faith or Am I Living in Denial?

I've decided if I were ever to write a memoir, it would probably share a title with this post.

Do you know those spiritual gift tests that you can take? You number on a scale of 1 to 5 how true or untrue the statement is for you, and then you tally everything up in the end and whichever one has the highest score is your spiritual gift. We've done those a lot in the office at work to discover our strengths. We do it mainly because my supervisor is amazing and realizes that while weaknesses do need to be worked on, you have the strengths you do for a reason and those can't be ignored. So, we score ourselves from 1 to 5, tally the numbers, and in the end I always find myself staring this spiritual gift of faith in the face.

At first I kind of laughed and shook my head. Sure, I have faith in my friends, I have faith that the pizza man will deliver a round pie of perfection after I make the right call, and I have faith in God. That's not what we're talking about though, a spiritual gift of faith. That's intense faith, serious business. No way. Not me.

God and I have a great relationship. He tells me something, I tell Him to tell me more about that, and then He does. Very slowly and subtly, sometimes I don't even realizing it's happening. In this case, He spoke to me through my past. He walked me through a timeline of my life and as I looked at that fun and adventurous road He simply asked, "at what point did you doubt Me?" 

I have doubted many things in my life, but God has never been one of them. I have built walls between us, and I even turned my back and tried to ignore Him for awhile, but I always knew He was there. I always knew that in the end, His hand was in my life and He was sovereign. I have never doubted that my God is real. I always had faith in God, but there was a time in my life I denied Him my heart. 

If you've ever spent any amount of time around my best friend and I, you may have heard us at some point use the phrase, "I'm fiiiiiine." We say it in a certain tone, drawing out the I, as if trying to convince ourselves that we will, indeed, be fine. We usually say it in situations when we will clearly not be fine. The main reason we picked this little habit up is due to the fact that we both like to push sticky situations to the side. As long as I don't have to deal with it, things will be fine. Right? Ignore irritating emotions and eventually I'll be fine. Right? We recognize that there really isn't much that can be done in some instances, so we decide to ignore the problem. It'll be fiiiiiine. So far, we've always been.... relatively fine. We're both still breathing, so we've got that going for us.

So, as I look down at this paper in front of me. This cute little Christian cliche of a spiritual gifts test, I realize that I will be fine. While I was saying those words in denial of a problem I didn't want to face, God pulled through in the end. While I deny the problem, I know that God is present. I have always known this.

Is This Faith, or Am I Living in Denial; a memoir. Look for it at your local bookstore... just give me a couple decades to live the kind of life I want to write about.

With Love,
Trishelle

Life Update

This is going to be a quick update on my life thus far at Bethany Global University. Quick because I have several homework assignments I need to be working on; but while homework is important, so my dear readers, are you. I may get busy, but I do want to keep you all in the loop, so here we go.

Today we did not have class. It was Day Set Apart. This is a day that we have once a semester. The campus puts everything on hold, and pauses to praise and worship God. We spent a lot of time in prayer, lifting our school and all the mission outreaches we are partnering with, in prayer. It was peaceful for me. To be able to take the time they gave us today, and simply praise my Heavenly Father.

Call Center Team

On the normal days, you can find me either in the classroom, chugging tea and frantically scribbling notes; or in the call center. Every student is given a practical training assignment when they start at BGU. That's pretty much just an on campus job, it has several purposes, but the main ones are as follows...

1. They don't have to hire and pay people to do the things students can do. They take our pay out of our tuition. This is one of the reasons why BGU is able to be a tuition-paid school. 
2. You are able to start learning how to serve, right here on campus. Sometimes you're assigned a PT assignment that you really didn't want, but guess what, sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. 

My practical training assignment is to be an admissions counselor in the call center. (Yep, I'm that one random person you don't know who just keeps calling) When I got here, it was the one place I knew I would be the most uncomfortable in and of course, this is where I was assigned. Funny part, I never told anyone that being a caller is what would grow me the most. God just knows these things.

Minnehaha Falls

God knew I would grow, but He also knew I would be blessed. The people I work with in that office are some of the most amazing women I've ever met. They're brave. They're funny. They're passionate. They're tenacious. They're the kind of people I want to do life with.

Also, special shout out to Silvia. My amazing boss and friend back home. Her training in sales and business gave me an amazing base to launch off of in the call center. Thanks for teaching me those life skills lady!

Otherwise, I've been plugging away at homework, co-teaching a bible class to a bunch of kids every Wednesday night, and going on random adventures. Sometimes that include scrambling down frozen staircases to crawl into the jaws of a frozen waterfall (yay, Minnesota), or visiting coffee shops that have pictures of goats on the wall.

I would make this a little longer and give you all more details, but I've put off my worldview's papers long enough. I'm writing one on Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, and the other on Phoebe Buffay who is lovable and adorable, but also overwhelmingly New Age. Should be fun.

Love and miss everyone back home.  I miss Smith Rock and its beautiful red face. I miss my coffee shops, and being a nanny. I miss the girls I used to work with at Gymboree, and I miss the Old Mill. I miss my Costco people, and I miss going out with friends to talk about life. I miss so much, but I'm happy.

With Love,
Trishelle