Self-Help Book

Yesterday was my official last day of internship with my client which means I'll officially have a master's degree. What a ride.

We ended on a really good note last night. I asked for her feelings of our counseling sessions coming to an end and she processed through all that's happened this year and how she's "not the same". Thens he referred to self-help books. She goes... those are all bogus. There's no possible way you can help yourself. Even as much as a person wants to think that they want to help themselves, it's not possible, that's just not the way we were made.

She referred to the scenario of a person who was diagnosed with cancer. The doctor's said that this person was uncurable. A couple of months later, the person was cancer-free.

In that example, one would think that this person did something that resulted in such type of healing. But that's impossible, there had to be an intervention and that is God. Even a more practical way of speaking, we want to solve our problems on our own, deal with our own emotions but the reality is that we were not made that way. We need people in our lives to walk with us and go through our pain and misery with us. We need people to help us grow and make us stronger.

So in regards to self-help book, that's stupid because no one can truly help themselves.

Waiting

During this advent season, I gave messages on waiting. One thing that stood out to me as I was sharing was that I was really speaking to myself. The main idea:

Patience --> humility --> joy
Impatience --> pride --> bitterness

I've taken on the latter for many many months and it just made me continue to face what a prideful person I am.

Thanksgiving

When I am preparing for something, I have a tendency to look through google or take ideas from other people and other things and use it for myself. Then I start looking and there is SO much information out there that I don't even know where to start reading and gleaning ideas from.

Well it's another year and Thanksgiving is this week which means Thanksgiving Potluck with my youth group is at the end of this week. I find myself wanting to do the same thing again, look through different blogs, youth ministries, etc and it's SO MUCH work. It's just as much as work as me actually preparing for the specific thing itself. I also have a habit of trying to avoid speaking when necessary because I feel that I'm inadequate to do so. But as a person who oversees the yg, I have the privilege of public speaking at least twice a week, Fridays and Sundays. The privilege of speaking into the lives of many youth group members with the potential that these kids will have a deeper and more personal relationship with Christ and each other.

To be completely honest and frank, I could do so much better but I don't know how. That's where it's up to me to allow God to assist me in these areas in where I am weak and lacking, where I can allow God to take control and be the driver instead of me always trying to steal his seat. It's a battle, it's hard because I'm always trying to think of things in which I can do myself. Well, this Friday, I have another opportunity to speak, and this time it's about Thanksgiving.

-- Side note -- Even now, I just stumbled upon a post on Facebook and about stuff that interests me regarding youth ministry and now I book mark something new, once again. Never ending continuous cycle, so much information but none of them applied --

-- Another side note -- At the convention, I was really tempted to buy every single downloadable message of the entire convention for $99 so that I could get the benefit of listening to things that I missed out on. But I resisted temptation because I knew I wasn't going to get through everything anyway and I need to apply the immediate things I have learned one step at a time and that's probably going to take a year in itself.  --

So, right now, I do want to spend a lot of timing looking at other resources about what to speak about Thanksgiving and I already have but it's not helping and I'm not speaking from the heart and still running from empty. So I'm taking these next couple of minutes to blog about whatever is on my heart regarding thanksgiving and hopefully God will give me some revelation on what to speak about to my youth.

Thanksgiving. Every year, the holiday seasons is always a very busy year for the church. We're always planning for the next program, the next retreat, the next performance, the next thing to decorate, gift exchanging, meeting up with different groups for holiday festivities, eating food, there's always something going on. It's been such a ritualistic thing for me that these events have to be held for the sake of church culture that personally, I have lost the meaning and thought behind what these events really mean. I mean, I know why we celebrate it but I definitely don't appreciate it and take it to heart.

So what should be the focus of Christians on Thanksgiving aside from just getting together and eating a good meal together? This was actually a really good resource: http://www.gotquestions.org/thanksgiving-Christian.html.

-- I know what verse I'm going to share my message on... 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.--

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." Thank you God, and now.. to get started. It took 3 hours to finally get started on preparing for this Thanksgiving message... lol.

NYWC 2015 Reflection

NYWC has finally completed, it's been four long days of information overload and now it's time to go back home and apply it.

These are some things I want to begin applying right away:

• Self-care/soul care --> Relationships --> Programs. In that order. I can't blame anyone but myself for doing it backwards which means I can't blame anyone but myself for going through so much stress.
• Train volunteers
• Create a vision/mission.
  
  "Re-learn how to seek God first."

Adjustment

The past two weeks out of work have been an adjustment to say the least. I'm grateful to not have to ride the MTA and be stuck commuting all day long, but it does feel weird not doing so because I've been doing that for such a long time. It's been an adjustment because:

• I still wake up every morning looking at the time and imagine myself and what I'm doing either at work or on the train.
• Trying to balance baby, husband, my own personal life and youth ministry schedule has been difficult because the baby does take up most of our time and learning how to prioritize is still a work in progress. Soon, the other and I are working on creating something for ourselves where he has time to do his things efficiently, I have time to do mine, but we still have time for each other also. The other has been making a little more effort in spending time with me and the baby together which I appreciate. 
• Still haven't figured out how to spend quiet time with God and be still before Him. 

Some things I have done that I haven't been able to do for the longest:

• Clean my room
• Get glasses
• Get contacts
• Go on a youth leadership training conference
• Watch the baby for a whole day
• Go out with hubby and the baby together for a walk

Some things I miss:

• Having a work station (desk, computer, etc) because I don't have a place to do work at home.
• Being with a team of people and a boss who makes the day better all the time.
• Going out out for lunch, talks and walks with my best coworker friend.
• Not having to think about obtaining health insurance.

People ask what I've been doing with all my free/flexible time. I think about it and as of this moment, I still don't think that I have much free time. Yes, my schedule is a little more flexible but I still feel like I have thousands of things to do and accomplish. Having a social life still seems a little bit difficult to have but hopefully I'll be able to learn to prioritize accordingly soon so that life can be lived out in a healthy and joyful way.