Being faithful with a little

There's this verse in the Bible that seems to have somehow eluded me in practice for the longest time. Jesus tells the parable of the servants who are each given a certain amount of cash. Two of the servants invest what they are given, making more money for their master. The third servant freaks out about being responsible for his master's dough and buries it. When their master comes back later to see what the servants have done with the money, he is more than a little perturbed with the servant who buried the benjamins. The moral of the story is that if we are faithful to wisely use what little we are given, God will give us even more. You know, that whole "be faithful with what little you have and you'll wind up getting a lot" thing.
I've never been super-good at this. Each time I've had a ministry opportunity, I've jumped into something full-blown and thriving. I haven't have many chances to prove whether or not I can actually "be faithful with a little" and see something grow. However, in moving to Sacramento I've been opened up to a whole new world of opportunity.
I've been attending Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Sacramento since about mid-October, and I attended a home group for awhile. It was fabulous. There was food, fellowship, and abundant love for anyone who wanted some. But when it came time for the new semester, my class schedule dictated that I would no longer be able to attend my beloved Tuesday night home group. Darn those late-night graduate seminar classes!!! I didn't want to lose the amazing fellowship I had discovered in those precious couple of months, so I decided that maybe it was time to do something drastic. No, I didn't drop out of my Tuesday night class. Instead, I decided to listen to God and see what He would have me do with my Thursday nights that now just happened to be free.
What an amazing concept--listening to God. Sometimes I feel like I'm still a new believer, with the amount of time I actually spend LISTENING for God's voice.
So I listened, and in the listening I learned that there were NO home groups on Thursday nights. It also just so happened that there were NO young adult home groups. Period. Still listening....listening...listening...WHAM! SPIRITUAL SMACK TO THE HEAD!
"Andrea, why don't YOU start a home group for young adults?" "Me? No, couldn't possibly. I've barely been going to this church three months!" I went on like this for awhile, and eventually got tired of feeling like God was nagging me to start a home group, so I set up a meeting with Joedy, the Associate pastor who is also in charge of home groups. I shared with him openly and honestly that the major amount of my motives in starting a home group were purely selfish: I really just wanted people my age who were Christians that I could hang out with, and a home group seemed like a good way to make that happen.
The next thing I knew, I was leading a home group. I didn't really have a vision for the group, except that I wanted people like me (and unlike me) to be able to get together and fellowship. We started about a couple of months ago, and for quite awhile there have been only three of us attending. However, last week we had a wonderful new person join us, Jubilee. This week it was just the core three plus Jubilee. We had a little potluck dinner, some worship, and some fellowship. It was so wonderful. Even though the four of us who were there have only known each other for a short time, we were BLESSED to experience a sense of friendship and camaraderie far beyond the short months we've known each other.
Janna shared with us from the Bible tonight, and one of her main verses was the "be faithful with a little" verse. Without even realizing it, I've been proving myself faithful. I've been faithfully going ot this new group even when I know there will only be two or three of us there, and I've been cracking out my Bible and dusting off my guitar. I've been leading worship again. Writing Bible studies. I feel like I've discovered a new part of myself. I keep thinking, "oh, so THIS is what if feels like to be faithful with a little." And by being faithful I've been infused with a new faith and hope that the little I have will GROW, will FLOURISH. It's as though by going each week, I've been acting out my faith and in doing so, have increased that faith beyond measure.
God is doing something wonderful in my heart, and it's making me think that Sacramento's not so bad after all...

I'm approved!

Oh joy and happiness! My final plan of study has been approved! I'm not sure exactly what that means except that I won't have any academic holds on my registration and I think that now I can move toward creating my thesis prospectus :)

ONE step closer toward GRADUATION and becoming a true MASTER!!!!

Now if only I can get through the rest of the semester....

Happy birthday, brother!

Today is my little brother's birthday! He is now 23 years old :) I know he's probably not reading my blog, but I just had to give him a shout-out on the big 2-3.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIKE!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

thoughts on fungii

I have a problem. I'm ready to admit it. I am LONELY. And not just lonely in the "aww, I wish I had a few more friends" sense. I mean lonely in the "I would give anything for human contact right now, even my kidney" sense. I thought I'd have people to hang out with by now, but my list has remained frustratingly short and I've started resorting to desperate measures for the smallest inkling of person-to-person interaction. For example, I've:

- started getting coffee multiple times in the day so that I can talk to the barista;

- gotten FOUR manicures in the past two and a half weeks, thinking that the people at the salon would start to recognize me (they haven't);

- taken up eating out incessantly, hoping to strike up a conversation with a fellow dine-out-aloner and make a new friend;

-resorted to borderline stalking my friends' myspace pages and blogs in the hopes that SOMEONE will leave me a comment or a message and I'll know that, yes, someone out there remembers I'm up here in Sacramento all alone;

- gotten to school two hours early on the days I teach in hopes of finding someone to talk to.

I know this sounds pathetic, but it's not even the worst of it. On several occasions I've found myself randomly driving around Sacramento with my radio blaring. The Dixie Chicks make good companions, but even their songs get tired after being on repeat for two hours. I know it sounds like I'm whining, but I really am lonely *sniff*. And this whole thing is uber-frustrating because yesterday was Easter and I went to this HUGE church bbq we put on for the neighborhood and even amongst all the people I STILL felt terribly, horribly, pathetically alone.

I keep telling myself that I just need to get out more, but I've been out several times and haven't met anyone that I could hang out with on a regular basis. I've also been telling myself that I just need to spend more time in the Word because Jesus is my friend and He'll make it all o.k. if I just persevere and become more disciplined. But I don't think that I'm supposed to feel this alone, NO MATTER WHAT.

I've been reading the book Blue Like Jazz , and there's this part where the author talks about being alone. It's interesting, because he addressed the EXACT things I've been feeling about being lonely and not really part of a community. Here's what Donald Miller has to say about the issue:

"Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the fall."

"...without people I could not grow--I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human. We are born into families, he said, and we are needy at first as children because God wants us together, living among one another, not hiding ourselves under logs like a fungus. You are not a fungus, he told me, you are a human, and you need other people in your life in order to be happy."

Right now I feel kind of like a fungus. I've been buried under this log that has lots of different names: fear, grad school, work, living alone, desire for acceptance. It sucks being a fungus. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE mushrooms. But somehow, mushrooms don't seem to have the most exciting life until they get picked, cleaned up and added as an ingredient to a tasty salad or stir-fry. Mushrooms aren't really good alone. Even my favorite way to enjoy mushrooms (mmm...marinated mushrooms) involves other ingredients: pepper, garlic, olive oil, etc. I'm tired of being a lonely mushroom under a log. I want to be part of something else, something that involves LOTS of other ingredients.

My only question is this: how do I get myself out from under this lonely log and in to the community salad?

From the perfect day to ick, all in one week

Have you ever had one of those days that's just amazing and perfect and you don't ever want it to end? Well, I was lucky enough to have THREE of them last weekend. And let me tell you, crashing back down to reality has NOT been fun.
Spring break was well-deserved for me, an oasis in the midst of a grad-school desert. The last three days of spring break were AMAZING. I got to attend an art exhibit with my wonderful friend, Meghan, play two hours of Trivial Pursuit circa 1981 with James and Katie, go to Avila beach and take pictures with Katie, watch "Blades of Glory" with Laura, sing karaoke, attend church at Five Cities Vineyard, and spend a wonderful day at Santa Margarita Lake with the Tierney family. *sigh* And then, I had to come back to Sacramento. Some part of me right now is rebelling at the thought of being in school. I don't want to read, don't want to grade, don't want to be responsible or do my laundry. I just want to go back to those three days of paradise I had before the real world so harshly re-introduced itself to me.
So I have to wonder, what's wrong with me??? I usually love school. I love to write, love to read, love to explore new ideas. But right now, all I want to do is pull the covers over my head and sleep until the semester is over. This is not good. It's crunch time. I should be writing papers, reading journal articles, filling out paperwork, etc, etc, etc. So why is it that at the most crucial point of the semester I just can't seem to pull things together?
For some unknown reason, something inside of me has just decided to quit. For example, yesterday I slept in until 2 p.m.!!! I don't think I've EVER slept that much in my life! Today was almost as bad. I didn't wake up until 11 a.m., and even then all I did was watch a movie. It's now 4 p.m. and this blog is the only semi-productive thing I've done all day. Granted, I did get up, get dressed and all that jazz, but the work that is waiting to be done is the LAST thing I want to spend time on.
Ick. That's the word of the day. Ick. It's how I feel. Ick. It's what I want to escape. Blech. I hate feeling ick.
Easter is tomorrow, though. It's a day of renewal and hope. I'll be praying for Jesus to overcome the ick so that I can be successful for the rest of the semester. Right now, I can use all the prayers I can get.

Reasons I heart Spring Break...

Rodin sculptures at the Stanford Art Gallery


Meggie Poo


Random Pictures


Fun times with Katie


The beach, even when it's foggy :)

A new revelation...

One of my favorite movies of all time is Office Space. There's this one scene I love where the main character, Peter, decides that he's done. One of my favorite quotations from the movie is when Peter says, "I did nothing today, and it was all I dreamed it could be."

I have this theory that in life we all experience revelations of the same sort as Peter's. Granted, the revelations we encounter are normally followed by some sort of action instead of inaction, but you get the idea. A couple of nights ago I had a revelation of the same sort as Peter's. I decided that after I get my Master's degree, I am DONE. Done with school, done with term papers, done with fighting so darned hard for something I'm not sure that I even want.

Now don't get me wrong, I know that I enjoy school much more than the average Joe. I love the feeling of accomplishment I get when I stumble across an "aha!" moment that leads me to viewing the world in a completely different way. I love teaching people things and learning things for myself. I love school so much that until a couple of nights ago, I was ready to give up another FOUR YEARS of my life to higher education. But I guess that's the amazing thing about a revelation: it causes you to change your point of view. In my case, I changed the way I think about school.

You see, I initially thought that I wanted a law degree. However, I've come to realize that if all I want to do is help people, I don't need a law degree to alert people that "Yes! Andrea is indeed qualified to help people because she has a J.D." I also went through a period of time thinking that I might want a doctoral degree, but then came to the very rude realization that if I do indeed want to HELP people, a PhD is probably not the way to go. I would effectively be shutting myself off from the "real world" (as we grad students like to call it) and sealing myself into an early tomb labeled "academia." Sounds dramatic, right? Well, I think it's supposed to be dramatic. Let's think about it this way: if every person that got a Master's degree went on to a PhD program, what would be the point? The system would become incestuous, only creating more professors. Nobody would really do anything. Change would never occur.

Now I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with being a professor. I'm just saying that it takes all kinds of people to make the world go 'round, and I think that I'm one of those other people; you know, the kind of people who decide to say "screw the system" and decide to get their hands dirty actually doing things. Helping people. Taking all those lovely theories and putting them to WORK. And that's what I want to do. Make the theories work. See what can happen when I take the ideas I've learned during my long tenure in school and see what happens when I try to do practical things with them.

Perhaps it sounds a bit idealistic, but I figure that the world probably needs a few idealists here and there. Perhaps it will be a long, hard road, but maybe I can create some HOPE. Spread a little LOVE around. That's all I want in this world.

So I've devised a little plan with which I can start the process of doing something with my life instead of sitting back and expecting school to take me there. Here is the plan:
1) This summer, I'll take a little road trip across the southern half of the United States. I'll take pictures, meet people, write a memoir of sorts. At the same time, I'll be scoping out areas I'd possibly like to live in, community colleges I could see myself working for, and churches that I could see myself contributing to.
2) This next school year, I will be DEDICATED and finish my freaking degree! I will get out of my master's program by the end of next year, thesis and all. I will not be one of those people who hangs around in school forever, never really finishing, never letting go.
3) I'll also apply for the Teach for America program. They work with high schools across the country to help kids who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Plus, if I work for them I can get some of my student loan debt forgiven.
http://www.teachforamerica.org/
4) I'm going to start checking out different relief organizations. I'm specifically leaning toward Food For the Hungry, a Christian organization that focuses on filling physical needs instead of evangelizing. People get to search their hearts and ask their own questions rather than having the answers forced on them.
http://www.fh.org/

I think this sounds like a pretty good start. I'm exicted to see what the rest of my life will look like with the lens of this new revelation firmly placed over the eyes of my worldview. So what do you think? Are there any areas of your life that you've begun to look at differently? How has it changed your approach to life?