A rare chance to breathe tonight...
Faith and I are both sitting on the living room couch together, computers in our laps and random comments bouncing back and forth. SVU law and order was on until about 10 minutes ago, when good old WAND news blared on and caused a quick flick of the remote to silence it. It's a rare opportunity for us both to be sitting together, and strangely enough this is about as close as I get to social interaction with my roommates. Sad...very sad. But I take what I can get.
I'm exhausted and relishing chance to sit in one place...just for a few minutes. I haven't done that in a while.
AIDS awareness week was a huge success last week. We raised more than $800 with our small group of people to send overseas, but also to go to a summer camp for kids with AIDS up in Minnesota. Spent a lot of time during the week talking with people about needs. Needs of AIDS patients who are often in poverty and hopelessness. Needs of all people who feel the same holes in their innermost parts and can't fill them try as they may. Our chapter did some straight out evangelism in conjunction with the week, and saw a real window opening to proclaim Jesus as a relevant answer to the struggles that we all find ourselves in the middle of. But we also saw a window opening in our own hearts as we pondered Jesus' interactions with the poor, the oppressed, and the diseased. As a christian, you can't learn about an AIDS patient, who experiences so much physical pain, emotional hunger, and social rejection, without relating their struggles to those of the leapers in bible days. And where was Jesus during those times?? Right beside them. Seeing their needs as people rather than their faults and brokenness...identifying in them the areas that he could fill and giving them new life and hope and direction.
We heard a speaker on a video talking about the many coffin bearers that the AIDS epidemic has trained. In Africa where the conditions are most severe, coffin makers are the wealthiest people in the villages, and family members carry their relatives one by one to the grave. The man in the video talked about the importance of developing palate bearers, who will bring the sick and the hurting to the foot of the cross...who will point to the only one that can fill, heal, and truly love. When you look at the human heart, the truth is that we are all diseased. What the AIDS patient cannot hide many of us can and do. But Jesus longs to reach out and touch those needs...to expose what we have learned to hide away to avoid social rejection...to heal what we are afraid to show those in our churches and families. We cannot preach that an AIDS patient will be healed if they choose to follow Jesus, but we can proclaim that the soul of every man born on earth is diseased, and that those wounds are ones that Jesus will heal.
We had several people on campus make decisions to follow that healer, that filler of needs, that giver of unconditional love this week. It is amazing to take steps of faith and open spiritual dialogs only to find that rather than doing the work, you can sit down in front row seats to watch what God is already at work doing. We pray that the openness that God has brought in the few hearts we got to know will continue and that we all might be changed internally to follow this great love which cares so deeply for every human need.
With the week over, I focussed once more on my millipede testing project, and finally completed phase 1 on Sunday night. Wondrous to have two HUGE projects over in the same weekend!! Last night's near-all-nighter put me over the edge sleep wise, but did help me finish my Neurobiology research paper, which I finally turned in this morning.
I suddenly feel like I have time to breathe again. Time to look at lightning as it flashes through the windows tonight and to get some basic "life maintenance" things done around the house (which I have been ignoring for far too long). My "list" for now is as follows:
~ SLEEP (my brain has been extremely slow moving these last few hours)
~ clean my room (it's desperate folks)
~ get back on a regular eating, working out, and quiet time schedule
~ vacuum my room
~ clean the kitchen floor and my bathroom in the house
~ do this weeks laundry (oh...and last week's laundry too I guess)
~ catch up with Casey who seems to have lots of stories of senioritis that I haven't listened well to in a while
~ call the hospital to see if I still have a job this summer
~ listen to TJ's speech (i missed the competition but I still need to hear it)
~ start getting details ironed out for my China trip
~ catch up on my class work
~ balance my checkbook
~ keep praising God for all He's brought me through these past few weeks
At the end of our AIDS week big event last week all of the Intervarsity kids gathered in a circle as the crowd dispursed and prayed joyously in thanksgiving for all that we had been a part of. A spontaneous version of the doxology broke out...and the words which are so simple have been in my head ever since.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him, All creatures here below
Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Amen
As we take the time to praise Him, we must never forget that those on high are already singing praises around his throne day and night, crying "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lamb who sits upon the throne!!"
May our hearts beckon us to participate in the joyous chorus more often...
Praise the Lord!!!!
