Divine Interruptions

I'm currently spending the majority of my time studying for my upcoming qualifying exams, and I appreciate any and all prayers for me in this challenging stage.  Pray for me to stay close to God, where I am at peace, and to trust Him in each and every moment of every day.  He is being faithful, and I'm sure I will share more on this subject at some point.  For now I want to describe a cool adventure God led me through on Sunday.

It all started with an awesome sermon in the morning.  Here's some of what I heard:

Feeding of 5,000
The disciples were coming off an intense time of ministry, where they went without a cloak, stayed in other people's homes, etc.  They were ready for some R&R with Jesus, who was planning on it as well.  But when crowds followed, Jesus welcomed them.  The disciples were tired and didn't want to deal with it... But that's where God stepped in with a divine intervention.

"God's divine intervention for someone may be a divine interruption for you and your plans."

(From http://youtu.be/fC3FLqDgWRE)

Interruptions sounded like a frustrating and scary thing, especially since I am in a season of trying to focus!  But as we took Communion, I offered myself to God for His will above my own.  I knew it could entail things I didn't want, like getting distracted from studying, not passing my quals, and so on; but it also felt like my best bet.  So (even though I continually have to do this), I gave it all to Him… all the fish and bread I had to offer.

I didn't expect Him to respond so quickly.

After the service, my friend Terry was showing a young couple around the church and I was tagging along.  As we moved to the sanctuary, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman on a bench drop her binder.  Normally I'd try to ignore such an event to lessen the embarrassment the person must be feeling, but the woman did not seem to be quite right… she was somehow unfocused/too stiff, and not immediately diving for the binder and scattered papers.  Without a chance to think about it, I stopped down and began to gather the loose papers. 
This is where it gets cool.

The woman responded, "Oh goodness, thank you so much.  I was sitting here not knowing what to do, and praying, 'Dear Jesus, help me!' and all of a sudden you're here picking up my papers!"

I didn't even have a response, so I just kept picking up papers.  Terry and her friend asked the woman if she's okay and found out she was hypoglycemic and having an attack!  They offered to find her food, and she was able to find some in her purse.  She stabilized, and so I handed her the disordered binder.  She again thanked me and introduced herself, Robin.  I introduced myself and then we were separated as I continued the tour with Terry and her new friend.  But Robin and I will both remember that interruption.

I then had a lovely afternoon with friends from church, Terry and Rob, as they welcomed me into their home and showed me their beautiful farm… we picked apples, sat in the sunshine, ate amazing food, rode a HUGE rope swing, and enjoyed each others company.  It was a great interruption to my normal studying schedule, a real Sabbath.

I left with a big bag of apples and pears, a box of eggs, the first Indian corn of the season, and a happy heart!  I also left a bit later than planned, which meant I had to forgo cooking my planned side dish for the potluck and find a plan B.



I made it to Safeway not even 10 minutes before the potluck started (across town, mind you).  My plan was to grab some hummus and pita chips but I failed to find either and quickly gave up, resorting to a bag of cookies.  I skipped the self-checkout line (which always seems to take longer than it should) and instead headed to the Express Lane, where I recognized the friendly checker.  Seeing my single item, a woman with a big cart allowed me to go in front of her, which I gratefully accepted.  There was just one person in front of me, who was in the process of checking out.  I carefully prepared everything I needed for the checkout to go smoothly and efficiently.  But I started to notice the woman in front of me was not smoothly finishing.  She seemed a bit concerned about the price and wasn't getting her club card to work.  The cashier was very patient and eventually got the discount applied: "That'll be $22.77, miss."
Woman: "What? The price tag said 18.93, I'm sure of it!"
Checker: "Well miss, the only way to check that is if we go look ourselves..."
Woman: "I only have this $20 bill… see, I don't have any pockets, my mom just gave me this!"

All the while I am not getting to my said potluck, so with initially rather selfish motives, I found myself looking in my wallet.  There in my wallet, I had exact change for $2.77.  So I carefully gathered it and offered it to the woman.

She was shocked: "Oh no, you don't need to do that!" ("It's okay, it's just two bucks") "Gosh, I feel like a homeless person.  I'm not a homeless person, really!"

I assured her that I knew she wasn't a homeless person, and the checker also encouraged her to accept the money, so eventually she did.  She then turned to me and said:

"Thank you so much… my family is in a rough time right now, a relative just died and so we're trying to have some family time together, but my mom's out in the car having a breakdown, and I know this will help her."

Wow. I no longer cared about being late to the potluck… I was so honored to get to play a part in this story, and to play a part even though my heart wasn't in the right place at first.  It was as though God spent the day showing off!  Or, more accurately, revealing Himself and His heart for others to me.  I want to keep that perspective in mind each and every day, so that I can see the needs around me and allow for interruptions...


P.S. An interesting side note is the idea of need.  The woman at Safeway really did not want to be seen as "in need."  And it's so rare that anyone would get an opportunity to help someone that way.  It's hard to admit that we aren't completely self-sufficient and to then accept the help of others… it's certainly humbling.  I suppose this is something for me to remember when I am in a place of needing help from others!

A Prayer

These verses caught my eye, from Hebrews 13:20-21.  The context of the chapter (along with the entire book) makes it more powerful, so I'll at least give a run-down of the chapter.

The chapter exhorts the people to live selflessly:
Keep on loving each other as brothers,
Entertain strangers,

Remember those in prison as if you were in prison,
Keep yourselves free from love of money and be content with what you have (because God will never leave you nor forsake you),
Let your hearts be strengthened by grace,
Continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise,
Remember to do good and share (Kindergarten lesson we all still need),
And obey your leaders and submit to their authority.

All of that leads to this conclusion, where the foundation for the selfless acts is revealed.  This is my prayer for you and me:

May the God of peace...
equip you with everything good for doing his will,
and may he work in us what is pleasing to him,
through Jesus Christ,
to whom be the glory for ever and ever.

Amen.

Yadira

It's been quite a while since my last post, and I'm sorry for the radio silence.  It was a crazy intense quarter, which rolled into the first part of summer too.  But know that God was definitely still at work in my life, even if I didn't post about it.  For now, more current!

Monterey with my awesome family (click on images for larger versions)

Tim mimics the seals we saw :-P

Last week I soaked up a week at Mount Hermon with my family and wonderful friends from my church (some of the regulars sure were missed though!).

I'm always encouraged after spending time with these people...
lots of laughter,
life sharing, 
adventures,
and joy.


I also find myself refreshed by getting to meet with God.  One of the things He showed me this week is that even if my work doesn't seem to directly influence people, I can use the money I make to do so.  Thus, I CAN still help people in developing countries and ministries here by what I do have entrusted to me.  This is so exciting!

A specific ministry that has been on my heart and mind for years is child sponsorship.  I'm most familiar with World Vision, but I know there are other organizations out there that are doing similar work.  The basic premise is that you pay about a dollar a day to help a kid get clean water from sustainable sources, healthy food, an education, etc.

It's wild to me that so little of my money can save someone's life.

For years, I've pushed aside the call to get involved with this because I never was consistently making money to be able to commit to it.  But now I have a (albeit low-paying) steady job.  And God showed me I can step out and love on another one of His kids.

So, with great excitement, I'd like to introduce you all to  

Yadira Mendoza Huaraca

Yadira is almost 1 year old (bday Aug 12, 2011).  I am just starting to learn more about her, her family, and her community, but I am pleased to report that her favorite activity is playing with musical rattles––we may have a future musician here! :-D

I was first drawn to her because she's from Peru, and I actually know something about Peru after visiting twice and spending time with kids there.  It's a special place for me, which makes Yadira more precious.  But I didn't know how to pick one child out of the many from Peru, until I saw Yadira, who shares the name of a friend and previous roommate.  Having that positive name association makes loving Yadira more natural, even though I know so little about her.  I don't expect she'll be able to write much herself for a while, but I hope to write letters to her, at least once a year and maybe more often.  I hope I can get to know her.

I am honored by the idea that God can use me to help Yadira live.  And this is such a natural extension of following Jesus that it feels as though I am taking another step towards LIVING out my faith instead of hiding/burying it inside.

I can't wait to see what's ahead!

Community

Whew, it has been a while sine I've had time to get around to writing a blog post!  This post may get a little bit long, and I may also get around to writing another one sometime too.

"More and more I see that grad school is a continual state of being humbled." (Sunday night)

I was frustrated with a homework assignment not going well and stressed with finals looming.  I've been learning that when I trust God, things worked out great! (Amen!).  But yet again, things were not going great.  I had spent all weekend trying to finish this homework assignment and had made no progress.  I finally let go of my pride and sought the help of someone else in the class.  That was incredibly helpful and at least got me to the place of being able to write stuff down.  At the same time, it was very humbling to need to ask for help, to admit that I alone cannot survive.

Later in the week, I read a blog post called "Losing Limbs and Finding People."  It explored how disasters create community due to a sense of "we're all in this together"ness.  In the everyday life, however, we forget that each person around us has the same basic desires as we do.  You can read the full post here: http://drkellyflanagan.com/2012/03/09/losing-limbs-and-finding-people/

These two incidents, with God at work, prepared me for what I encountered yesterday as I drove into the Safeway parking lot in Watsonville.  On the corner, I saw a woman holding a sign that looked something like this:

I'm already familiar with seeing people looking for money (especially now that I'm in SC!), but the hungry part caught my attention.  What can I say, I really like food.  I kept thinking about the woman as I went in Safeway, and then it popped into my head: I could get her a Cliff bar!  Those things are cheap and practically a meal by themselves with how filling and protein-packed they are!  It seemed like something I would really appreciate getting if I was hungry.  Certainly better than ice cream, which would be amazing at first and then either make me sick or melt.  And I knew I'd be happy to keep the Cliff bars if it didn't work out.

I finished my shopping, but I still hadn't found the Cliff bars... I walked back and forth over the length of the store without seeing them.  Along the way, another idea popped into my head: a Naked fruit smoothie!  Those are so delicious and healthy, and especially good if your mouth is dry, perhaps from a Cliff bar.  I found the smoothies, even found a non-brand name one that was cheaper and had 30g of protein, and thus also finally found the Cliff bars. 

I drove out the same entrance I came in, but the woman was gone! I was a bit bewildered and disappointed, but I kept looking for her as I drove out.  Sure enough, she was at the next driveway down.  Unfortunately I didn't see her in time, and had cars behind me with nowhere to pull over. But I was too invested by this point to give up that easily... I turned into the back of the shopping center, and looped around the shopping center to come out the correct driveway.

Rolling down my window, I asked, "Would you like... I have Cliff bars and juice...?"  She answered "Oh, sure!" and accepted the bag, which I later realized made it impossible for her to know what exactly I was handing her.  But she still told me "Thank you.  Have a wonderful day!"  I replied the same to her and "God bless you!"  It feels so cliche but yet important to mention.

As I went on my way, I first felt a wave of giddiness... Success! Oh, happiness!

Closely following that was a much quieter emotion.  The woman had looked like a typical homeless person, until I got close.  When I looked past her worn face, I saw life in her eyes.  Her voice wasn't rough, but warm, like any one of my friend's voice.

I am not so different from her. Sure, I have much better circumstances: an amazing family, great friends, and the opportunity to get an education.  But change a few things around, and that could be me.

I've been left hungry for understanding.  It's not fun to have to ask for help.

Maybe realizing the similarities I have with others is the first step towards community.  Rather than feeling as though I've earned the position I'm in. 

I've heard that rich people don't (proportionally) give away as much as poorer people.  Because the rich identify less with the poor.

May I always be poor in spirit.

"What miracle would you ask Jesus for today?" (6/6/08)

Last night I was reading parts of my Bible reading/prayer journal from Cal Poly, and I came across this gem of an entry:

It's so beautiful, now.

At the time, this came from a place of pain: trying to trust God while sorting through the appalling love that allowed my aunt's sudden death, a month before.  It was hard.

Or I can remember when I found out Grandpa had cancer, which was bad enough on its own.  Once I got past the initial shock, however, the toughest part was wrestling with the fact that he still didn't believe in God, that he might not go to Heaven.  And that even if that occurred, God is still good?
Another hard truth to swallow.

But in this case, God was so gracious in bringing about change, just in time.  Just days before his death, my Grandpa said,

"I believe."

Praise God. He is so good.

Glorious Sunset

(Written 1/5/2012)

Yesterday, I saw the most beautiful sunset. The drive in general was gorgeous: blue, sunny skies with awesome ocean views and temperatures in the high 70s. But the sunset took the cake.

The sun went down a bit early because I was in between two large mountain ranges, in a valley.  This made me sad at first.  But then the sun lit up all the clouds with a brilliant and majestic pink.  For 360º, these beautiful clouds surrounded me.  My favorite was the center of it, where it was the most bright and textured.  The clouds were wildly beautiful, and the light made the range's silhouette pop out––this was not some flat picture, but a huge 3D living canvas that was bigger than I could take in.



As the pink faded from the sky, I expected it was over. 
But I had made it past the hills to where there was more light, and instead witnessed a striking golden sky, with a full range of color within. 
I kept stealing glances, looking for as long as I dared (while driving). 
It was so awe-inspiring; I turned off the radio to sing music more fitting for the grand display:

 

This song became my prayer. 
God, I want to want you more, and be more committed and disciplined in following you.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

Sidenote: This is a fairly long post, but it's worth the read.  And at the very least, it gives a glimpse into physics grad school classes...

E&M (electricity & magnetism) has always been my weakest sub-subject in physics.  I'm still trying to understand some of the concepts in the basic version of it that all engineers and such have to take in college.  It was a class that I always barely managed to squeak by in.

Needless to say, I was not looking forward to taking it this past quarter in grad school.  Every physics grad school uses the same ridiculously hard (and hard-to-understand) E&M book by Jackson.  It's been that way for years and I think it'll continue, if only to serve as a rite of passage for each generation of physics grad students.

I was further discouraged to find out that we had perhaps the toughest professor at UCSC teaching it (the other contender is the professor teaching E&M 2 next quarter!).  He's a brilliant man, but his mouth can move almost as fast as his brain... which results in him rattling things off and the class struggling to comprehend it all, let alone take notes on it.  My "favorite" moments in class were when he'd stand in front of the whiteboard, writing things that we/I couldn't see and then modifying them as he went!  It was hard for me, as more of a visual learner.  Overall, however, he really did seem to care and want to help.  We just weren't at his level of intelligence, so it was tough.

The class structure was weekly homework assignments (super tough), but instead of turning in the homework for a grade, we were given a quiz on one of the homework problems (randomly).  I had several consecutive weeks of scoring around a 5 (out of 10).  Each week, I was so thankful to be able to get any points... sometimes it would come from office hours right before, or a friend showing me how they did most of a problem (and then the quiz was that one).  Each week, I'd pray, and each week, God showed His faithfulness.  It really built my trust in Him.  I sent this to Nicole after class one day, after I had been freaking out before the class... she later sent it back to me as a reminder:

A week ago, all that trust came into question with the dreaded E&M final.  I had prepared and studied about as much as I could in the days leading up to it, and it was just hard.  Ridiculously so.  I looked at through the test and was nearly completely at a loss.  I remembered my brother's wisdom from his professor: "OK, I do know some stuff, there must be something I can do..." and I kept going.  After about 20 minutes, I had written out about all that was in my brain.  But I knew I couldn't leave; then it would just look like I didn't care.  So I forced myself to stay, to keep going.  The three hours dragged on... at times, there was nothing for me to write, but I stayed and tried to look thoughtful, tried to not breakdown in the final, resisted the urge to run away screaming (generally considered bad form).  I answered 2 of the 4 questions with some semblance of correctness (but no final/complete result).  Another problem I went off with a method that I think was completely off-base and wrong to even consider, but I needed to write something down.  The last problem, I was completely clueless on.  I wrote down what was given in the problem and was at a loss from there.  I ended up using the space to write a note to the professor, admitting that my final was sad even though I had studied and tried hard.  And that I was willing to do some sort of extra work to make up for my low scores if necessary, just please, please do not fail me. (Our program only requires you to take classes pass/fail, rather than needing a grade... beyond grad school, who cares??)

The end of the third hour finally struck; my torture was over.  Other students were definitely traumatized, but to a lesser extent: "I think I'll be luck to get 50% on that... that was the hardest test I've ever taken." 
For me, I was wondering if it was possible for me to get 20%... I spoke more about the test with Jen afterward, and this confirmed my fears.  In texting with Nicole about it later, she was surprised and depressed too.  We had been praying for God to once again come through in crazy ways, but it looked like our prayers did no good.  Except perhaps to help me to actually keep staring at the impossible test instead of sobbing like a two year old.

After the test, I also heard about a chemistry student who had been in the class and was told by the professor to drop so that he didn't fail... I also heard about 2nd years that will be in both our E&M 2 class AND our Quantum Mechanics 1 class next quarter... so people do apparently fail classes... eeg. 

I didn't even want to think about not being allowed to take E&M 2 and having to find other classes to take instead, or getting kicked out of the program...

The final was on Monday, and I heard nothing from the professor for over a week.  Grades were due yesterday, and as of 5pm, he still hadn't posted anything... ARGH (I had been checking religiously since Monday).  I finally checked once more at the end of the day, 9:30pm, and I got this:

I PASSED!?!  I don't understand how this is possible, so it must be God at work.  I am so grateful to have passed E&M 1... it's a huge relief.  I feel like I can finally relax in earnest.  I can do grad school; He will see me through it.  Thank you, God.