The One Who Sees Me

The topic of the week was the Bible and everyone seemed to want to get into it so much more than before. We looked into strange stories, looked into context, and how strange it would be if we put ourselves in those same situations. You can believe there were a lot of laughs. Our seventh week has come to an end and looking back on what I've all learned in my time here is completely amazing.

What we talked about this week wasn't emotionally draining, for once. However, there seemed to be a lot of processing going on from previous weeks that caught up on me. I can't particularly pinpoint what made me a total mess this week, but it got pretty difficult. Honestly, I struggled a lot with feeling like God had abandoned me in the past. Knowing that isn't true and believing it in my heart are two different things. This came up a lot when I was reading about Hagar and Ishmael. Sarah's servant, who gave birth to a child by Abraham. She had called out to God saying "You are the One who sees me" and I felt like I couldn't speak that out for myself. I felt like He hadn't really seen me this past year. I know He's always here and will never leave me, but feelings are sometimes not related to logic and I still have a hard time tying the two together.

Honestly, I don't have a huge sense of what was a highlight and what was a low light. It all mixed in together and I have trouble differentiating. Something that was super amazing was that we learned how to go about studying the Bible and different tricks and tips. It became something that was super fun and exciting, even when I was really frustrated with God, as I was for the majority of the week. Something that I realized though later on and that someone helped me to realize was that a lot of my frustration stemmed from not knowing what to do or where to go in the next part of my journey. It was bluntly revealed to me that I needed to just stop thinking, stop trying to understand everything, and just let God do His work. I've had a really hard time with this.

On Friday morning, we studied the book of Philemon. How it was sent to a man name Philemon and that it was about Philemon being asked to forgive his slave for running away, his slave being the one who'd delivered the letter. It showed me a lot in the area of forgiveness. And it also showed me that if I ask for forgiveness for something and the person chooses not to forgive, that it's not my issue anymore. It's theirs. I do my part of reaching out, they choose what they desire, and either way I've done my part in bringing unity. It was super relieving and enlightening to learn that.

We have just five weeks left until our outreach now and you can bet the countdown is on! If you're wanting to donate still, contact my mother or father and they can help you out with that. :) Thank you all so much for your support and continued prayers. They are SO appreciated!

- Naomi