God's Puzzle: Part 2

About a week later, the next event came, again, from my Student Leadership class. I had just gone through a couple of crazy homework weeks, evidently. I was getting use to working as News Editor for the campus newspaper (which involves working in the office for 7-9 hours every Tuesday night), so that was a big adjustment. Anyhow, I had failed to do any of the reading for the Wednesday afternoon class – which was, ironically enough, about the dangers of over-committing ourselves. And so, to put that into practice, I proceeded to skip the small group time of the class and instead go out to the 100 stairs—one of my best retreat places on campus—and think, pray, journal, etc.

God had already rescued me from a bit of my own craziness and volunteering to stretch myself too far. I had applied to be an RA and to be the HSP secretary, but by God’s grace I thankfully received neither position. Most of my journal entry that day (March 9) was praying that I would focus on God and on what was truly important rather than all the stuff I thought I could do to make the world a better place. The lesson was simple and clear: “Be Still & Know.”

Spring Break came and went, much too fast for my liking. But even in that, there was a lesson, which I blogged about. It was one of the rough patches that have still come up even in this Spring of my relationship with God. To use something more recent to explain it – last week I read through papers on C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters as part of my work study TA job. One of the temptations many students referred to was what Lewis had Screwtape label the “Law of Undulation” – that our lives are full of peaks and troughs. It is in the troughs, Screwtape wrote, that humans can learn the most and that the most danger to a demon’s plan can occur.

So yes - I have still had rough times since January. But now there is a deep underlying peace and certainty of God's love and involvement in my life that I didn't feel as much before. I especially came to realize that the next month when the full weight of a series of tragedies hit me.