This guy's gracing my computer desktop right now :)

It's hard not to be despairing after you go on a trip like nycup, then come back to a place like Cornell. But little by little, He's showing me that hope really doesn't disappoint.

On the way back, I remember s. ask us how we felt... and j. said we were just holistically tired, emotionally, spiritually, physically, the whole deal. And looking back, that's really true -- maybe because God was working in and through us so fervently in all of those areas. I came into the city with a lot of baggage, judgements, and fears -- the first girl I met I even judged by her popped collar and pearl earrings (whom now I might be going to NYCUP again this summer with). But it's the inevitable... those judgements come out, rearing their ugly heads. But then God does something amazing.... He heals us through them.

Coming back, even through one day in classes, I felt this sense of peace, true shalom that I hadn't in a while. Peace that yeah, I probably won't be working at some prestigious energy laboratory this summer, that I might be doing a non-paying Intervarsity internship... but you know what? I think I'm okay with that. Or that sometimes, things do change -- you think I'd be used to it by now, halfway through my second semester of college. But I'm okay with that too.

More and more, Jesus is that voice, that person sitting next to me, guiding my ways in a car when the I turn off the headlights. It's when control becomes His -- or in the case of nycup, is gently pried out of my unrelenting fingers and given to Him :P

God has this way of showing up when I expect Him to throw a curveball when I expect a fastball. But hey.... I love the game of baseball...... amen?



edit -- nycup pictures :)

part 1
part 2