Forgiveness

The feeling of being caught up on homework is a great one. I hadn't felt it since falling behind when we went to retreat but now I sit knowing that I've read and written all that's required of me for now. I even had time last weekend to go to the driving range with some friends:

They opened up sign-ups for mission trips that will happen next March and we all chose our top 5 trips that we would like to go on (we'll be placed in only 1). So by the grace of God, I may be going to one of these 5 places in the Spring: South Korea, Hollywood, Mozambique, Israel, or South Sudan (that's a country now!). I was drawn to South Korea because my revival group leader, Young Kim, and his wife, Hannah will be leading the trip. All of the trips will be around 2 weeks long. We also got the opportunity to go to a ropes course as a revival group and spend time growing closer and doing cool activities together. You learn a lot about trust when you are holding onto 7 other people 40 feet up in the air:

Another awesome group I'm part of is the Single Life Workshop (about 800 people!). It sounds kind of weird, but it's something that I wish more people could experience. It was started by a couple who ran a workshop for married people, and then they realized that if they taught these principles to people before they were married, there wouldn't be so many marriages that needed saving. Their biggest focus is to be open and have nothing hidden, so we get really close with our small group of 8 people. One tactic they used was to have a time of silent listening where we wrote down things that God was telling us about ourselves. Then after the time was up they told everyone to read what they wrote down to the small group. I love being forced to be vulnerable (get weak), because it feels so good afterwards.

So far we've read 4 books for school (a miracle by itself) and my favorite is the one we just finished, The Supernatural Power of Forgiveness. It was written mostly by Jason Vallotton but his dad, Kris, wrote the last two chapters. I highly recommend it! Anyone who has ever experienced pain will benefit tremendously from this book. I'll end this post with my favorite nuggets (as my dad would say) and quotes from the book:

-Time does not heal wounds. There is a healing process that takes time, but without this process (of recognizing and mourning the pain) the wound will just fester and hurt more.

-We are the ones that hold the keys to our own happiness, but we can give those away if we decide that we can only be happy when others are. "Victims believe that their external world has to change in order for them to be okay."

-"Insecurity is actually security rooted in the wrong resource."

-Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation or trust. Trust is earned through relationship, but forgiveness was purchased by Christ on the cross.

-"The day that Jesus was crushed for our sins, He revealed the meaning of true justice. Justice was no longer found in revenge, but in forgiveness...true justice is only found when each person gets what Christ paid for on the cross."

This song literally would not get out of my head this week: For the Cross by Brian and Jenn Johnson