update time

OK TIME TO GET UPDATED. GETTING RIGHT INTO IT.

The last couple weeks since my last blog post have been very emotionally draining.

During the beginning of lecture phase I was able to open up to my outreach leader, Caroline, and share my testimony. Which as most of you know, my mom was a pretty significant and HUGE part of that story! I have been able to share my story with lots of my friends here too and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME I am "numb" and don't show any emotion. Which for me is very frustrating because I feel a pressure to show emotion when I am sharing a part of my life that was so monumental, and when I don't cry or don't feel anything I get frustrated.

Two weeks ago we had a speaker who was talking about loss, specifically the loss of a parent. Since Caroline knows about my mom she obviously came up to me and asked if I was ok. Of course I was perfectly fine and emotionless! That night I was able to talk to Caroline and her friend Anna (also on staff) about my numbness and the fog I was feeling. The two of them started to pray over me and Caroline jumped in and said "I feel like there was a traumatic moment in your life where you never processed your emotions the way you needed to and it's starting to cause some emotional numbness." I knew immediately what she was talking about, and she did too but I had never mentioned my numbness to her.

A little while later Caroline had the idea of getting a counselor. My immediate reaction was "uhhh nope, no thanks I don't need a counselor" but I eventually said yes. Soooooo I have been seeing a counselor for the last couple weeks trying to go back in time and deal with those emotions of losing my mom! :) Had some MAJOR breakthrough just a couple days ago and was crying on and off in the prayer room on campus for 3 hours. WOWWWW does it feel good to cry sometimes!!! Who knew. I have been reading a book called "Grief Recovery Handbook" and doing all sorts of different exercises and assignments trying to process the emotions that I shoved down and I am learning and growing so much already!

But sooooo yeah that has been taking up a lot of my time the last couple weeks and will continue to be something that I am working through. I hope this can encourage anyone who needs it, it's been almost 3 years since my mom went home and I am just starting to really dive into the grieving process! Everyone is on their own timeline! :)

NEXT THING TO UPDATE YOU ON

I am falling so incredibly in love with Jesus.

I am learning so many new things about Him everyday and some of my favorite times here are when I am having my "solo time" and I'm just hanging out with Jesus!!! I am learning how to talk to Him and have conversations and be obedient to what He's saying. I am learning so much about His heart and I am LOVING every second I get to learn more about Him.

I have been praying a lot recently for God to break my heart for what breaks his. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have my track, Compassion Ablaze. Our heart in Compassion Ablaze is for issues of injustice – for women and children-at-risk, those caught in the trap of poverty, those without a voice, the homeless, those struggling with life addictions, and those have been sexually abused, trafficked or enslaved. Pretty heavy stuff!! Compassion has been a good test of patience to say the least! Instead of getting bored or eager to leave, I have been wanting my heart to break for the different things we focus on, not only so I can enjoy my track and learn something from it, but so I can get to know Jesus and his heart even more.

Tonight we threw a fancy dinner for the homeless around Kona. Going into it, I had such a bad attitude!!!! I had been working all morning and the LAST thing I wanted to do was serve dinner to people and be in a good mood. Before the dinner started all of the volunteers gathered to pray and again I prayed that God would give me his heart and wowwww did he answer. We said "Amen" and my night transformed. I immediately started walking up and down the street we were on trying to gather people to come eat! There was one girl named Kristin who was sitting on a curb across the street. Without hesitation she followed me to the dinner and she began to cry as soon as she saw how nicely the dinner was set up. We had the best tableware on campus which consisted of fancy nice plates and silverware with real silver. There was a 4 course meal served to our guests and each and every one of them said that they felt so loved and valued. We served them as if they were at a restaurant, we had waiters and everything:) Watching my new friend, Kristin, be so overwhelmed with this kind of treatment BROKE MY HEART! I started crying. And I don't cry. So praise God for breakthrough with my emotional numbness LOL.

Why don't they feel like this more often? We should be so in awe of His love for us that we want to share it with everyone!!!! They were seriously so happy just to get a real genuine smile from someone. To have someone look at them like they matter, to have someone serving them, we can't have this be an uncommon thing. There definitely is a lot more homelessness in Kona than Grand Haven, but we can and should be doing this with everyone we come in contact with!! We want Jesus to be shining through us. We want His love to be POURING out of us!

Anyway tonight was so incredible. I truly felt the love God has for each and every one of us! No matter our life circumstances, his love is so overwhelming. I cannot express in words how important it is that we treat everyone the way the people at our love feast were treated tonight. Can you just imagine how much love and peace our world would be filled with? If we each loved like Jesus loved, what would our world look like today? A whole lot different that's for sure!!!

Just some new things I'm learning and doing and have been wanting to share with you!!

Still loving Hawaii.

Still bad at blogging.

Still learning and will continue to do my best at sharing it with you all!

love u all

-jam