serious post

I've been meaning to post something "serious" for awhile, as in something more than just what I've been doing but also what I've been learning and how I've been feeling. Everytime I'm about to, however, I find myself shrinking back, reluctant to reveal something more personal. The fact is, it's really hard for me to share my emotions, especially when I'm upset or down. I can talk about a lot of things, and even be quite open, but when it comes to feelings, it's just hard. So I'm going to be brave, mostly because I don't want to look back on my blog and just read about what I did, but also what God has taught me and has been working on in my life.

So to start off with, it's been a really rough summer. Probably one of the toughest that I've ever gone through. Filled with lots of despair and depressing thoughts, impatience, frustration, discouragement, even at times anger. The main reason is that I was really, really disappointed about not being able to finish my degree this summer, and as soon as I realized that (which was about the beginning of April), I went into this downward spiral of utter sadness. It sounds a lot more dramatic than it should have been, but that's how it felt like to me. I didn't realize how disappointed I was; how much it shook me to the core--my confidence, my expectations, my sense of how things would go. So the rest of the summer was learning how to get up after being down.

I fantasized a lot about escape. I even went so far as to look up pre-law classes at De Anza and look at LSAT practice tests online. Yet what stopped me from running away was the nagging feeling that God wanted me to stick this out. And since I wasn't completely 100% sure that God didn't want me to finish, I was willing to tough it out just a little more.

During this time, the girls in my community group were a real source of strength and support. They prayed for me when I couldn't pray, listened to me, encouraged me to keep seeking God's comfort, waited with me. Without them and also Byron's incredible support, I might have made a rash decision in a moment of emotional weakness.

A big part of the frustration came from the feeling of helplessness. I felt that I had worked my hardest, and yet I still couldn't make progress on my thesis. I was so tired of it being so hard, so weary of trying for over six months, and feeling like there was no movement forward. I was sick of waiting. I didn't know how to conduct myself during that time. I didn't know how to wait on God. I felt like I was surrendering over and over again, only to realize that I hadn't truly surrendered. I also felt like I couldn't hear God or sense his presence in all of my anguish. I was very confused. I had a hard time praying.

Something changed in the last month. I don't know what it was. It's not like everything is better now. I still struggle almost daily with patience and with doubt. I wonder if what I'm working on will add up to anything. I worry about whether I am "wasting time." But I think a big change that has happened is in my heart. A few weeks ago, I had a breakthrough realization of some sort. And it was very simple: God is God, and I am not. All of my waiting, all of my yearning to finish my dissertation according to my time table, all of my desperate desire to be done cannot change the fact that I am not God of my life. And I need to let God be God, and not sit here longing for things to be different, for my circumstances to go faster. I felt very relieved after realizing this. Almost released. And I was able to say to myself, it's okay however long it takes. God is God, and I am not.

I'm still learning on how to wait on God, and how to watch for what he wants me to learn during this process of waiting. My heart has calmed down from all of my self-inflicted drama. Yesterday, I prayed something I hadn't prayed for in months: that God would accomplish the spiritual work he wants to do in my heart through this process of waiting, however long it takes (for the longest time, all I could pray for was progress in my chapters or in my thesis.) I remembered that there's a spiritual education along with the academic one--I had been focusing so much on the latter that that was all I could see.

Somehow I think that my dissertation won't be the only thing that will be completed when I'm done; I hope that I will also be a more "complete" person, someone who has experienced God in deeper ways.