JACS ON JACS week 4

Hello beautiful brothers and sisters,
sorry for the late post. I've been loving all the emails about the fundraising coming up real soon. We will be praying hard for you guys on Sunday for everything to go smoothly and that God will  be our aim to glorify in the end. I'm also really encouraged by all of your posts. They are they sunshine to my rainy day. Forreals.
Here we go:

Emotionally:
This week seemed especially long and still stressful :( I have another 3 papers due before finals and just found out 10 minutes ago that I have THREE finals all on the first day of finals. Praying so hard for strength and endurance right now!
BUT I have to share something super random. So basically for my California History class we had to visit a public historical site and write a ten page paper about it afterwards (le sigh). After multiple Google searches, I chose Mission San Juan Capistrano because the google images made it look so pretty! Kinda like an enchanted garden.

Here's me with my remote control interactive audio tour. I was super excited. 

Anyways, I went to visit the living headquarters of the people. The first room was for guests and the beds were made out of thick ropes and wooden pegs. I went straight to the padre’s living quarters after and actually had to do a double take. His room only consisted of a mini table and a bench (as shown in the second picture). I almost missed this room because I thought, “There is no way this could be THE padre’s living quarters. There is barely anything in here!” The bench I saw was actually his bed. The description provided said that the padres preferred to live simply with few to no material comforts.  It talked about how they were more attentive to their HEAVENLY than their EARTHLY concerns. Dang. Furthermore, they began their day by waking up at TWO AM EACH MORNING to pray (last time I checked, half of us here go to SLEEP at that time). Their schedules were SATURATED with prayer (even with their PACKED schedules) and it was reoccurring theme of their everyday lives. After reading that description out loud, my roommate (who graciously came with me to the mission) and I just stood there in awe (cue dramatic music). While staring at the plain wooden bench, we shared about how it is so difficult to purposefully set aside time to pray and spend time with the Lord. How this can become such a rarity in our lives when we feel overwhelmed with everything. Obviously our life is nowhere similar to the padres’ back then, but I think I learned that it is still crucial to remember WHAT and WHO we are living for in the busyness of everything. It was really encouraging to learn about this little part of history. 

   

Guest vs. Padre Living Quarters

Verses:
Luke 1:78-79 wow, incredible poetry. A++. How beautiful is it to compare God's tender mercy to one of HIS own most beautiful creations?

This may sound so cliche and sappy, but the way I took this passage was how God uses his light as HOPE. He didn't just throw us into the world and sit back to watch what happens. And just when we think the world is nothing but darkness, he uses his LIGHT to send a message, saying to not give up. 

Luke 11:33-36

I totally remember this passage from Sunday school! (and of course, who can forget that song--y'all know what i'm talking about) 

But anyways, while reading this I was thinking, "What's the point of having a light in the first place if all you gonna do is hide it?" If God's given me this absolute privilege of holding a light in this world, I shouldn't be ashamed and should be easily showing it off instead! I reflected on what keeps me from shining this light. A lot of things like fear of rejection, being a people pleaser, laziness came up. I prayed for God to give me opportunities to change my old habits and for courage be able to do so. The second of this passage talked about being essentially "spiritually blind". The eyes are reflections of the light in our spiritual life. We are blinded when we are filled with arrogance of ignorance of God's love/grace; however, if our hearts are willing, our eyes are full of light, hope, and truth.

Physically: This week was our last week of legit weight training before finals. I did a couple squats, weights, and interval training. I've been so busy with everything that I have no time to fit in a good workout :(

Anyways, hope you guys have a great weekend!
Remember to always
Be kind, love God, and make good choices :)

LOVE,
JACS