When You Step And You Fall
All right, dear readers, this isn't gonna be a regular occurrence, but I have some time and some inspiration, so you get two blog posts this week.
Someone asked me yesterday what it's like to live with a thousand people.
I responded with an exhausted sigh. "This is an extravert's dream," I said.
I am an introvert.
I have spent these eighteen days empty and grieving and filling up and spilling over. All at once. I have found myself simultaneously lonely and socially overwhelmed. I have found myself an anxious mess on my bedroom floor, everything in me reaching for home and all that is familiar, and I have found myself on my RA's couch listening to her say, "Jessi, I think you're just gonna fall in love one day and it's gonna be all at once." And I have found myself believing her...and proving her right.
I have fallen in love with Moody Bible Institute. My biggest dream became my worst nightmare became my biggest dream. I feel like twirling for the beauty of it.
There is ugliness, to be sure. Family crisis and boy drama have already haunted us. Frustration and sleep deprivation and deep insecurity and brokenness plague every girl on this floor. The enemy's flaming darts are everywhere and we aren't just caught in the crossfire now--we are on the front lines. This is real. This is the cost of ministry. I write this to remind me I count it worth it.
I am an introvert. And yet I have found my greatest joy here is living with a thousand others.
Moody has created a culture in which I am blatantly reminded that I have a family in Christ. Not friends. Not acquaintances. Family. Blood relatives in the deepest, truest, most redeeming sense. It's scary sometimes. There are thirty-seven women on my floor alone and almost all of them intimidate me for one reason or another. And yet, they're the ones literally calling me "sister."
I have brothers, countless brothers who love me to death, who would fight for me, already.
In eighteen days.
We worship together three times a week and I listen to our thousand voices raised to our Father in heaven and wonder how small our sound must be in the midst of the whole praising multitude. And yet He calls us saints and heirs--children.
I have fallen in love with Moody Bible Institute. And as I lie here in the dark of this dorm room, sisters on every side, brothers just across the plaza, I hear Him whisper:
"Now fall in love with Me."
Someone asked me yesterday what it's like to live with a thousand people.
I responded with an exhausted sigh. "This is an extravert's dream," I said.
I am an introvert.
I have spent these eighteen days empty and grieving and filling up and spilling over. All at once. I have found myself simultaneously lonely and socially overwhelmed. I have found myself an anxious mess on my bedroom floor, everything in me reaching for home and all that is familiar, and I have found myself on my RA's couch listening to her say, "Jessi, I think you're just gonna fall in love one day and it's gonna be all at once." And I have found myself believing her...and proving her right.
I have fallen in love with Moody Bible Institute. My biggest dream became my worst nightmare became my biggest dream. I feel like twirling for the beauty of it.
There is ugliness, to be sure. Family crisis and boy drama have already haunted us. Frustration and sleep deprivation and deep insecurity and brokenness plague every girl on this floor. The enemy's flaming darts are everywhere and we aren't just caught in the crossfire now--we are on the front lines. This is real. This is the cost of ministry. I write this to remind me I count it worth it.
I am an introvert. And yet I have found my greatest joy here is living with a thousand others.
Moody has created a culture in which I am blatantly reminded that I have a family in Christ. Not friends. Not acquaintances. Family. Blood relatives in the deepest, truest, most redeeming sense. It's scary sometimes. There are thirty-seven women on my floor alone and almost all of them intimidate me for one reason or another. And yet, they're the ones literally calling me "sister."
I have brothers, countless brothers who love me to death, who would fight for me, already.
In eighteen days.
We worship together three times a week and I listen to our thousand voices raised to our Father in heaven and wonder how small our sound must be in the midst of the whole praising multitude. And yet He calls us saints and heirs--children.
I have fallen in love with Moody Bible Institute. And as I lie here in the dark of this dorm room, sisters on every side, brothers just across the plaza, I hear Him whisper:
"Now fall in love with Me."
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