Answers

Remember how once upon a time I asked the Father for a hard semester?

[...before I go further, I want to give the disclaimer that it has been an incredible semester, and we're right in the middle of a lot of amazingness.  There are so many good and exciting and deep conversations happening that it's overwhelming.]

Anyway... right now I'm also in the middle of a lot of answers.  And answers never seem to feel like exactly what I was envisioning.  They're always more uncomfortable and complicated.  I don't know what I thought "a hard semester" would look like... a dragon showing up on campus that I could fight?  getting mono and heroically continuing to teach?  blizzards that last until June?

Okay, well, none of those happened.  (Not even the blizzards, though I was afraid it would...)

Instead, sometimes it looks more like the messiness of human relationships and trying to be wise with what conversations happen when, trying to listen to and pour into students, trying not to cry every time they ask me, "So next term, you will be our teacher?", generally being tired, and getting a text from my sister that my dad is in the ER.  And trying to love people in America well while I'm in China.  And trying not to be distracted from being engaged here.  And...

And I don't know if I should laugh or cry.  It is what I asked for.  I know that He works through all of the insanity to make me more like Him.

I know it's a good thing in the end.

But in the meantime... if you wouldn't mind lifting that I'd have patience and endurance and wisdom and joy in the midst of all the ma fan/trials...

I would DEFINITELY appreciate it!