Aaaalmost there!

We Interrupt this broadcast to give you the following Public Service Announcement:

If you are still getting emails from the facebook group and you HATE them, do this:

-Go to the group (it should be along the menu on the left side of your facebook homepage)

-click "Edit settings" in the upper-right-hand corner

- click the dropdown menu for "notify me when" and select "only posts I am subscribed to"

-click "save settings"

-under any post I wrote, click "subscribe"

And then you will get notifications when I post something there, but not when the other people you may or may not know, do.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming:

My brain isn't fully processing this idea that I'm leaving in 31/2 weeks! I feel like I'm ready to go...but also that I have SO much to do.

I don't think it's going to start seeming real to me until I start packing.

I still have to...

-figure out what I need to bring/not bring (hooray for having a friend who's been doing this for -about 6 months already for packing advice!)

-actually pack it

-see what shots I need...and get them

-get my travel visa...lucky for me, one of the missionaries I'm working with has a friend in the Kenyan Embassy in Washington, DC. Unucky for me, they decided to change the cost of visas starting Jan 1. Somehow, that translates into, visas that continue past Jan 1st are now more expensive...and instead of processing your visa we will mail you the stuff back, and tell you to send it to us again on January 1st. That's cutting it just a liiiiiiittle close!

faaantastic.

I still haven't heard ANYTHING from ANY medical schools...but, as always, I have no control over this situation so I have no choice but to learn patience and trust God.

Which brings me to this:

A quote from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest (I highly recommend reading his daily devotional at myutmost.org!!)

I read this the other day:

"Our Lord is dethroned more emphatically by Christian workers than by the world. God is made a machine for blessing men, and Jesus Christ is made a Worker among workers.
The idea is not that we do work for God, but that we are so loyal to Him that He can do His work through us - "I reckon on you for extreme service, with no complaining on your part and no explanation on Mine." God wants to use us as He used His own Son"

and I found it quite interesting. I think a lot of times we (or at least I) trust God with something partly because it might be his will, but a bigger part simply because it's the situation I think should happen, and doesn't God want me to experience the situations I want to experience?? (haha...)

Now....of course there are times when what I want and what God wants are the same (I think), like with this medical school thing. I truly believe that this is what God wants for my life, and I really want it too. So I trust that God's going to work it out so I get into medical school. But why do I trust that? Is it because that's the plan I picked for my life and God's being nice and giving me what I want? Or is it because I'm trusting that it's His will, and He's going to make it happen because it's His will? I think it should be more of the latter than it is in my head.

So what if I also want to go to medical school for completely "selfish" reasons. If I really felt God was calling me to do something I didn't really want to do would I be praying for His will to be done as much as I do now? I can say from experience, not really. And that, Oswald Chambers says, is how we make God into our blessing machine, instead of making ourselves into His workers.

So of course there's a balance to this...we shouldn't stop praying for the things we want in life...but when you have a realization you've got to take it to an extreme at first so that you can settle back into moderation and learn from it, so that's what I am doing. :-D

Random interjection- I think I'm going to name my first son Oswald, and call him Ozzywaldo as an embarrassing childhood nickname. It's still better than Yelliepoopalasaloo or however you spell that. (Thanks MommaJayne)

On another side note, I still have not finished putting away all my stuff that I brought home with me, and tonight Dad said I had to finish by tomorrow night so that my sister could have space to start packing her suitcase for our cruise. Which means that the cruise is SO close! :) Don't be too jealous though, I've heard Florida's supposed to be in the 60s when we get there. Nicer than NY but not really cruise weather. Oh well, I'll be in 100 degree weather soon enough!

Also, I really, really miss Cornell! It's better now that most of the people who were there have gone to their respective homes, but for a week or so every time something from Cornell popped up on facebook I had this terrible "AAAH I'm MISSING OUT on something!" feeling. Guess I'd better get used to it.

Also, there is a ladybug bouncing around among the light bulbs in the fan in the living room, and it reminds me of that time they infested my bedroom and we vacuumed about 200 of them out of my room in one night. That was a fun day. Especially with the smell they give off when they die. :-p

Alright, enough of me babbling. Good Night!