First of all, let me apologize to you folks, my would-be faithful blog readers. It's not that God hasn't been faithful to me in Chile, he has... and more, but I haven't made time to record all of the little things and all of my little adventures as I should have. I promise to try and catch up as I come back and reflect on everything that has happened here. The statement still stands. God has paved my path to Chile and successfully made my way down here and all he has asked me to do is to seek him as he reveals his purpose for calling me down here. Was it an escape from Biology? I had hoped. Was it an escape from boy drama? I had hoped on both sides of that debate... Was he going to teach me about myself? Yeah, yeah... thank you, Epicenter, advise me about how I'm going to grow one more time and I might just stop believing you (my apologies to those who put their time into thoughtful pre-study abroad preparation, you really did give me a great stepping stone). I came down here looking for God and being open to what he might show me and believing that he would show me something, but I also came down here sarcastic, numb, and giving a little more than lip-service to things that I could recognize as God and trying to figure out what they could mean, but I also came down here with the voice of the adversary very strongly in my ear.
In the time that it took this morning to skip my 'Lectura de los Salmos' class, a class that is supposedly supposed to teach me about the Bible, I sat down to write an email to a scholar-friend of mine who had just finished his Master's thesis. An email that turned into God answering my soul-quest of the past three to maybe even eight years. He has answered painful questions I have chosen to ignore and even barely voiced to my mom, hoping that they would go away, and even at times wondering if I had a demon living inside me. The enemy had put an unintentional wall between me an my dad that I've been trying to ignore. This past Sunday, he had reached an UGLY point in my soul where I'd been doubting my very faith and my Messiah College education all in one as many of us do. Before I left I had felt like I had outgrown Messiah and had even been sarcastic about out lack of diversity and other things that I called a 'lack' of something before looking at the true abundance of programming and blessings we do have. I had allowed myself to believe some of the hateful things that some alumni or transfer-outs have said about the community or credibility of Messiah as an institution, or even some of the things that have come up about students losing their faith before graduating (all the while testifying to the beautiful parts of Messiah in my job as a campus tour guide, which I also still believed in). The truth is, I was honestly just a step away from becoming one of them, form cursing the institution that was feeding me and spurring me on to 'maturity of intellect, character, and Christian faith.' I was full and empty. I was lost and found. I was secure and seeking. I had both forgiven and remained bitter.
Every word of my blog up to now is authentic, don't get me wrong, but it has been a huge, masked struggle on the edge of two extremes, I was being blessed with leadership, but at the same time I was trying to figure out my own place. My battle started in early high school with the question 'What do you want to do with your life?' Thankfully, God has made that clear, along with my college choice senior year of high school and I have correctly chalked staying in Biology up to being obedience, but it's much more than that. Satan wanted me to believe that my parents had forced me into my major and he wanted me to question not only my Messiah decision, something that he had been SO clear about, but my very belief in God. He had used the lie that my college decision and my choice of major were just pleasing my parents to allow me to believe that my very faith was just something that came from my parents and their 'Christian college experience,' and even in finding themselves in Eastern's own version of 'Ring before Spring.' Was I failing at the game my parents had won? Where was my perfect Chirstian colege soul mate? Was I a bad Christian because I hadn't been earned the Res Life stamp of approval to influence the personal lives of others? Why was I seeking validation in men and leadership rolls anyway? Why had God denied me things that I SWORE I wanted? What about the desires of my heart? Where was my heart may have been a better question. I thought I knew it, I thought I knew me, but God had clearly sent me to study abroad when I told him I would be an RA or study abroad sooner and he clearly had not sent me any of the guys I had all but chased after. Seriously, God... I've liked the same guy since freshman year and in that time he's had not one but TWO 'perfect Messiah girlfriends?!?' Where did this air of entitlement come from? Who owed me anything? What was causing this insecurity? How much of this insecurity had been fueled by a person in authority telling me that I was insecure and he could see it?
This is getting really long and I actually want you to read it, so let me give you a baby bit of background, I participated in a new-found friend's research for his Master's back in January before leaving for Wisconsin and he sent me his thesis (like 230 pages) today because I had asked to read it when he finished. This is beside the point, but surprisingly enough, he too has an uncanny connection between Spanish and stewardship. I was going to read it later, but I couldn't help myself because he told me he had quoted me. What was he looking at? 'Green' formations and the foundation for 'Christian Environmental Stewardship' on Christian College campuses and he had been given my name as a possible interviewee through some connections I had. All this had happened right about the time the backpacker article had come out (http://danika-adventuresinchile.blogspot.com/2011/01/hike-pray-protest.html). I had felt really so convicted, in fact, that at that time I had even written a letter to KP, Kim Phipps, the President of Messiah, about these convictions, sort of realizing that I was dropping a bomb on her desk as I left for study abroad. In reading part of Todd's conclusions, God was working on some MAJOR revelations in my heart that NEEDED to surface.
Even in my side trip back to the states that I mention here and may have to fill some of you in on later, a weekend in Alaska for my Aunt Bec's wedding in the middle of study abroad, I had questioned that seeing my family three months in would mess up my 'study abroad experience' and that I might not be able to divine any meaning from this time that was supposedly one of the most formative times of my life. I had not found a Chilean identity like the famous Shaina. I didn't miss my family as much as I probably should have, and I did not have a Chilean boyfriend like even Sarah, (YOUR experience will be YOUR experience) had found because I had only sort of surrendered my lack of dating life to God and my search for identity within the context of study abroad over to God. I only sort of believed, or believed but not WHOLEHEARTEDLY believed that God was and is working for my good. Even in my devos in Romans about being called by God and not being able to change that call, I was like... WHAT IF I'M NOT REALLY BEING CALLED BY GOD? What if it's in my head? What if God is only a concept in my head? I was bawling like a baby at the wedding because I finally allowed myself to conclude that Aunt Bec's wedding was truly a thing of the Holy Spirit even though I had already testified to it over and over again as I told her story to others, my head knowledge was still trying to test my heart knowledge, still trying to find a fault in my new Uncle Brad to say that God wasn't 100% in charge. I wanted an excuse to chase after boys instead of actually believing in the worth of waiting for God to show you 'the one' and even that there might be more than 'the one' or there might be more than 'one' plan of God. I'm still working on where I stand on that topic, but I know that trust in God must prevail over all things. The actual wedding was so beautiful and so obviously of God that that's why I couldn't stop crying. Like Lizzy in Pride and Prejudice, I had been wrong about the Mr. Darcy of my soul (Jesus), I had been SO WRONG.
With that said, I thank God for his grace and for not giving up on me, however blockheaded, stubborn, and willing to be independent I am.
Here's my email to Todd, which includes some conclusions and thought process. Right now, I feel like Paul writing to the early church. God has just blown my mind. He has just erased YEARS of doubts in one morning and given purpose to my study abroad, my relationship with my parents, family heritage, the connection between passion and career/ future career, my time at Messiah, and my faith, above all.
In my walk, I'm back to feeling. I don't associate words like blind, simple, and ignorant with faith in my mind (where Satan had been leading my doubts just this week) anymore, I can't. I had told God that I wanted to be moved to tears by the Holy Spirit again and I had been waiting on him to fulfill that, now, here it is. I warn you, this is the authentic soul of Danika here:
Wow, Todd!
I am blown away with the similarities that you were able to draw from the interviews! I knew we (the 'green college students') were a different breed of people, but I never realized how similar we are to each other. I mean, I can Identify with all of the topics that they mentioned but I didn't. It's a very valuable point that we have had perhaps a longer time to ponder all of the themes, and I would agree that It was more difficult for me to pick just a few examples to answer your questions. For example, Although I didn't mention it to you, I LOVED Little House on the Prairie, where as, I'm very 'new' the the Wendell Berry train, having just met him my freshman year while I was in DC for Powershift (okay, stereotype me as a radical, but that's where my 'friends in my on campus club' influence took me my freshman year... although maybe we all need to feed that 'radical' side to keep us going).
I'm so glad that you quoted Cal DeWitt. I love him. I suppose that I've really been spoiled if you look at my AuSable childhood. I'm just now realizing that my dad's colleagues, those who inspired him as a student and who he later worked for, the founders and professors of AuSable, are really all the forefathers of Christian Environmental Education movement. I spent three summers as a child living in Cal DeWitt's basement. Joe Sheldon, if you know him, knew my parents before they were even dating, and I would even say he's like an uncle or grandpa to me (and educationally in some ways, a 'father' of my thought processes). I call both Joe and Cal by their first names and even now, with the articles we have to read for class, or looking at my shelf where sits, 'Redeeming Creation; the Biblical Basis for Environmental Stewardship,' its neat to be able to look at authors and reflect on my time spent with them in the innocence of a child, not realizing that these people were shaping not only my life, but a movement. Did you know that Cal DeWitt helped in the editing of the 'Green Bible?'
What a growing process to rediscover the values of my parents and the 'bricks' that they helped to put in my 'house' are really common threads that we all share! I guess it's part of my self-revelation and self-discovery as I search for what I'm going to do with my bio degree that I really cannot escape. I really struggle with staying in Bio as my major and what I'm going to do with my degree, but God continually shows me that it's obedience and that his plan has always been NOT to change my major as many times as I have wanted to. I keep finding myself coming back to the common strands I have with my parents. I have really questioned if I picked my major because of them or because of me, but reading your thesis has really helped me to realize that they're just a piece of my formation. As much credit or blame as I'd love to give them, it's just a glimmer of what God has been reveling to me it my past 21 years. I really can't help myself, valuing what they value, noticing the foundations they've laid for me, but is more than having something in common with my immediate parents, I'm really realizing that I too am a child of a movement. I have been born into an idea set. My 'house' has all kinds of bricks in from all different 'people' and revelations of the Holy Spirit. I don't usually stop to examine all the little details of its walls of the 'house of my formation,' but I guess for me, my conquest for that 'self-identity,' figuring out what I truly value and what beliefs are mine and what are my parents' has really helped me to even see the cliché 'it takes a village to raise a child.' It takes a seed to start a movement. It takes kindred spirits, like kindling to keep it going, but it takes individuals to own it.
Wow, sorry! I only intended to send you an email and this is becoming really personal, but God also just reminded me of my devo journey through the Old Testament. Even Israel struggled with personal and spiritual identity. Even Israel questioned ideas that weren't of the Holy Spirit to determine which ideas were truly of God, and even Israel had to break down the idea of the 'god of her fathers,' 'of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' before truly owning her personal relationship with God as his 'chosen people.' For the Israelites as for many middle eastern cultures, the genealogy stuff in the OT was what gave them their legitimacy. Here I've been fighting it, loving being called a 'Daddy's girl,' but also wondering if doing what pleased my parents was the 'easy path' or my roll as the typical oldest child. Here I was, about to graduate college next year and wondering what part of my degree I had 'owned' on my own free will, and how I would fit my passion (if I even had any passion anymore) in my life post-study abroad, post taking biology (my personal struggle), out of my life to focus on Spanish, my other degree, for a semester. Honestly, I've been struggling with even my faith lately and reconciling my Christian education with my Christian formation and trying to decide what part of my faith is personal and purely authentic. I've struggled with what to do with all my head knowledge and where it applied to my heart knowledge, a struggle that many students from my college give up on, don't fight, and say that my school has been too liberal, hasn't given them enough answers, and decided to leave the faith because their experience had been to 'difficult.' No, no, that hasn't been it at all for me...
Recently, Satan has been throwing the beautiful phrase 'the faith of out fathers' in my face, mockingly and trying to break down my personal identity as a Christ follower, trying to eat away at my personal convictions, trying to blur my memory of when God has come through to me personally time and time again, like acid, corroding the things I KNOW to be true, the things I have tested, the times he has stepped in and showed me his absolutely unfailing love and faithfulness. 'Obedience, Danika, obedience,' he's tried to assure me even by giving me little things like the confirmation of my summer job this past week after clarifying with him that I was done worrying about it and had finally decided that I needed to surrender it to him. Like Job, I'm always getting caught up in the little pieces, the 'God, what if...' Like Job, God calls me out into nature to show me the hugeness of mountains, he calls me out of my comfort to realize his perfect strength, and he gives me the little things that I ask for, like a child begging for candy before dinner, to help guide me on to trying to see the bigger pieces. Just as Job couldn't understand the vastness of salvation and the God's whole plan, sometimes the only thing we are left with is trust. Sometimes the only thing we are left with are the failed plans, like broken toys, that we destroy without seeking God first, that we continually scoop up and hold up to him, saying, 'Daddy fix it.' Like all of the prophesies of the OT that God used to PROVE that Jesus was his son (that we still choose to say are coincidence), like all of the miracles of Jesus that we still try to rationalize with science, which by the way is just our interpretation of God's world, we still 'pull a Job' because God is just THAT much bigger than our understanding.
Oh, wow, sorry again, this is getting super long. I didn't really intend to answer your thesis with a dissertation of my own. God has sent you to me at a perfect time (with the interview timing right before my study abroad and your finished research now as I'm starting to question what I have learned in the bigger picture here in Chile), and I am once again amazed by his perfect will and plan, his perfect assurance. 'Blessed assurance, Jesus IS mine!'
Thanks, Todd. You have just been used by God to help me in my string of Job moments.
God bless you!
Danika
God just keeps leading me to Matthew 6:33, definitely my Chile theme.
SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Blesses ASSURANCE, Jesus is mine. Blessed assurance, Jesus IS mine... Blessed assurance, Jesus is MINE!
Amen and Amen!
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