The funny thing about summer classes is that you're immersed in a certain group of people.  For six weeks, you see the same people.  Every day, for 3-4 hours a day.  And some of them you get to be pretty close with...you exchange cell numbers, you study together, you meet at their house to work on a group project.  All that time is invested in building a relationship.

But after 6 weeks is up, is it over?  Most likely I won't ever see these people again.  And it's not like I'm going randomly call Cheryl or Sacha one day to see what's up and chat.  So as far as I can see, the time I spent befriending them is over. 

But wasted?  I don't think so.  In their own ways, each of them impacted me. 

Lifelong friends are awesome, necessary, and I love them dearly.  But it is literally impossible to have all friends be lifelong, or to only have lifelong relationships.  And so these friends that I have had for a short time are a major blessing: people who are here for the moment, and often fulfill a temporary need.  Who really wants to be friendless and alone for six weeks?  Class would have been miserable.  Additionally, I had the opportunity to make friends with people of different walks of life as me--people I would not necessarily be able to maintain a lifelong friendship with.  People who, not being believers, really couldn't be close friends but from whom I can learn about life.

Some seasons of life are so short.  Sometimes it hurts to move on so quickly.  I mean, I just got to know these people!  Can't I have a little longer with them?  But I don't regret the friendship, even though losing them may cause some pain.  I am so, so grateful I got to know these people.  I've learned way more than just Spanish through them.

I thought that I would do a post on what God has been teaching me lately, but couldn't decide which lesson I wanted to talk about.  So I made a list.  And ultimately, every item boiled down to one thing: brokenness.

Dryness

There are so many areas in which I fail.  When someone sends a pointed barbed remark in my direction, and I respond with bitterness and hurt.  When I'm tired and my first response to an intruder is with impatience.  When I try so hard to live a godly life and then in one moment of folly all the trust I have built up dissipates.  "A few dead flies putrefy the ointment."

It seems that God has brought me to a place where I am constantly on my knees.  No, not in a super-spiritual state where I piously pray in faith for others and watch miracles happen.  I mean praying desperately for strength to make it through the next moment, fighting for a breath and wishing I were so much more than I am. 

I've always tended to self-condemnation.  I'm usually the last to forgive my own faults (usually...).  When I think that someone is not satisfied with who I am, those faults of mine glare at me until I deal with them.  It's like a pebble in my shoe, constantly rubbing at raw and tender skin and causing me to limp.

But you know what?  A lack of self-forgiveness indicates a misunderstanding of the power of the grace of God.  When I cannot find it in myself to forgive myself for my weakness and sin, then I am telling God that He was wrong to forgive me.  That His righteousness imputed to me is not enough for me, that I need something more to make me worthy.  I'm telling Him that His sacrifice for me is not enough.   

God knows that I am a lost little lamb, completely and utterly dependent on Him.  He wants me to put effort into my Christian life, but He doesn't want me to place that burden upon myself, because I can't handle it.  I often consider living out a Christian testimony as living a good life.  But where'd I get that idea from?  Living a Christian life means sharing failures as well as successes, and God's grace in the midst of it.  You can't "ruin your testimony" by failing, because to do so would be to remove God's grace and sanctification from our representation of the Christian walk.

I will never, ever be perfect on this earth and that will probably always bother me (as well it should).  But to try to hide my brokenness is to hide my Healer.  And to hide my Healer is to ruin my testimony in a way that no fault ever could.

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  ~Romans 8:1

So I showed up ten minutes early with a classmate, and we decided we wanted to have our final outside.  So we drug the desks out onto the grass in a circle.  When the professor showed up, he shrugged and said "Okay."

We then proceeded to split up into small groups, discuss the novel we were reading, and then come back together into the large group to discuss our findings. 

I had already taken two finals that day, two that required lots of memorization.  My brain was fried and I needed a break.

It was sweet.