Week one of the program is done. I was in spanish class for 15 hours this last week. Then, on Friday, I had the honor of getting rocked by my first test, which served as a pleasant reminder that I actually have to pass these classes (wait... what?). Our class is nice though, three hours can feel a little long, but the professor gladly follows grammatical rabbit trails, which excites and fascinates me. Below is a picture with our professor.
On a vaguely related note, and more so than my spanish skills, I've been growing greatly in my cooking abilities. Both of the guys I live with enjoy cooking, and so I've been able to soak up some of their knowing. Tonight we made chicken and shrimp fettucini alfredo with garlic bread and some blue cheese and onion finger salads.
And I thought this was fantastic...
A story with which to leave you: Friday night our whole group got together for a family dinner night, and two of the hosting girls had a great idea for each of us to share the ways we had seen God's faithfulness recently. One by one, we went around the table and shared stories from their summer or the last couple of weeks, and slowly the conversation moved into the general direction of people confessing their desire to see the Holy Spirit move. Which, led us to decide to clean up dinner, and then watch the movie Finger of God (a really cool documentary about miracles).
While preparing for that, someone started playing guitar, and prayer and worship just started happening all over the apartment. After an hour or so, another person came forward with a prayer request for the whole group. She had been having pretty bad neck pain that night, and wanted to know if we'd pray for healing. Excited and apprehensive, we all gathered around and lifted her up in prayer, just praying that Jesus would heal His daughter. People prayed with courage, and asked God boldly for the removal of her pain. "Its pretty much the same" she said after we where done. To which someone replied, "Then, we need to pray again." That caught people off guard, you could almost see the thoughts on people faces 'it didn't work though...' Tentatively, our group gathered around her again. One by one we laid our hands on her. Suddenly, one of the girls started laughing and then explained that she felt like the Holy Spirit had been asking her to pray, but that she had been too scared so she hadn't. Following her confession, she asked God to heal my friend and guess what happened? All the pain immediately left her neck.
What if God is real?
That's the question I've been asking a ton these last couple of weeks. What if God is real? What would change in my life? How would I live differently? Pray differently? Think about His kingdom coming differently? Maybe I don't see big things happen because all my prayers are centered on myself, and I only ask for things in ways that I can easily back out of. I mean, how often do my prayers end with "however if _____ is not in your will, that's okay" type caveat, which is honestly less of a declaration of God's right to do whatever He pleases, and more of a lack-of-faith-backdoor through which I can retreat if nothing happens.
But, what if God is real?
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