Snow days = time

Snow days are blissful days. Planned breaks are great and all, but there's always something do to or somewhere to be. Snow days make you stop and enjoy. That's a delight. 

My first semester of my junior year is going to be over in two weeks. I have three semesters of highschool left. (!!!) This semester has been crazy busy and fun and surprisingly wonderful in ways I wouldn't have expected. Once again, God's plans are not my plans, and I'm so grateful for that. He's much better at being God than I am (imagine that!). I'm not really sure that I can summarize my whole semester, so I'll try to summarize a few things. 

Being involved with the John 3:16 Mission this semester has been a huge blessing to me. Mom and I go Wednesday afternoons to the Family and Youth Center to help kids with their homework in the after school program. We get to work with the K-4th graders, and it's been amazing to see them improve in their reading, math, and concentration abilities. Even though we're just there to help with homework, I've been overwhelmed with these kid's need for the love of Christ. A conversation a few weeks ago provided a blatant example of this... Mom was helping D with his homework and D wasn't paying much attention to her. He asked her, "Is that girl your daughter?" Mom told him I was. He asked, "Do you beat her?" Mom, quite taken aback, said no, she didn't. D then asked her, "Then what do you do when she gets in trouble?" Oh, that breaks my heart. These kids don't know how telling their questions are. D's home life is not good, and I see that spilling over into his schoolwork and how he handles it. He's a second grader, and he still doesn't know how to read. He knows he's behind, and that makes him angry. The only way he's seen anger dealt with in his home is through physical means. I want to help him and teach him how to read, but my influence only goes so far when he's surrounded by abuse at home. D needs the love of God the Father more than he needs to know how to read. I'm very thankful to see kids at the Mission who do well in their work. I recognized a few kids from volunteering in the green class this summer, and it warmed my heart to see them recognize me. Little J is my favorite. I know I probably shouldn't pick favorites, but J is just so wonderful I can't help but love him. One day we were doing homework outside. After the boys were finished, they played football with Pastor Bryan. J was coloring instead. He's an introspective child, and it's so rare to see that in a second grader, especially the second graders there. He also asks some of the best questions while I'm helping him with homework. We read a story about volcanoes, and he asked how volcanoes worked. We were coloring and he asked why pencils would be erased but crayons couldn't. He's a thinker. I like that kid. 

College preparations are slowly but surely weaving their way into my lists of things to do. A year ago, if you had asked me what I wanted to do in college, I would have told you I didn't want to go (a lot of things were different this time last year). This year, I've realized what I want to do, and now I'm so excited about college because it means the actualization of a dream. I want to be a midwife. I've always loved babies, and even when I wanted to be a single vet with thirty dogs, the miracle of pregnancy amazed me (just more so in dogs than humans). People have warned me that labor and birth are not as beautifully miraculous as they seem in televised versions, but I am fully aware of that and I know that gross things don't gross me out. I can't wait to be able to be involved with the life of the mother expecting a new baby and aid in the process of bringing that baby into the world. What a job! And what gospel opportunities! The prospect of being a midwife makes me so excited. 

I've realized a lot this semester about learning. The learning I'm considering isn't book learning, but experiential learning. This summer provided many lessons for me, and my parents had to teach them to me over and over and over and over again until I finally realized them. I thank God for my parents continual patience with me. I'm pretty darn hard-headed, and when I make a decision for myself, I stick to it, often times despite the wise counsel I've been given. I'm thankful that they didn't tire of telling me the truth. I'm also very glad that now that I've realized their wisdom, I want to apply it to my life. That's the grace of God right there. As I just said, I tend to want to be independent, but it's very good for me to learn to submit to them and trust their counsel above my own. Guess what? They really love me and they want the best for me! They're not trying to take away joy, they want my joy to be complete. I love them so much, and I'm so glad they want me to love God most. 

This past weekend was Thanksgiving break. Laura came home, Adam and Erica and Ford came back, Robert and Sally came over.... The Rusco clan was back together. Have I ever mentioned how much I love my siblings? I really love all of them (and their spouses and babies). It's interesting to look back at how my relationship with all of them has changed. Forever, I was the baby and the littlest sister, but over the past couple of years, the age difference has become less of a factor. I love being able to talk with them about things that interest us all. They're a ton of fun to be around.

I could write about so many other things, but I've already written enough for one post. Perhaps another will follow tomorrow... Perhaps not. It is bedlam after all, and I know we'll be watching it from the warm comfort of our couch here in the Rusco household. 

Till next time, folks. 

Lazy meals

When I'm too lazy to make and physically eat a meal for myself, I just make a smoothie because drinking dinner is somehow easier than eating it in my mind. 

Peanut butter and banana smoothies for life. 

Touching

I touch the people I love often. And it's so hard for me to not do that. 

Seriously though, if you are my friend and I really care for you, when I'm with you I probably want to sit really close to you or hold your hand or cuddle or anything that involves touching you. It's how I give love and how I receive love best. If someone is in my way in the kitchen or hallway, I usually touch them while I pass by them, just to let them know I'm there. To me that's normal. 

This results in quite a few problems for me. You see, not everyone feels the same way about touching as I do. This always makes me hesitant to actually hug my friends or put my hand on their shoulder when I walk by. It genuinely weirds some people out (my dear sister included). Plus, it's not always socially acceptable to touch people. Also, when it's not other people's first instinct to hug me or touch me in some way when they see me, I don't feel as loved by them (which is foolish, but how I think). I've just realized recently that touching really is that important to me. I suppose I should have known, because I rarely go to sleep without hugging everyone in my house (that tradition started long long ago). Maybe it stems from being the youngest? 

The moral of this story is: if you see Suzanna and don't know if you should give her a hug or not, the answer is always yes. 

He is Good

My summer has not been what I was expecting. And at the beginning of that, I was not okay with it. I wanted to control my own situations, thank you very much.
But God is good. And in His goodness, He helped me realize that being in control is His job and He has it pretty well taken care of. There is a lot of peace in actually realizing that, because His plan is infinitely better than anything I could come up with.
One thing God has been teaching me this summer is how much I desperately need Him every day. How can I expect to be spiritually alive and thriving if I cut myself off from the Life? Why am I afraid to be open with Him about my failures? He ordained those failures! He knows me to my very core and I want to know Him the same way. When I am constantly filling myself with Him, then His love and His words and His peace flow out of me. That is a blessing, and not only to me but those around me! I need Him more than I know. Every. Day.
Through learning to love God more, I am seeing in my life how I don't do a good job of loving others like He loves me. Most of that lack of love is shown in how unwilling I have been to be open about the gospel. To quote an atheist magician, "How much do you have to hate someone to not proselytize?" Ouch. I've been praying about evangelism and how it fits into my life, and God, like he always does, perfectly planned that my youth group would listen to a sermon by David Platt a few Wednesday's back about Greater Works. (Please click that link and listen to the sermon. It will be the most valuable hour of your day. And it will feel like five minutes.) This sermon series is entirely about weaving the threads of the gospel into everyday conversations. Platt mentioned in this sermon that we shouldn't worry about creating a situation to share the gospel - if God has us with unbelievers, He wants us to share with them! And even better than that, God is working in that person's life already. Everyone is looking for fulfillment, and it is only found in Christ. I have been given Christ, and I am able to share Him freely. Why don't I? I need to considers others more important than myself and disregard my fear knowing that the shame I might feel from possible rejection will bring glory to the Father. And that is my purpose. 

I wish I could say I've started sharing the gospel with everyone I've met since I felt this conviction, but I definitely haven't. Part of that is because I am mostly contained in a happy little Christian bubble. I'm very blessed to have grown up in such a solid church and have believing friends and family, but I wish I had more opportunities to befriend unbelievers. When I realized I really don't have those opportunities where I am in my life right now, I was a little discouraged. Then thankfully I remembered that God isn't sitting up in heaven, waiting for me to make non-Christian friends so He can work through me - He has me right where I am in order to minister there. Revolutionary thought, right? (It really actually is.) 

So here I am. I have one week and a day until summer is over and I get to return to my mission field - my school. I will be surrounded five days a week by Christians who need encouragement and gospel reminders, professing Christians who need to realize where they really stand, girls who would rather find their identity in another boyfriend than in Christ, kids who have been immersed in the gospel but have never heard it, and broken people who need more and more of Christ every day. I will not be able to love these people and fix them myself, but I want to be a vessel for the outpouring of the perfect love of Christ. I must continue to fill myself with His word so that I can turn around and tell others more about Him. There will always be more to learn, and it will never be dull. He is good.