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YellowMShel
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Name: Michele
Gender: Female
Interests: Bible studies, Philosophy (it is a new discovery!), swimming, skydiving, white water rafting, reading, kids, Camp Berea, kayaking, canoeing, ultimate frisbee, football, mountain hiking, anything outside, "I Love Lucy" reruns, almost anything! Some day I want to white water kayak over a water fall (a small one).
Expertise: Who other than God can clam to be an expert?
Occupation: Daughter of the King
Industry: Trying to glorify my Father.
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
10/23/2006
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| Through out my life God as confirmed to me again and again that HE has given me the gift of teaching. Until now, I thought that meant I would spend my life in a school teaching children. Now that I have done this for a year and a half, I am not in love with it. The thought of doing this the rest of my life does not excite me. I know that following God will be exciting, I am just now praying that He changes things up for me. My brother just showed me a government job that allows for tons of overseas travel and living. It looks very interesting. I am going to start praying about it. Perhaps I can spend some years serving my government and getting to see more of the world! Whether anything comes of it or not, I like to dream that I will not have to teach in a 'Westernized' school setting my whole life. | | |
| I realize more and more each day how fleeting our time is here on earth. How Christians truly do not have a home here; we were made for a different world. Jesus is preparing my home and I will not be able to be fully and always satisfied until I am there.
It is now Christmas break and people are leaving. Most will be coming back, but some have been called to move to a new place. I know that in all things God is in control and He will do good for those who love Him. Yet as I sit here I also know that it can hurt. Discipline is not always pleasant at the moment but it will produce the best in us; Jesus.
Right now I feel as though I am just one raw nerve. The littlest thing can make me cry. I grew up with the idea that crying was for babies. I was a "tough" girl who rarely cried. And if I did it was because of one of two reasons: extreme physical pain, or a movie. But crying at a movie was never too bad because there was no deep personal cause of grief. Now, however, I find so many things causing my heart to cry. Why? I was warned that moving to a new country and all the change could do this. It is true. And yet I think it may be good. So many of the changes I can see some of the lesson God is teaching me and I see changes He is making that I have longed for. I don't long for the pain, but oh to be closer to HIM all the pain is worth it.
I wish I could truly say that I love my Father, but how much more I could love Him and don't yet.
May my heart grow everyday in love with Him.
Jamey Sturgill is leaving; following God's will for him. I respect Jamey, and his desire to show God. To be a disciple of His truth, wisdom, and love. Many nights I have wondered why Jamey's leaving is affecting me so much. For now I believe it is a mix of all the changes God is bringing in my life, along with my respect for Jamey and because God has shown and convicted Jamey of things that mirror my life. Jamey is on the radical path that I have so long prayed that God would lead me on. A life of getting back to the Bible. Simplicity, truly taking the Word for what it says. Weeding out culture and trying to see EVERYTHING through God's world view. Doing all of this with passion, wisdom, seeking truth. Taking the advice in Proverbs and everyday following it! For at least 10 years now I have prayed as Proverbs says; for wisdom, help to seek knowledge and understanding.
After reading Jamey's most recent note on facebook I thought, "How does any one have time for thinking such deep thoughts and to put it down so well and logically?" And then I remembered my mother's favorite verse of the Bible; Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." What a great reminder to me that I should spend my time DWELLING on things in that list. Over sleeping, TV, and things done only to stop my mind from working are not what God wants for me.
Father,
Let me sit at Your feet and listen to Your teachings. Help me to continually converse with you. Keep my mind on all of the good things You have for us to dwell on. Give me Your wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
Complete the good work You have started in me.
Your perfect will be done. Amen Love,
Michele | | |
| Christmas break is only two weeks away!!!
I find myself caught. Caught in my own head. Caught in a cycle I cannot break myself. Caught needing my Father.
God,
I thank you for being my Dad. For loving me and taking care of me.
Love,
Michele | | |
| EXHAUSTED: I have never been this exhausted in my life. It is because it is a tiredness felt physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I think of the verses in Galations 6 which say "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." Wow, how much God knew I would need this!!! It truly is easy to become weary of doing good and when the weariness tries to come along with it comes the lack of helping and thinking of others.
I have always struggled with getting close to others and letting them get close to me. Why is this? I am not sure, though I have tried to analyze it. Especially now that I am far from home and anything remotly familiar I have begun to evaluate why I have never built a close frienship with anyone outside of my immediate family. Hmmm.... This is a puzzle that I must wait for God to reveal to me. One major problem with this is that I am not following 1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. And 1 Peter 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Even now when I am in a place (physically and spiritually) where I love ALL of my students, I would not cry if they left tomorrow and never came back. I know this is a terrible thing to admit, and yet right now it is the truth. It is a problem with my heart that my Father can and wants to fix. I must make sure that I let Him! And oh, what an adventure it is to let Him have His way. It makes my thoughts circle back to "let us not become weary in doing good..."
Father,
Take my heart in Your hands and mold as You please. You fully know my heart and I don't understand it at all. It is safest in Your hands and will become fully good in You.
Teach me, remind me to LOVE DEEPLY as You have commanded.
Let me TRULY care for others and to leave myself far, far behind.
Help me to put You first so that all other things will fall correctly into their places.
Your Will be done, Amen
BEHIND:
Because of the past 2 months of various struggles I have not kept up with all of the paperwork at school. My stack of papers to be graded gets higher and higher; lesson plans had not been written or turned in for two weeks; and class time is not used to its fullest capabilities. In short, if my students learned anything it was only because of God. One of the lessons I am learning is that I can do nothing without God. And even when I 'think' I am doing something with HIm, He is really doing it all. :) As you read this you may say, "duh, Michele, did you never listen all those years in church?" And I would answer that logically, mentally I could repeat to you that I can do nothing without God. But NOW, I am really LIVING and LEARNING it. It is beyond the simple head knowledge and is moving into the heart. As it moves from head to heart though, it is quite painful. :) (sigh)
Through it all, I look back at my life and I think even with the pain and trials, my life is SO wonderful. If God were not in it, how would I live? Where would I be? When I answer these questions, it is not a pretty life that is painted.
Father,
Thank you for being for me!
Thank you for teaching me.
Thank you for changing me.
Thank you for not giving up on me.
Thank you for sustaining me.
Thank you for giving breath to me each day.
Thank you , thank you, thank you.
Amen Michele Lynn UNSURE: I am so thankful that I do not have to know my future. I do not have to decide where I will live, what I will do, how I will eat, where money for bills will come from. I have a Father who will ALWAYS take care of it for me. All I have to do is listen to HIm!!!
With that said, I know deep in my heart that I do not want to teach AND I do want to teach. I do not want to teach in a school run like those in the US. Nor like the ones in Korea. Probably not like ones in most countries. :) These systems are so heavy on "grades" that students do not come to learn, they come to get the grade. I promise, I understand all of the different arguments of accountability of the teacher and students, but I still do not agree with the system. No, I do not have an answer yet of how it could be changed, but I know I don't like it, and don't want to be apart of it. This is where God will have to show me HOW this can be. I really believe these desires that I have are from HIm. The desires to teach but not to teach in the system.
I have dreams of starting and running an orphanage like one I have heard about in Africa. It is an orphanage, school, and farm. It is self sustaining. What a wonderful way to teach! I could be the mother and teacher. We would live together, learn together, and work together. This family environment I believe is what God designed for the ultimate way to teach and learn. When I look at Jesus the Great Teacher; He ate, drank, worked, and slept with HIs disciples. And when looking at the numbers of students I also hate the current school systems. Jesus had 12 disciples and they were ADULTS. We have class rooms of up in the 30's of students who are nine years old!!! And they no longer respect authority and are all crammed together and expected to learn!!! How ridiculous! If Jesus only had 12 adults, then an educator of children should have at most half that number.
The method of teaching in our school systems is far different from Jesus' methods. You do not see His students sitting all day, every day, memorizing, studying, and staying still. They walked, talked, and practiced what Jesus did. Why do we punish students because they can't sit still? Is not it obvious that God made them to MOVE? Just becuase a student is not an excelent writer is that any reason to fail them in science when they can understand the concepts far beyond your A+ student?
I don't know. Like I said before, I do not have a well laid out alternative plan, but I do not like nor want to be apart of the plan that is in action right now.
Father God,
Guide me to honor You right now as I teach. Guide me to a place where I can teach as Jesus did. Show me how You, the Great Teacher, would teach my students. Take their education in Your hands and give to them the gift of learning. Help us to seek wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Amen Michele Lynn | | |
| God has taken me through a season of sorrow, depression, and immense confusion. Even now I am only JUST begining to see the light at the end of this tunnel. Even now I am unsure of how much was caused by my sin and selfishness and how much was truly allowed by God for my growth. I feel that the pain did not start because of my sin and selfishness, yet once the pain became so great, I did fall into sin. The sin of self-pity and despare. I took my eyes off of my Eternal Hope and put them on a fuzzy mirror image of HIm. How ridiculous that was! After two months of falling hard, long and fast, God has again rescued me. This past week was one of an endless amount of thinking time, something I had been running from. All of that thinking and deeply knowing I need God, culminated in a time of renewal last night. I stayed up the entire night reading words of encouragement about my Father and what can and has done in the lives of my spiritual brothers and sisters. What a great joy I have knowing that I am on my way up! No, my circumstances that first through me into despare have not changed. If anything, they are worse. And yet it is not my circumstances that should dictate how I live. It is the state of my relationship with my Father that TRULY makes all the difference in the WORLD!!! Father,
Thank you for once again rescuing and forgiving me.
Thank you for continuing the good work You have started in me unto completion.
Please, teach me, change me, make me a woman after Your own heart. Give to me the desire to seek wisdom, the ability to understand, and the humility to have knowledge. Amen Michele Lynn | | |
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