Spring Semester 2010 January 1st through Mid-Mayish
I think I ought to just touch on the big most important things-plus if you want more in depth stuff, you can read my previous blogs considering the bulk of them were produced in this time period. One of the most important things that happened was that my girlfriend started attending school with me in Chicago. Which meant that after a four month stint of long distance relationship we were finally going to be in the same city again. Which was exciting at the time. I also started out the semester without a roommate. My previous roommate, Steve, sort of dropped out of Moody and because he didn't let them know, there was no replacement for him. Though about 2 weeks into school my best friend, Danny moved into the empty space in my room. Founder's week the annual conference in February at Moody Church, was a total flop. Not on their part, but more due to my laziness, forgetfulness, and all around stupidity. Which is something that I'm hoping to change come this next Founder's week. Anyways, by mid February, things with my girlfriend had declined, mostly my own fault, and things were on rocky ground. I had a good group of consistent friends and I felt that I was growing spiritually through my classes. I was taking some great classes including: Minor Prophets [super/phenomenal class], Hebrew Grammar II [tons of work, but rewarding], Phonetics [so much fun]; and then some others I'd rather forget Christian Missions [don't even get me started] and something else, I have a horrible memory. By the end of February, my girlfriend and I broke up. The rest of the semester flew by, but the relationship with my friend Danny, who had become my unofficial roommate, also started to decline-for me at least. I dont know what he'd say if you asked him. But I felt as though our friendship had declined and I found myself being more and more annoyed with him and I felt like I couldn't keep being his friend while being his roommate. So I kindly told him that I didn't want to be his roommate next semester, and from there on out, things were just bad. We ended up having a fight, over texting no less, the day when we had to have everything packed up and clean in our rooms. It was dumb, but whatever. I had decided to stay in Chicago for the summer, hoping to keep my job with Argo and even maybe get a promotion or something. I also decided I should take a summer school class, Marriage and Family Systems.
Summer 2010 Mid-Mayish through Mid-Augustish
Finding a living situation for the summer had been kind of a crazy experience in and of itself. I ended up happening upon a couple of Moody students who had found an apartment for super cheap down in McKinley Park area, next to an Orange Line stop. Learning how to commute to class and work everyday was an interesting thing. It kind of sucks not living 10 minutes from every place you need to get to. This place had no internet and no air conditioning. It was the hottest, loneliest summer I've ever experienced. But I'll expound on that later. I took the Marriage and Family class for two weeks and loved it. It was almost perfect. I had been contemplating relationships ever since February when I broke up with my girlfriend, Chelsea. But the Marriage and Family class gave me a good place to process, analyze, and seek Godly wisdom about such things. After the class ended, I went on a college retreat with Minooka Bible Church's college group. It was a lot of fun, but I went into it with a specific motive. You see, there was this girl that I had started talking to kind of regularly and I was definitely interested in her, and she was going on this retreat. I wanted to see if anything would come of our "friendship." Throughout the weekend I kept contemplating this relationship, and after the weekend ended, I stayed at her house for the next three days or so. During that time we talked and decided to pursue a relationship. I was super excited about this relationship, but it didn't work out and after three and a half weeks or something like that, I/we ended it. It was a good thing in the end, but it definitely frustrated me. I felt extremely lonely after that. I realized that I didn't know where me and Danny were as friends and I barely knew my roommates. I learned that God had brought me to this place to seek after Him instead of the people I surround myself with and I experienced a kind of Spiritual Revolution because of it, I'll get into that too, but later. Work at Argo, was a definite let down. I lost one of my best friends at work, Joshua, to Texas half way through the summer, and a whole bunch of new people started working. It was pretty lame. But I was definitely blessed with some friendships. God gave me Dan and Bev Rah, and a new friend Amethyst. I saw some of my good friends get married this summer, and I had the opportunity to go to Miami and see some family. All in all the Summer was a season of deep learning for me.
Fall Semester 2010 Mid-Augustish through December
Coming into the Fall Semester, the first semester of my JUNIOR year, I felt a little combination of anxiety and excitement. I was worried about a lot of things. My dorm floor was receiving 18 new freshman. [there are only about 31 men to a floor and so this group was over half of our existing population] So I was a little worried about the new freshman roommate I was going to have. Also I just new that the dynamic of the floor was going to change. It did, but it wasn't a bad thing, in fact as I got to know the freshman I realized that this would in fact be a good thing. Also, I was came into this semester not really knowing how things with Danny were going to be. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped but that was mostly due to the fact that I mostly gave up on him and Bruce my other good friend from the semester before and from the summer too. Bruce was a little bit of a different story, but I wrongly associated my friendship with Bruce with my friendship with Danny. These friendships mostly crumbled throughout this semester as I became more and more busy. I acquired two more jobs on top of Argo and I was going to school 16 hours a week. It was a little much to handle. But somehow I had time to slip away from school and pursue a separate life that I created for myself. I started to live a double life. I began to slip and decline into complete spiritual rebellion. I got myself into a sinful situation and began to isolate myself from the Christian community at Moody. I had such a great spiritual awakening in the summer, but I mostly disregarded that and allowed myself fall into the lowest spiritual low I've ever been in. Towards the last two months of the semester, God saved me from myself and accepted me back as the prodigal son had been. I repented from my sin and worked on repairing my relationships with people I had isolated myself from during my rebellious period. The rest of the semester passed by fairly quickly and I finished my semester getting my GPA above a 3.0 finally.
So that's my story of how things went down this last year....
No comments:
Post a Comment