Splashes of sunshine
How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird met me at the door on Tuesday night, along with the soundtrack to Little Women.
- Bits and pieces of summer
And here are a few more random photos from the Great Vacation, some bike rides around home, and the Coast Guard Festival.
On Tuesday I emailed Marin and let him know that God is helping me move on and close the door on our relationship. That might seem a bit late, or obvious, but for me it was a big deal. I’d been waiting and believing that we’d eventually get back together because I thought that’s what God had planned. I had good reasons to believe it, but in the last few weeks I’ve slowly realized that God probably has other plans for me, and they don’t include Marin. It was really hard to imagine that, and the realization created a lot of losses to grieve. God’s been working on me bit by bit in the two months since the breakup, and I’m glad that He took it slow. This leaves a lot of questions unanswered about His purposes, but I’m learning to be okay with ambiguity.
On Wednesday, I attended a meeting with Bethany Christian Services/PARA representatives to learn about hosting a refugee family. I recently got involved with a family from Bhutan who was settled in Grand Haven four weeks ago, and it looks like we may eventually have a small Bhutanese community in the Tri-Cities! My two favorite churches, SLWC and FCC, are interested in this project, and that’s really exciting! Last Saturday I met the family for the first time and helped the parents with their English lesson, and it felt good to be back in that world – I miss my nights in the classroom in Split! There’s something really fulfilling about helping someone become comfortable with English, and I love getting to know new people! It’s going to be fun to learn some Nepali! And I’ve got a meeting with our outreach pastor on Monday morning to get started on the next steps for welcoming another family. Yay!
Tomorrow is also a big day: orientation at GVSU! I’m not excited about sitting through another college orientation (been there, done that), but it’ll be great to be working toward a degree again! It looks like all their night classes meet just one night a week, so that’s cool! That should leave time for my other commitments and homework, without putting much stress on my calendar. Tax season will be another story – I’m not sure that I’ll be able to take classes during the winter. But that may be best anyway, since driving at night in the snow isn’t super fun.
I think that’s all for today.
Until next time,
Jen
