The Interview

So today was my interview at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago.

I arrived at the H.R. dept around 10:45am and didn't leave the parking garage to come home until about 2:15pm. It was a pretty long interview. I first had to fill out an application and meet with Ami the hr person. Then she walked me over to the hospital and up to the lab. I met with one of the lab managers for bloodbank and a compliance coordinator. We talked for a bit and they took me on a tour of the bloodbank lab. Then I met with the Chemistry lab manager and another coordinator and we talked for a while and then took a tour of what's called the core lab. This is where the chemistry and hematology machines are. All of it was very interesting and eye-opening. The starting pay is pretty decent but I'm not sure if God really wants me there. We'll see.

Anyways...just wanted to give a quick update...

Have a wonderful day!!

Satan's Thorn

So Satan decided to stick his big fat thorn in my head today. He's found an "in" that he's used before. However, this time will be different. I will not listen to his crappy advice and I will not lower my standards or myself for him.

He's been telling me I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy of having godly men in my life as friends. I won't ever be worthy of having a godly man to love me whole-heartedly. That I'm worthless and I am just here to be used by people. That I shouldn't expect to ever find someone to love me for who I am.

IT IS CRAP!! IT IS ALL LIES AND I WILL NOT BELIEVE IT!! I WILL NOT LET YOU WIN SATAN!! YOU ARE A JERK AND MANY OTHER EXPLICATIVES AND I WILL NOT LET YOU WIN!! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!

OK...now with that being said...let's move on...
I got to spend some time with my mom and Aunt Barb tonight after church and it was great. I got to read a diary that Laur had written back in grade school and it made me laugh. I also got to see a video from our New Year's adventure with the Sullivan's. It made me smile because I know that even though we had a ton of fun skiing that weekend, we were also able to serve God and the manager of the hotel by folding a ton of towels.

Tomorrow is my interview at Northwestern Hospital. I am excited but not really nervous and I feel I should be. But I know that it is in God's hands and that if he wants me there that's where I'll be. His plan for me is much better than the one I have for me :)

For those of you who read this, know that I love you and that I thank God for blessing my life with you!!

May God protect your mind from the evil one. Don't let him have an "in" with you!!

A mistake?

So this morning when I sat down to spend some time with God, I was supposed to read Revelation 4. So I opened my bible and started reading. When I got to the questions in my devotional I was a little confused but answered them nonetheless. It wasn't until I was looking for my random daily verse that I realized I had spent time reading 1 John 4 and not Revelation 4. For those of you who don't know, the first part of 1 John 4 is about testing the spirits and the second part is about God's love and our love.

I was reading and quickly taken back to Mexico where I truly experienced that God is Love! Verse 10 says "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." How amazing is God's love for us? No matter how much we screw up in life he loves us no questions asked. Verse 19 says "We love because he first loved us." I want to lead a life of love and integrity.

So was this a mistake today? NO! I needed to be taken back to Mexico and I needed to read up on how much God loves me. He's my Abba.

May you feel God's undeniable love for you today!!

And as a side note, I'm completely obsessed with Shawn McDonald's cd "Simply Nothing"!!

Surprise!

So on the way back down to Bloomington-Normal (where I live) my car decides to stop running. Awesome!!

I got out and popped the hood tryin to think of things that could be wrong...I then called my dad to tell him that we were stuck on the side of the road about 115 miles from home and about 35 miles from school...he wasn't too happy but what can ya do? He was more concerned than upset...he didn't want my cousin and I to get hurt while waiting in the car...understandable...

After many phone calls to my dad and brother and Andy, I called the tow truck company and had them come get us. The guy was super nice and showed up only about an hour after I called him. He took us back to Bloomington and we dropped my car at the Chevy dealer. They're supposed to look at it tomorrow morning and call me with an estimate...which I'm expecting to be pretty big...

Just another test in life...it's just funny to me that good things happen and then just as a joke a bad thing happens. Just another reason for me to trust that God is bigger than the boogey man and will take care of me. I told my dad today that I'm handin my life over daily cause really I just don't want to deal with it anymore and I figure that God can take care of it for me instead. He's good like that...

Job opportunity

So here's a little background info...

On March 18th I finally sent my resume off to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in the morning. About 2 hrs after I sent it off I received a phone call from the human resources department. After playing phone tag for about a week and some days, I finally was able to talk to the rep from the HR dept this morning. I have an interview on this Thursday at 11am. I will be meeting with the rep and then with people from the Chemistry and Bloodbank departments. This is very exciting for me but I am also getting nervous and I just got this all set up like 10 min ago...I have to get some references and print off some hard copies of my resume.

I am beginning to see that my life is changing yet again. I just need to trust that God knows what's best for me. I need to trust that He will provide a job if this one isn't the right one. I need to trust that things will come together if I just trust Him. I need to submit my life to him everyday so that his will will be done in my life.

May God surprise you today :)

Gravity

So here is a song that I've become very much obsessed with...

Gravity
Written by Shawn McDonald and Chris Stevens

The ways of this world are grabbing a hold

Won’t let me go, won’t let me fly by

It takes it’s toll down on my soul

‘Cause I know what I need in my life

Don’t let me lose my sight of You

Don’t let me lose my sight

I don’t want to fall away from You

Gravity is pulling me on down

I don’t want to fall away from You

Gravity is pulling me to the ground

This world keeps making me cry

But I’m going to try, going to try to fly, going to fly high

Don’t want to give into the sin, want to stay in You ‘til the end

Don’t want to lose my sight of You

Don’t want to lose my sight

I want to flyInto the sky

Turn my back on this old world

Leave it all behind

This place is not my home

It’s got nothing for me

Only leaves me emptiness

And tears in my eyes

The Inexpressible love of God

"It seems to me that learning how to trust God defines the meaning of Christian living. God doesn't wait until we have our moral life in order before he starts loving us. This is the inexpressible love of God"

"I was put to death on the cross with Christ, and I do not live anymore--it is Christ who lives in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to save me." Galatians 2:20

This was today's thought and verse from my daily calendar. Interesting I thought. Actually it's quite funny because I can't count how many times that I said "I don't know how to trust God". Which in reality was just another excuse for me to walk farther away from him. What I wasn't believing during my absence from God is that He still loved me no matter what and He still walked right beside me. No matter how many times I screwed up He was and still is there for me. He meets me in the place I'm at. All I have to do is show up.

God loves you no matter what! His love for us is inexpressible! And I think He longs for us to be inexpressibly in love with Him. (I also think I just made up a new word :)

One thing that I'm struggling with right now is joy. I feel like it's gone and I don't know when or if it will come back. I can be happy at certain times but I don't know what I need to do in order to get my joy back. Some people believe that joy and happiness are the same thing. I can tell you first-hand that they are not. I'm happy when I'm doing something I like. I'm joyful when I'm in God's presence and doing His work. Two totally different things.

Anyways...I hope you have a blessed day!!

The beginning of a journey

So I'm not really sure what the point of this blog will be and I'm not really sure where I'm going to take it...

Lately I've been spending time with God in the morning. This is something I have not done consistently or really at all. Sure when I would go to Blast or camp I would take time and sit with God. And there were times He would speak to me. I've never really been one to do devotionals or read my Bible. Within the past few days a book has been staring at me from my floor. I decided on Sunday to begin a "journey towards holiness"(that's the name of the book). And so far I've been consistently spending time with God in the morning and I'm learning. Maybe not what I want to learn but I'm learning to be patient again and I'm learning to trust that God's plan is perfect in every way. I'm learning that the Bible has some really cool verses in it. And I'm learning about how much I've missed out on by cutting God off from my life.

I've pushed Him so far away and yet He still walked beside me. I was taking an extended leave of absence from God. In previous years I had walked away but I have never been away for this long. It makes me sad to know that it took the death of one of my best friends to make me realize how important God is in my life and that He needs to be the focus of it.

I will leave with this. This is the random Bible verse for the day...

"Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

Colossians 4:5-6

And another...

And so begins another journal...

Some of you may have been reading The Pelk's journal and I may still keep that going...but then again maybe not...

Well that's all I feel like saying tonight...