Last week was one for the books.
Classes are pretty lull these days. Nothing particularly notable in them, other than I'm learning things. Yay.
But other life things are good. I'm finally to the point of understanding my class mates enough to just love them. I guess I've been here for a while but it hit me this week. When I was on HeartSong the mindset is that these are the people you get to serve/live/lead/love with for the next year so you better learn to love them. It's not an option. And it was easy. Because when you decide to love someone no matter what, you choose to look at and see them in ways that help you to like them too. You seek to understand what makes them them. And once you understand why they act as they do, it's harder to be upset that it's not how you would have acted or how you prefer them to be-- because it's about them, not you. Or at least that's how it was for me.
But I didn't come here with that mindset. I came here thinking "what if I don't understand anything?" "what if I don't get any better?" "these people will never be like my friends from home" "It's not helpful to my Spanish to talk to them"
It was all about me. I didn't seek to understand. If someone annoyed me I just wrote them off as "never going to be friends"
But after a while, and after conversations with Dessa that reminded me that I wasn't the only one who was struggling, that we needed each other. "Maybe God brought all of us from different parts of the US together in Spain because we needed each other." oh. I guess I should be willing to give a little then, huh? God just smiles. He knows I'm slow.
Now here we are, able to laugh about our professors and our Spanish struggles. We're able to push each other and look after each other and be community. That's pretty cool. Church isn't just a building, people.
In other news, Rachel and I share a common love for music, especially live music. So there are these "jam sessions" in bars all over the city where whoever wants to play can come and play. Usually they're specific to a certain type of music. So our friend Chris had one that he was going to play at Wednesday night, so we decided to check it out. (Side note to my musical friends, jamming is so much better when you listen to each other and don't try to hog the spotlight. 4 people playing different instruments who all want to be the center and show off what they can do...it doesn't sound good.) It was fun though. And afterwards Chris had a recording session and he said we could sit in an listen. So of course we took him up on that! And the music was actually good too. We got home at 2. And had classes the next day. That was interesting. But totally worth it.
We also went to an open mic night last Friday that was KILLER. It was mostly Berklee students so duh. They knew what was up. I can't listen to music without moving and I can't watch/listen to (good) live music without a ridiculously dorky smile on my face and lots of "yass" "What!" "You go." "mmmmm" "no. stop"
So that happened a lot. So much fun. We also bumped into our professor from CU there. So that was hilarious.
Afterwards we went with some church friends (Chris and Rebecca) to one of their friend's house and just chilled and listened to crazy bass songs and ate food and hung out. This guy was korean and the best host of my life. Also just a very strange character. He said whatever he thought. So blunt. But it was funny for some reason. Probably because it was so unexpected. I don't know. It was an experience for sure. We didn't get home until 5:30 am. Yikes.
Saturday was a reminder that no matter how many good things I have in my life (friends, music, food, chill evenings...) they are empty with out Christ. He, we, have to be first for any of it to matter. I have an all-in sort of personality. When I'm friends with someone I'm all the way committed to them. When I have a favorite song, it's on repeat for weeks. When I like something, I love it. So all the music nights and the hanging with friends, I was loving! But my temptation with that is to put everything I have into that and let my relationship with Christ lag. But it's not enough without Jesus. It was a little taste of the emptiness of the world. The inability of those things to fill the spot inside me that only Christ can. I'm grateful for this reminder. I'm grateful for the ways that He pursues. That in His jealousy for my whole heart, He reminds me of himself before I've taken more than a few steps away.
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