9.07.2007

Friday Five: We Shall Overcome Edition

Sally brings us this thoughtful Friday Five. While I'm thinking about it, please keep her in your prayers today-- a near and dear one will be in the hospital today.

1.Have you experienced God's faithfulness at a difficult time? Tell as much or as little as you like...
Confession time, here's my deep dark secret: I was academically suspended for a semester in college. (No, I hadn't been drinking or partying or carousing... I had just been displaying my more extroverted tendancies, learning from my fascinating peers more than my books.) It shouldn't have been a surprise when I was suspended, but I was shocked and terrified. I spent the semester living with my mom, working and going to a community college full-time. Somehow, the whole time I was trying to work my way back into my beloved alma mater (see below), I knew that whatever happened, I would be OK. I desperately wanted to go back (and I did), but I had more trust that God was with me then than I have before or since.

2. Have you experienced a dark night of the soul, if so what brought you through?
I think I'm coming out of one now, and I think that trusting my own abilities to hear God again gets me through. When I relinquish my own power to hear and know God to others, I'm completely unable to sense God's presense.

3. Share a Bible verse, song, poem that has brought you comfort?
I'm a huge fan of "How Great Thou Art," actually.

4. Is "why suffering" a valid question?
Absolutely. I don't have an answer, but it's a question that comes from deep within us, and I think we need to feel free to ask honest questions.

5. And on a lighter note- you have reached the end of a dark and difficult time- how are you going to celebrate?
With a night on the town with my girlfriends. Which would, of course, mean they'd all have to gather in the same state.

14 comments:

  1. Great play. Very similar answers, hmmm. Thanks for your comment. It was much needed! I'd love to email.

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  2. Loved your answers - and your honesty. Great play.

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  3. so a night on the town with girlfriends wouldn't quite as perhaps rowdy as your college days then? just kiddn'... college, oh college were those not the days?

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  4. i totally relate to the problems with having a night on the town with the girlfriends! it's a huge bummer to always be far away! i hope you get to have it someday soon!

    wonderful play!

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  5. Thanks for a great play, esp Girlfriends Night Out!

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  6. I am so with you on #2! And I have always, actually, liked "How Great Thou Art" too. :) (But kinda had the feeling I wasn't sposd to) Great play!

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  7. Great play! Our #3 is the same!

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  8. Thank you for your honest answers. Fortitude.

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  9. Wow. Reading your stories and others is giving me a profound sense of gratitude for all we have plowed through by the grace of God...

    d

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  10. Thanks! I know Denison--I grew up on the east side of Columbus. And...there was a semester when I SHOULD have been suspended. My grade point would have been better off.

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  11. thanks, Mrs M. I'm with you on losing all sense of God when I look to others for my sense of God. Hmmm...you're inspiring me to confess a similar college experience...

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  12. I really like #4 (and the others also)...but affirming that it is OK to wrestle with God...huge in my book.

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  13. I wanna go out on the town! Which town? I'm there!

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"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."
-Saint Molly Ivins