Transitioning
My name is Rachel.
For those of you who don’t know me- I attend Purdue University.
This past fall semester, I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in Beijing, China for six months. While I was there, I got to experience a new culture, a new language, new foods, and meet some incredible people from all over the world! But, coming back took some work. I had to re-adjust to our American culture and get ready to go back to school.
In spring semester, I took 18 credit hours and had a major leadership role in my campus ministry, so a pretty full plate. And from January to May, God had me not only continuing to learn how to rely fully on Him but mostly how to take the time to BE IN AWE of Him. If you have grown up in the church like me, or even if you haven’t; we often forget how amazing God is and to simply praise Him for who He is instead of what He does or gives to us. I find a lot of the “thank you” in my prayers tend to be “thank you for doing this for me,” and “thank you for giving me that thing.”
I found myself inspired this semester to focus more on “thank you for being _____.” There were a few times I would just sit in my quiet time and write down all of the Names of God that would come to mind:
The Author of my Life,
The Maker of the Universe and everything in it,
Redeemer of my soul,
King of my life,
The embodiment of Love,
My Role Model,
A just Judge,
Forgiver.
The list goes on. One of my favorite songs that embody this is by Passion, called “Worthy of Your Name.” And He truly is.
I encourage you to take the time to think about, write down, or in some other way express who God is. Doing this has made it at least a little bit easier to give certain things over to Him that I may not have before- by knowing that even the wind and the waves know Him and obey Him. It definitely made my transition smoother (although still a challenge.)
‘God I thank you for who you are; that you are worthy of all of our praise and more. I pray that all of these young ladies would come to know You for who You have proven Yourself to be over and again. I pray that You would touch each of their hearts and allow them to give everything over to You; to know that they can trust in who You are to take care of them because they are so very precious to You. I ask these things in Your Great Name, Amen.’
