I wasn't prepared for this

I have been sick for the last week pretty much, well, tomorrow it will have been a week, unless I miraculously wake up feeling 100% better! I haven't felt hungry all day, yet I've been eating cause I haven't ate so much in the past week. I'll admit I am feeling 10 times better today than I have in the previous 5 days, but this seems to be wearing me down and on top of all this illness we have just begun the old testament. This week started off with Genesis and I wasn't prepared because I was sick all weekend and behind on homework, and now I'm frantically trying to catch up and here I am writing in this instead of doing homework (great time management skills Sarah). Another piece of straw on the camel's back is our speaker this week who happens to be a very, very intelligent man who seems to be fluent in Hebrew and knows everything there is to know about Genesis. Unfortunately, he has not ever taught in an SBS before really. He hasn't prepared any notes and is just talking in circles about the same things over and over and speaking in Hebrew more than English I think. Needless to say, the information we desperately need from lectures is not coming, and instead of the usual 3 days of lectures this week, we're having 4! That means even less time to do assignments, and if any of you understand this, I have 38 charts I need to finish by Friday night of which I am on number 11 right now and haven't even color-coded Genesis yet cause of my illness. One could say I'm a little stressed out and discouraged about this quarter starting off on the wrong foot.

I am also feeling a heaviness and exhaustion I have not experienced before. I really think most of the students are feeling this as well. I was so passionate last quarter, and since I've been back I've been a little slacker and now this is the time I need to get in gear really and actually schedule my time to finish a zillion charts in mere hours. I think that because every single one of us continued after 1st quarter perhaps Satan is pushing us down with his thumb into the ground. Most SBS's lose a few students after first quarter.

Which leads to another thing. We are losing one of our students! Alem, a wonderful, beautiful-hearted man who loves others so well and really understands serving people. He is going to leave us soon as he has not been home for a long time because he has been doing school after school after school. At least he finished new testament, but he will be missed dearly. Pray God gives him rest and blesses his time with his family and reveals next steps for him. He really has a heart for the School of Worship and wants to staff here this September in that school.

As for me, I desperately need money and prayer for my health, stress, anxiety, depression, and also I am still on the fence about the whole staffing SBS here thing.

Now, onto happier things for the rest of this entry:

I have been praying for dreams from the Lord about anything he wants to reveal to me. A few nights ago I dreamt I was at Barnes and Noble and kept running into all my closest friends, but I was hurriedly saying hello and good-bye to them, because though I was not employed at this Barnes and Noble, I was a frequent customer and they asked me to work in the Starbucks Cafe there because all the employees' shifts ended at the same time with no one scheduled to fill in. So, I was supposed to work in this cafe, by myself. I had never worked in a Coffee shop before! (actually at home I did for 2 days in real life and it was the most stressful/nervous time of my life!) So as you can see it was stressful in my dream and I did not know how I was going to do this. I walked into the Cafe and sitting at one of the tables was Ryan Gosling as his character in The Notebook, Noah. Now Noah had worked in the Cafe for many years and was an expert in all things coffee. However, he would not show me how to do anything and I sat next to him all stressed out and asked him how I was going to do this. He looked at me and smiled and simply said that I would be fine and everything would work out. He told me not to worry about anything, then he randomly throws in this, "you know, my entire life I have never been fully satisfied by anything I've tasted."

Then I woke up.

I have determined the coffee shop is the old testament. I don't know how I am going to complete this week let alone this quarter. This week the speaker is not helping in anything he has told us so I feel unprepared and since this is the first book of the OT I have never studied these books before inductively!

I think Noah is just perhaps a wise person who has already done SBS or has been studying the Bible their whole life who just encouraged me to just do it and continue and not worry. It'll be fine. Everything will work out. Him saying he's never been fully satisfied by anything he ate or tasted most likely means, though he's been studying the Bible his entire life he still hungers for more of it and God continues to give more and more new things to him through the words, but he still wants more and more.

That's my own interpretation of my dream.

For those of you who don't know me so well, I usually always have celebrities in my dreams. I secretly think that means I'll be famous some day. Ha!

Lately I think I am so exhausted because I have not been resting in God. I have been resting a lot, but not with God. Not in his presence. He is the only thing that can truly refresh my weary body.

I was really encouraged this morning by Psalm 138. It's only 9 verses. Pick up your Bible and read it.