Kyle the Barista :)

My life these past couple of weeks has been pretty interesting. I have been working as a ‘paper stuffer’ in the mailroom of our local newspaper. I’m not gonna lie, this job is pretty yucky. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for Wednesday. On Wednesday, we have to stuff ALL of the papers for our town and all of the surrounding towns, and it usually begins at 8AM and lasts until 2AM on a normal day. That’s an 18 hour day! BLECH!!!! SO I started REALLY praying for a new job. And I mean REALLY praying haha. 

My friend Claire works at a coffee shop in town, and I talked to her about how much fun I think a barista job would be. She said that she thought I would be perfect for the job and that she would let me know when a job came up so I could jump on it. 

On the 4th, I had the day off from paper stuffin, and Claire sent me a text saying that I should run down to the shop and meet the manager because there was a job that would be opening up soon. SO I hightailed it on down to the coffeeshop, had an interview, and got hired on the weekends so that I could get trained while still working my other job during the week, then as soon as the college kids with jobs left, I could jump in and take their spots without a hiccup.

My first day at the coffee shop was this past Saturday, and I LOVED it! It’s so much fun! It’s a wonderful atmosphere where I get to hang out and make coffee drinks all day AND get payed!!! It’s really awesome too because with tips, I’m making an average of 3 or 4 $’s more than my wage! That’s just another plus! 🙂

Now I just have to wait two more weeks for my current job to let me go, THEN I’ll be able to work at the coffee shop full time as soon as the need me :). 

Just two more weeks… I can do this…. 🙂 I’m so excited!

Another bump in the road

Soooo….

It seems that the story of my life is that nothing EVER goes as planned. Nothing EVER plays out like I intended it to.

In my last post, I said that I was planning on moving to Denver to pursue schooling in massage therapy.
WELL.
The day after I got home, I received my financial aid information from the school in the mail.
It gave me 2 impossible options:
option 1: Take out two loans with crazy high interest rates
option 2: pay $1109 per month for the duration of the program until you graduate.

Ummmm… Excuse me. Neither of these really makes sense. Especially option 2 because I am BROKE from living the missionary life haha.

SO here I am, sitting at home, working at a newspaper in the mailroom for pretty much minimum wage and trying to figure out what I’m doing with my life….

The story continues Haha

Season of Transition

Sorry it’s been a while since my last blog. Stuff is kinda crazy lately with classes and such.

In case you didn’t know, (you probably don’t know because I haven’t told very many people) I will be ending my time at the International House of Prayer in a little bit more than 2 weeks time. I plan on starting my trek back to Colorado around the 19th, but the details are still in the works.

It’s kind of a bittersweet time for me.
IHOP is a wonderful place full of people that are serving the Lord and classes that can thoroughly blow your mind over and over, but at this point I feel like the Lord is leading me to embark on another new adventure. This time, one that’s a little bit less extreme, but I think I will enjoy it and get just as much out of it as I have on my other adventures. My plan is to attend the Denver School of Massage Therapy in Aurora, CO in July and to work to help pay for school/rent/food etc. I have always had a fascination with and desire to help people through alternative health practices. Massage is going to be my first stop, and then sometime down the line I hope to study herbal medicine.
side note: one of the things that the Lord highlighted to me about this path is the verse that describes the tree of life in Revelation 22:1-2 “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” I love that 🙂

Anyways, it’s going to be another grand adventure and I am super excited for the things that are going to come.

Spiritual Lessons From Classic Literature

“…I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest – a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: i live in calm, looking to the end…” – Helen Burns from Jane Eyre

This word and this quote are two things which have grown incredibly dear to my heart. I have kind of a side interest/hobby in reading classic literature, and both of these come from one of my current reads, a book written in 1847 by one Currer Bell, aka Charlotte Bronte. This book is Jane Eyre.  They come from a character in the book named Helen Burns. Helen was one of Jane’s first friends, and one that I feel helped to shape the characterization of Jane throughout the story.

Helen died an untimely death due to sickness, and the word ‘resurgam’, meaning “I will rise again”, was inscribed on her epitaph. This word has become dear to me because of the idea of rising again. It makes me think of the phoenix, for out of the ashes they are reborn into a more glorious form. It makes me remember the ashes that I have come out of and the beauty which the Lord has given me instead. We all have ashes in our past. One can’t avoid their ashes. What matters is how they handle and what they do with their ashes.  Isaiah 61:1-3 says:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me. Because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

This passage is Jesus speaking prophetically as prophesied by the prophet Isaiah. He wants to take those things. Those dirty ashes that we sit in for far too long, and He wants to lift us up out of them and to trade us beauty for those ashes. For the mourning of whatever has happened to us, He wants to give us joy! For the oppression and heaviness that we feel as a result of those things, He wants to give us a garment of praise. SO this word, resurgam, is to me a reminder of the good that I have in Jesus and the mercy that He has had on a sinner like me to bring me out of my ashes and give me beauty that I don’t deserve. The LORD is gracious and compassionate :).

Also, the quote above is something that resonates within my spirit. Helen Burns seems to have a very good grasp on the concept of eternity. This is part of a response to Jane after she sees Helen experience injustice at the hands of a teacher in their boarding school. The thing that I think strikes me so much is the fact that this sounds SO MUCH like what we strive for in the Christian life. We want to have a view of eternity that makes it possible for us to forgive those that hurt us. In the light of eternity, we can see the difference between the crime committed against us and the one who did it which enables us to forgive them leaving whatever comes against us powerless. Afterall, those that love Jesus will end up with Him in the end anyways, so everything else pales in comparison. AND Jesus is coming to bring justice to the earth so that helps a bunch too :).

I hope that these things can shed some light, or at least give you something to think about. Be blessed!