FORGING MY WAY THROUGH: 1971

Trading six days of sunny California weather for the rainy climate of Portland, I determined to forge my way through the next year.
It became my resolve to renew my efforts to search the Scriptures and move on in my studies til completion.
I found myself back in the work,sleep,school cycle and tumultuous feelings after spending those six days re-evaluating plans for the future with possibilities in several directions.  I had just received an acceptance letter to attend SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) for the coming summer with the intentions of applying to Wycliffe as well as a tour of Gospel Recordings to a possible internship there.

Another Thanksgiving came and went.  There still remained strong feelings toward spurned love.  I will spare the details from my journal.  I was pelted with strong urges to make a fool of myself and act in selfish, revengeful ways as campus encounters were many and I still had high hopes although I was dating others. (Butterscotch Sundays and Burgerville, Farrells Ice Cream)

I struggled with my thoughts and emotions, despairing in my ability to keep on with my studies, I battled inner feelings of spiritual dryness, although not abandoning total times of staying in the Word.
December came with an impending feeling.  A strong indication of stormy trials ahead, however, the Lord continued to show me in little ways how much He cared for me.
 I felt a prompting to take a short break, taking the bus down to Salem to visit my grandparents.  I spent three glorious days with them and they drove me back up to school encouraged.
Feeling a surge of loneliness, I dove into a school project, fighting the urge to crawl into bed and feel sorry for myself.  It was Christmas Eve.  In a few hours I was to be at work for the grave yard shift.  I opened the few gifts I had and spent some time in prayer.
Christmas morning dawned and I in better spirits spent the day alone.  Well almost alone.  It will be a day I will never forget as I looked around my sparse, cheerless, bare room.  It sent thoughts of that first Christmas along time ago.

I was NOT alone.  My Abba Father was with me.  I committed myself again to His care with a grateful heart for all the trials and affliction that were bestowed on me and begged for grace, wisdom, and courage to continue on.

"...I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead."  Phil.3:13

"But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold."   Job 23:10