What to say...

ummm, hello.

I wanted to post something, but I'm not sure what to say right now, so here goes. ;)

I like the junior high students, but I love the high school students.

I like mangoes a lot.

One of my junior high students apologized to me today for a bad attitude that he had had yesterday!

Lester and I had fun at home for Easter.  Dad and I introduced her to the Beatles' movie "Help!"

I have 23 days left in junior high, and only 20 of those days will be spent teaching (there is a little thing known as STAR testing in CA). :)

The little kids are hopefully going to be adopted in the beginning of June!!

I have been reading a lot about trusting God when it seems like He isn't leading anywhere.  May I recommend Os Guinness' book, God in the Dark: Assurance of Faith Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt?  Some thoughts, paraphrased by me:

Oftentimes we do not know what God is doing or what He wants us to do.  In these cases it is important to "suspend judgment" and to wait.  We don't know why this is happening, but we know why we trust God.  We trust God because He has brought us through before, but ultimately because God sent Jesus and subjected Him to the same thing we are going through, but to a greater degree.  He abandoned His Son at His death, but God was also faithful to bring Him back to life, just as He said He would.  Jesus experienced the great gulf of not "feeling" God's presence and leading: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mt. 27:46, Mk. 15:34).  Since God came through for His Son, He will be there for us, even when we don't understand.  Thus the important point is to trust God, not the dimly-lit path.

Also, Job didn't understand what was happening to him.  It was hard for Job because everything, his suffering, family, and friends, pointed to him and said he had sinned.  He started to drift away when he demanded that God explain to him what was happening.

Os Guinness calls it "suspending judgment."  That means that you don't demand that God tell you what is going on (judging God that He doesn't have the timing right or that He must tell you what is going) and that you resist the temptation to make critical decisions when you know that the timing is wrong.  This does not mean that you don't seek God and His will, but that you also don't assume that He is doing wrong by not letting you know everything about His plan at this specific point in time.  You don't judge God, His love, and His faithfulness based on the fact that you don't know what He is doing.

After all, who are you?  Who is God?  Who is the Potter?  Who is the clay?

Job 40:8 -

"Would you indeed annul My judgment?
Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?"

Isaiah 50:10-11 - 
“Who among you fears the LORD?
Who obeys the voice of His Servant?
Who walks in darkness
And has no light?
Let him trust in the name of the LORD
And rely upon his God. [trusting believer's response]

Look, all you who kindle a fire,
Who encircle yourselves with sparks:
Walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled—
This you shall have from My hand:
You shall lie down in torment.” [unbeliever's/doubting believer's response]

So don't try to light your own fire to find your way when it is obvious that God has brought you to this dark place when you don't know what is happening.  And He is still there, even when you can't see it.
Trust Him.
It will be worth it.
I am sharing this with my readers because this is what I am going through, not what I have learned yet.  Hopefully you are edified and encouraged.  That was the most comforting thing from this reading, that I was not the only one who had ever experienced this lack of guidance.  Other human beings in other times had been through this, and I am not alone in my experience.

(My thoughts would be a little more refined than this, but I wanted to get this out there...)