God taught me a very interesting lesson the other day. When I say He taught me a lesson, it was more like He kicked me in the butt and called me a hypocrite. You see, even though I deserved it, it still took me by surprise a little bit. Let me explain...
It was a typical evening for me. I had finished my work for the day, had dinner, and was just relaxing in my room. On this particular night I had my laptop in front of me, and I was on both Facebook and Pinterest...wasting a few hours of my evening away. I knew I should be doing something else, like writing in my journal, reading a book, or opening my Bible, but I was just too drawn to my computer screen. A couple of hours went by and I soon felt my eyelids getting heavier. I thought about calling it a night, but then I saw my bright pink Bible cover on my bedside table. It was almost calling my name. I thought, "When was the last time I opened my Bible?" I shamefully admitted to myself that it had been at least a few days, if not a week. Don't get me wrong...I'd been reading a couple of spiritual books, but I hadn't opened my Bible in a little while. Feeling kind of guilt-tripped, I pulled my Bible off my bedside table and unzipped the cover. I opened it up and flipped through, wondering what God might have to say to me. I felt drawn to the book of Psalms, in particular Psalm 16. I began reading in verse 2...
"I say to the Lord,
you are my Lord,
you are my only good.
Worthless are all the false gods of the land.
Accursed are all who delight in them.
They multiply their sorrows who court other gods."
As I read this, I started thinking about people in the world who worship false gods. I thought, "Yeah...there's people out there that worship the gods of the sun, gods of the moon...it's a good thing I'm not like that! Accursed are
those people. They're only
multiplying their sorrows! No wonder they're not happy." Almost immediately I felt God pushing all those thoughts out of my mind and saying, "Um...
those people? You think you're not one of them? Did you not just spend several hours on Facebook and Pinterest and give none of that time to Me? Anything you spend excessive time on (apart from time with Me) can be considered a false god. You hypocrite...how dare you make this about other people when I wanted it to be about you."
Okay, so maybe God didn't word it exactly like that. But that's sure what it felt like. I felt so awful about not having spent time in His word...and then when I did, I tried to take His message intended for me and make it about other people. I apologized for offending Him and proceeded to have a great conversation with Him that ended with me realizing that I need to be careful how I spend my time and I need not be judging and condemning other people. So overall I learned (or re-learned) an important lesson. I could have done without the butt-kicking, but sometimes that's what it takes!
Last Sunday a couple from the community took Chrissy and I away for the day to show us around the beautiful County Wicklow. We had heard that it was a beautiful area, but we've only seen a couple glimpses of it since we've been here. The Ascoughs kindly took us to a beach called The Silver Strand, a place called Glendalough, and another place called the Sally Gap. We had BEAUTIFUL weather for the day...I'll let my pictures do the talking. :)
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This is Silver Strand. We spent time time here
soaking up the sun, then we had a picnic lunch. |
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| This is a glimpse of Glendalough |
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Chrissy and me at the old church in Glendalough.
Note...we're not wearing coats, and Chrissy's got
sunglasses on! Happy Summer!! |
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| Me with the 2 younger Ascough boys. Such big smiles! |
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In the church. Again, note: I'm wearing shorts!
In Ireland! |
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| Lovely green EVERYWHERE! |
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Glendalough (Gleann da Loch) means
"glen of two lakes" in Irish. This is one of the lakes. |
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| Part of the cemetery in Glendalough |
We spent some time walking around beautiful Glendalough. It is a monastic site founded by St. Kevin, a hermit priest, in the 6th century. There's so much history and so much beauty there! We ended our time in Glendalough with an ice cream cone. It really hit the spot on such a warm, sunny day!
Next stop, the Sally Gap. All I can say is WOW.
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| Life looks pretty good at the Sally Gap. |
Yesterday I got to see a little more of Wicklow with another woman, Justine, from community. She brought her three youngest boys with us as well, and we went to Powerscourt and had some delicious hot chocolate in the Avoca cafe, and then we walked around outside for a while. It stopped raining for just the perfect amount of time, and started again as we were walking back to the car to head home. Here's some pictures from yesterday!
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| Such beautiful gardens! |
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I really liked this flower.
Don't know what it's called... |
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| Ohhh those silly Donnelly boys! |
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| Pretty view of the Sugarloaf Mountain |
I feel so blessed to have seen so much of this beautiful country. A big thanks to everyone who has taken time out of their busy schedule to show me this spectacular place!
Up next on my GAP year:
International Eucharistic Congress 2012 in Dublin
Visit with my friend Amanda and traveling!
Youth Programme summer activities
Young Adult Camp
Kairos Summer Academy in BELGIUM
On Holiday 3 in BELGIUM
Flying back home to Michigan!!
Stay tuned for more updates! God bless you all! Thanks for your prayers and support!
Another highlight of last week was having a sleepover with Leanne. Leanne is 8 years old and is the youngest of my host family. Up until last week, she had been sharing a room with her brother Stephen, but Stephen just moved into Joe's room, so now Leanne has the room to herself. She was excited to show it to me, because she had so much extra space in there. I said something like, "Wow, Leanne! You have tons of extra space to play in here! We could even have a sleepover in here!" I was kind of half-joking, but the look on her face was priceless. She said, "Really?? How about tonight?" I couldn't back down...she has such a cute face that is pretty hard to resist. I agreed, considering she had the following day off school and we might not get another chance like that for a while. She helped me bring my blanket and pillows down to her room, and she kept saying how excited she was to have a sleepover with someone older than her. :) She told me I could choose whatever film I wanted to watch, so we sat down together with some sweets and watched The Princess Diaries until Peter and Ciara came in to tell us it was "time to go to bed". I obeyed their orders and went to bed when Leanne did....except I had the intention of sneaking out when she fell asleep and then coming back in a few hours later. After all, it was only about 9:00! I ended up falling asleep when Leanne did, though! It was awful...I kept waking up every hour and feeling all disorientated...and then I ended up waking up with her at around 7am to some loud construction noise outside. I got up and got some work done for a couple of hours, but the rest of the day I was pretty groggy. I might have to resist that cute face next time...
Another highlight of last week was having a sleepover with Leanne. Leanne is 8 years old and is the youngest of my host family. Up until last week, she had been sharing a room with her brother Stephen, but Stephen just moved into Joe's room, so now Leanne has the room to herself. She was excited to show it to me, because she had so much extra space in there. I said something like, "Wow, Leanne! You have tons of extra space to play in here! We could even have a sleepover in here!" I was kind of half-joking, but the look on her face was priceless. She said, "Really?? How about tonight?" I couldn't back down...she has such a cute face that is pretty hard to resist. I agreed, considering she had the following day off school and we might not get another chance like that for a while. She helped me bring my blanket and pillows down to her room, and she kept saying how excited she was to have a sleepover with someone older than her. :) She told me I could choose whatever film I wanted to watch, so we sat down together with some sweets and watched The Princess Diaries until Peter and Ciara came in to tell us it was "time to go to bed". I obeyed their orders and went to bed when Leanne did....except I had the intention of sneaking out when she fell asleep and then coming back in a few hours later. After all, it was only about 9:00! I ended up falling asleep when Leanne did, though! It was awful...I kept waking up every hour and feeling all disorientated...and then I ended up waking up with her at around 7am to some loud construction noise outside. I got up and got some work done for a couple of hours, but the rest of the day I was pretty groggy. I might have to resist that cute face next time...
