Reflection

Had a wonderful talk with Carleigh tonight, I cherish our talks greatly, especially since I don’t have my mom or best friends here currently to debrief.

We were discussing this whole idea of “growth”. Of this concept we’ve heard so much about before coming here. About our big expectations of what growth entails when taking a trip, when in actuality it is a culmination of subtle events (both positive or even challenges, like the determination to make a plane flight) that slowly add up to a larger realization of what growth has happened.

I realize I am still the same person despite traveling across the world (of course I am, it’s only been a month). But in so many little things already I am becoming independent, learning little things about myself and my relationships with others, and my relationship with God.

Tonight’s devotional had to do with personal character, and God calling us to constantly push ourselves up another level. Oswald Chambers writes that Satan does the same thing using temptation, but the result of moving up that ladder is a “ spiritual acrobatic performance…you cling to it, trying to maintain your balance, daring not to move. But God elevates you by His grace into heavenly places, you find a vast plateau where you can move around with ease.” My life has proven many times the acrobatic mess I result in when I try to cling to things and do everything on my own...often in search of making my life one where I can 'move around with ease'. Fear is so paralyzing, and there’s so many things to be filled with fear in this process of studying abroad. But the amount of freedom that is found in trusting His bigger picture and being content in these subtle steps of growth is liberating.

“We have all been brought to see from a higher viewpoint.” Definitely relatable after all these hikes and beautiful views of Greece. I’d like to think that each step that I take is leading up to a beautiful view that I can’t quite see yet.