Meine Klein Welt

On Marathon’s Eve

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running
So it's the day before the big race, and I must admit I am a bit nervous. Missing a month of training due to injury right in the middle of my training program has me a bit apprehensive and frustrated. Apprehensive because I haven't gotten in as many long runs as I wanted and I pushed myself pretty hard coming off an injury, which usually isn't a good idea. And I'm definitely feeling it.  Frustrated because after 4 months of training I know that I won't be at my best. The gaping hole in my training program has opened a hole as wide in my confidence.

Some of this I know is just pre-race jitters that will shake off with the starting gun. The rush of the race will shift me into running gear and the battle will begin. The battle against my adrenaline and my instinct to start quickly. Setting and maintaining a steady pace aimed at my goal time. Trying to scale the wall, and wondering where exactly it is.

It'll be good to have Mike and Lance to pace with and some crowd of people from school cheering us on from the sidelines. It'll also be good to know that I have people praying for me and cheering me on back in the States.

Ready…Set…Go! 

Blessings

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blessingsSo I write a post the other day about trying to have joy and trust God despite the fact that my financial situation seems to be stuck in a downward spiral.

Yet the very next day I checked my box at school and there was an envelope inside with an anonymous note from a VCS family and 150 Euro in it.

It is amazing how God responds to show His children that He really does love us and care for us.  Not only did it help alleviate some financial stress, it also served as an encouragement that I what I am doing at VCS is valued.  And that kind of encouragement goes a long way for me.

Praise God! 

Gladness

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Gladness Toast
This past Sunday, one of the Psalms read was Psalm 4. Well this one was kind of sung actually, but that's another story.

A few of the verses really hit home with me:

5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, And trust in the LORD.
6 Many are saying, "Who will show us any good?" Lift up the light of Your countenance upon us, O LORD!
7 You have put gladness in my heart, More than when their grain and new wine abound.

I find that too often I am stressed out about finances, especially recently. Starting a grad program this summer is sinking me further in debt and sometimes I wonder what I'm doing. Trying to live a normal life on a shoestring budget is often exhausting and I just get tired of cutting corners on everything. And with the dollar's recent downward trend, I have even more corners to cut.

I'm almost 28 years old. I have no savings, no retirement plan, student loans leftover from undergrad, nothing to fall back on. My mom bugs me about not getting married, but I think, how could I possibly support a family when I can barely provide for myself? Anytime I want to do something like travel or pay the registration fee for softball, I am relegated to eating mostly peanut butter sandwiches for a few months.

But then I read this Psalm, and I know that I need to be more diligent about trusting in the Lord. But more than that, verse 7. The joy that God puts in my heart is greater than the joy of having plenty. Think about that for a second. How much of our lives revolves around acquiring money? How much do you worry about it? Isn't it odd that it never seems to matter exactly how much money you make either? It could be $20,000/year or $100,000/year. Either way you're still worrying about how to make ends meet.

So really I should be seeking God and the joy He brings instead of worrying about the future and how I'm going to pay for it. Being content with what I have and being anxious for nothing is the key to joy, so why is it that I so crave the comfort of a stable income?

God has never let me go hungry. He has always provided my every need, but often instead of using that as evidence to trust Him I find that my doubt persists. I think my doubt persists because I know that I am unable to meet my needs, and that is a bit of a scary place to be. Either God comes through or He doesn't, and if He doesn't I'm living on the street. The thing is though, He always comes through. So I should just get used to expecting that.

Sounds simple, right?

Seven Brides…

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Last night I attended our school's rendition of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and found it very educational. I'd never seen the musical before, so I'm sure I have a pretty skewed view of the actual play. Not that I think that's a bad thing. I mean, among the seven brothers we had 2 Americans, 1 American/Austrian, 1 British/Austrian, 1 Nigerian, 1 Indian, and 1 Korean. And the lead actress is from Australia. It makes things kind of fun and different. You wouldn't see that happen on Broadway.

Also, a few years back we did a rendition of Oklahoma!, and it was amusing to have a Japanese Jud Frye.

Besides being entertaining, I found the musical to be very informative. I know all I need to know about picking up women now. Who needs to spend so much time "courting" anyway? As far as I'm concerned, all I need is a large blanket and a dinner bell and I'm all set to begin my life as a married man.

Also entertaining is getting the rumor mill rolling again. A girl from church came with me to the performance and so most of the school either thinks I'm married, engaged, dating, or some combination of those three. None of those things are true, mind you, and I think it's kind of funny how excited people seem to be about it. It's certainly fun to stir things up a little bit.

Terezin

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TerezinJust north of Prague is Terezin, or Terezinstadt as it was called by the Germans during WWII. The residents of Terezin were forced to move out of their homes so that the Nazis could set up a Jewish Ghetto. They also made a prison out of a small fortress nearby.

This particular concentration camp holds some special meaning for my family since some members of my family were sent there during the Holocaust. My Great Uncle Dolphie used to tell us stories of life in Czechoslovakia before the war and how he escaped and how he tried to convince his family to come with him.

This is the second concentration camp I've been to(the other being Mauthausen in Austria) and I think I really just don't like concentration camps. Not that anybody really likes concentration camps. I mean I don't like visiting them. It's not that I find them uninteresting, it's that I hate thinking about what happened there.

Whenever I start thinking about the atrocities that happened during the Holocaust I find myself caught between disbelief and horror. It is one thing for the Nazis to believe the things they did, but it is quite another thing to act on them so cruely and mercilessly. The kind of hatred exhibited seems unreal, and the more I think about it, the more I think that this unbelievable thing actually happened, the more I want to fall on my knees and weep.

I spend my time thinking about what actually happened, the abuse and neglect, the utter disregard for the sanctity of human life until my eyes well up with tears and I can barely hold my composure. Then I have to stop thinking about it or I really will lose it.

All the time I wonder how the other people do not see or feel the things I do, and how they walk around as if they were looking at an art exhibit at a museum. Do they not sense the evil there? Is it not permanently embedded in the buildings and rooms, and cloak the whole camp with its residue? I can imagine the screams, the weeping, the despair. The injustice. If these walls could speak…