I just came back from a meeting with the Dean of Women at Bethlehem College & Seminary. She told me that her and Kirsten, my counselor, and the leadership at the school think it would be best for me not to stay enrolled in the intensive in Ireland.
The reasons for this being: 1) There is no female leader going on the trip, so I will not have support if I go and have a crisis (in light of the recent crises); 2) If what I have been dealing with emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally continues on the trip it would be emotionally taxing, not only for me, but for the team as it is an intensive class and it will be 'go' time for the whole trip. 3) Ireland, for centuries, has been riddled with spiritual warfare to extensive levels and it did not feel right to them to send me on this trip knowing my encounters with spiritual powers and the uncertainty of what going on the trip would entail spiritually. 4) And most of all, she said that my suicidal thoughts and the voices I have been hearing from the Enemy would be reason alone for me not going. The overall sense I got is that she is trying to protect not only me from what could happen, but my teammates... I can see the wisdom in this, but it is hard to grasp.
I did feel before this, for some reason, a lack of peace about going, but the good seemed to outweigh the bad, in my mind of going. So I didn't think much of it. If she and my counselor and the leadership of the school are on the same page about this, then maybe that uncertain gut feeling was something from God.
But I am confused that their gut feeling and my dad's gut feeling do not match... What does this mean?
Did I hear God wrong about coming to this school in the first place? I think that is more likely than multiple people with good relationships with God hearing wrong about this decision now. God, what are you doing? What are You up to? What should I expect? Where will these next few months take me?
How do I to process this. I am not sure what to write until the words appear on the page. Father... what am I to do?
I walked away from the meeting, narrating my life out loud. Confusing times call for desperate measures. " 'I'm not a BCS student anymore...' She said as she walked away, a lighter load on her back as she did not carry her old friend, the backpack. Her heart was also lighter from relief. And yet, there was a vague vexing feeling in the core of her very being. 'God, I don't know how to make sense of this other than that You may be stripping the last form of identity I have away from me.' Her load was light, but it would seem, it was lighter than she bargained for. 'God?' she prayed. 'If you are taking away my identity, what else do I have?' A voice within her soul said, 'You have me, dear one.'"
Was this not something that would be like God? If He called her away from her other classes in order to lead her farther out into the desert so that she may sacrifice her idols, would it not make sense that He may take the last part of her identity in her school away too?
He is doing something, and because He is good and it is impossible for Him to be otherwise, what He is doing is good. He does not require sacrifice without giving more of Himself in return.
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