new addition to the rickard family...

No, despite the current pregnancy craze among everyone I know, that's not the kind of addition I'm talking about....We got a dog! He is a rescue from the animal shelter named Schroeder and he's 10 weeks old. Check out all his cute-ness below:

unsettled

Big things are happening these days... exciting things, amazing things. They seem to be happening all around me to people I really care about and while I am so happy and excited for them, I can't help but feel a little twinge of... jealousy? desire? discontent? Here's the thing: I want to be doing something I really love, something I am passionate about and that I know is making an impact for Christ. The question I keep asking myself is: Is that where med school is going to get me or am I going to get to the end of this long process and wish I had done something else? I truly felt like this was where God was leading me and yet it is so hard and miserable and unenjoyable most of the time that it makes me wonder why God wouldn't call me to something that I really love. I know this life is about laying down my own life in order to pursue what God has for me (and maybe the misery is just part of class and not medicine itself) and yet it seems so much harder to lay down your life for endless studying, constant stress and missing out on so much time with friends and family than to lay it down for a big adventure. It seems harder to trust God's provision when you could just work and be equally dissatisfied than as when you are traveling across the world or getting to share with others something you are completely passionate about and sold out for. Maybe this is just a little discouragement talking or maybe everyone feels this way, but it is getting increasingly hard to miss out on things I do care about and enjoy to do something I don't and on top of it all, to continually question what my true strengths and gifts are and how they can be used. It is difficult to understand why God would take me away from something I was good at to do something I'm not so good at. I don't have any less confidence that God has a plan for me, I am just wondering and questioning what it is, which I think is all a part of the pursuing process. So here I am: pursuing, questioning, wondering, maybe wandering and trying to figure it all out, one step of faith at a time.

their welfare is ours

I have been reading Jeremiah lately and despite having a gnarly call (you can read about it but basically Jeremiah gets to deliver mostly bad news, is told by God not to pray for the people he is prophesying to and is threatened with death several times not to mention beaten and put in prison) he speaks the truth of God, no matter what the consequences. He is called to tell Israel that they would be going into exile in Babylon as punishment for their rebellion against God. Then, he is called by God to speak to those who are in exile and I think what he has to say is interesting:

"...seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." Jeremiah 29:7

God doesn't ask the Israelites to simply be content with the place He has sent them into exile, He asks them to INVEST there even while waiting for their return to their own country. This passage really hit me...How often am I content with where I am but looking ahead to what's next instead of taking time to invest in the place that God has put me? Even more importantly, how often am I investing in my city, in those outside my church or Christian community?

Lately, God has given me the privilege to witness the power of this type of investment. We (meaning members of my community and I) have taken advantage of the opportunity over the last several weeks to visit the Rail Trail here in Morgantown and just hang out with and get to know some of the people who call it or the Bartlett House their home. It started out with just a few of us, but as the group has grown it has been awesome just watching people fall in love with people. I think too often we separate ourselves from those who suffer because we don't know how to deal with the suffering. What I've learned from some of my friends on the Rail Trail is that, suffering or not, they just want to be treated as people instead of problems. While they appreciate the physical resources that are provided for them, they appreciate even more being able to tell their stories, voice their concerns and have people actually listen, invest, and care... And we should care...Why?

Because their welfare is ours.

Because their problems are ours.

Because their hurt is ours.

We simply cannot know the injustice and hurt that happens around us and not invest in the solution. And God asks us to invest in the place where He has put us, whether we like that place or not. The Israelites were asked to invest in their city of exile...Will you invest in your city?

hands and feet

God has been dealing with me a lot lately about the practicality of faith and about what role our works have in faith. It's a tough subject to wrap your mind around and I think I still have more questions than answers, to be honest. Like I said in my last post, I have been reading Shane Claiborne's book Irresistable Revolution (it's a great book but don't read it unless you are ready for it to ruin your life...in a good way...ha). There are so many aspects of the book I could talk about but one of the things that has hit me the hardest about it is a particular passage:

"I remember hearing about an old comic strip...Two guys are talking to each other, and one of them says he has a question for God. He wants to ask why God allows all of this poverty and war and suffering to exist in the world And his friend says, 'Well, why don't you ask?' The fellow shakes his head and says he is scared. When his friend asks why, he mutters, 'I'm scared God will ask me the same question.' Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, 'You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet.'"

Wow...That really shifts the responsibility doesn't it? So I have been contemplating what it looks like for me to be the hands and feet of Jesus in my particular situation and place in life. This is a huge struggle for me because I constantly want to be DOING something big for God. I want to be doing whatever it is He has for me, making a tangible and visible difference, living out a dream that God has given me and that I am passionate about, especially when I see other people in my life living the fulfillment of that (like my friend Janine....check out more at www.nuruinternational.org). And yet I can't help but wonder whether God is looking back at my frustration and saying "But what are you doing NOW? You want to do something tangible, so do it!" I think this is a trap so many of us fall into...We are pursuing and loving Christ and yet it doesn't seem to translate into our actions and thus our impact because we are waiting for THE thing God has for us instead of looking for what we can do now and realizing that THE thing that we are looking for may look different in every stage of our life. Again, I am still trying to flush this all out and I don't have all the answers, but what I do now is that I don't want to be a stagnant Christian. I don't want to get so caught up in my own life that I don't see the injustice, the poverty, the problems around me. And I want to do more than just profess Christ...I want to live Him.

brief update

So I am apparently a huge blogging slacker these days. Just wanted to give a brief update with more to follow soon hopefully :)

• My life has been pretty much swallowed up by school recently so if you haven't seen or heard from me that's why. On the upside, God is faithful and I have passed all of my tests thus far :)
• I am currently reading Irresistable Revolution by Shaine Claiborne and highly recommend it...more on that later.
• I got to go to Huntington to visit my youngest sister, Ashley, and her husband, Adam, this past weekend. It was great to see them and their house which is super cute!
• I am now officially 27 as of two weeks ago...eek...jk...feels just like 26 but I am including a pic of the hilarious cake my sister got for me. Look to the previous post if you don't understand why there is a trophy on it.
• I have been married for 2 months on Thursday and married life is great! Just wish sometimes that I had more time to spend with my husband instead of studying. And I think Jamie is still adjusting to my multi-tasking, hectic lifestyle...ha.
• God has been challenging me and teaching me some really cool things lately that I hope to blog about soon. Lately I have been struggling to see what, if any, impact my life is having for Christ and God is teaching me slowly what it looks like to be His hands of feet even in the midst of my crazy life.

That's all for now....More coming soon, I promise. Grace and peace!

maybe if i wasn't going commando ;)

Some of you might recognize this Friends reference from the episode where Joey decides to put on all of Chandlers clothes: "Look at me--I'm Chandler! Could I BE wearing any more clothes? Maybe if I wasn't going commando! " Well last night, our community group did something similar. We decided to put on as many clothes as we could and then donate those clothes to various people in need (some locally, some across the country, and some in Uganda). I am continually amazed at the awesome things that can happen when people with the same heart for God work in unity toward a common purpose. And on top of that, we had FUN. We even had a contest to see who had the most clothes on and of the 8 people who participated in the judging, we had over 200 items of clothing on! Overall, we collected a mountain of trash bags full of clothes, shoes, etc (see below)



...and the prize for the clothes-wearing contest was pretty sweet as well ;)

Me, all dressed up and looking like a sumo wrestler

Everyone dressed up

Maybe the funnest part was watching everyone attempt to get all the clothes OFF (most of them needed help and luckily Brittani didn't mind helping a bit ;)...which earned her the quote "Why is Brittani the designated stripper?")

Little did we know what surprise Derek had waiting for us ;)

All in all it was a great evening, with great people, for a great cause....what more could you ask for?

Tag...I'm it

My friend, Lauren tagged me and I am supposed to write 6 random things about myself. Luckily, this works out well for me because randomness is my favorite (as you can see from the pic of Janine and I above) :)

Here are the tagging rules:
1. Post the rules on your blog
2. Write 6 random things about yourself
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post
4. If you're tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag


My random-ness:
1. One of my biggest fears is popping balloons....maybe because my grandma used to tell me the pieces would hit me in the eye and blind me??

2. I hate tomatoes but love ketchup, tomato sauce, salsa and even tomato basil soup...weird, I know.

3. The first career aspirations I had were to be a chocolate engineer....and I wanted my sister to be a snow engineer. I didn't know what an engineer was but I knew my dad was one...and I really liked chocolate (that part hasn't changed)

4. I hate ironing so much that when I was single and made a list of characteristics I would like in a future husband "can/will iron" was one of them :)

5. When I was young and used to spend the night with my grandparents (who read the Bible together every night....cute!), they would let me pick a passage from the Bible for them to read to me and I always picked the story of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16....it was my favorite....I have no idea why.

6. I have the hardest time spelling Philippians. I always want it to have two L's and one P for some reason: Phillipians....I know it doesn't look right and yet every time I try to write it I try to put the two L's in.



I am tagging:
1. Andrea Salamonca -- love your randomness anyway!
2. Katy Whitehair -- because she may be one of the only people that reads this blog...ha
3. Billy Williams -- gettin' the guys involved :)
4. Meghan Baird -- because she's a cool chick whose blog I just discovered and we're almost birthday twins
5. Angela Harding -- because she just rocks
6. Janine Dzuba -- great way to start your blog!