No sé cómo traducir este título… / Let Go and Let God

I can’t believe I let a week go by without posting! I meant to do this much sooner. I’ve got a lot of updates and a lot of thoughts so hopefully this won’t be too long…updates first!

What I’ve been up to in the last week: I met my intercambio, María, for the first time, and she is really cool. Super nice, very patient with my Spanish, and we talked for a whole hour in Spanish! It was a lot of fun. Hopefully we will be able to get together again. I’ve also gone out a couple times, once to celebrate Ryan and Jenny’s birthdays and once with Sarah F. just for fun. Sarah and I hung out a lot this weekend, doing some shopping and eating out. We even went to Isla Mágica, a theme park right here in Sevilla! It was a lot of fun – though I think I’ve been too spoiled by Disney parks to fully appreciate other theme parks. I also finally feel like I’m organized academically (a new term always takes me awhile to feel settled, and it was especially difficult settling in here). It’s good to feel like I’m on top of things. It was a really relaxing, fun weekend. I’m not going to have many more of those in Sevilla (thanks to all my travel plans!!! :-)) so I’m glad I got to enjoy this one.

Thoughts: This particular thought process is only somewhat connected to Spain. One of the biggest problems I’ve had with my belief in God in recent years is being able to feel Him. Oddly enough, I’ve never really had an intellectual problem with the existence of God. It’s always been more of an emotional problem. I’m not sure why that is…anyway, I know before I came here that my mom asked a lot of her friends and family to pray for a safe and happy semester for me. And for the first time in a long time…I can feel God. I feel like He’s here protecting me. I don’t mean that I can be all crazy and reckless; that’s not it at all. But I feel like He’s guiding me, letting things work out how they are supposed to. And this is the other problem that I, as a bit of a control freak, have had with God: leaving things up to Him. That’s where the title of this entry comes from. As part of my new “No pasa nada” philosophy (see previous entry of this title if you’re confused), I’m going to include letting go and letting God. It doesn’t mean I’m going to be lazy and not work for things I want and need, but it does mean that I need to relax. I need to let God take the reins because really, I have very little control anyway. I need to not sweat the small stuff, and trust that God has a plan for the big stuff. This is hard for me to do, and even though I’ve been thinking about it all week, I have to keep reminding myself that I need to leave some things up to God. He loves me and knows what’s best for me, even if it’s not what I want. Even it takes years for me to understand. God and I weren’t very close for awhile, and I’m trying to get back into a good relationship with Him. I need to do it slowly and at my own pace, but I’m going to try to do it. ¿Vale? Vale.

I guess that wasn’t as long of an entry as I thought…I’ll try to post again this week with more thoughts and updates. Missing my family and friends as always!!! Love you guys!