The Perspective of Heaven--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

Hope everyone is doing well.  It looks like Fall has officially begun.  I am actually cold as I sit here in my office, and I even have long sleeves and jeans on!  But it is nice to have a change of season.  It’s good to enjoy the crispness of autumn.

 

This is what we have going on this week.  Tonight at worship (6:30pm) we will focus on God’s mercy:  What does God’s mercy look like?  How does it impact our lives?  And then on Thursday night, after we eat (6:30pm) we will discuss the next part of the Lord’s Prayer—Give us this day our daily bread.  Come and see how God’s provision extends to your life.

 

Just FYI—Our city-wide worship for college students and young adults is on Thursday October 15^th, the next Thursday after Fall Break.  We will meet here as usually for dinner and a brief program, then we will head to State Street UMC to join other college ministries from our local churches for an AWESOME time of worship.  I am so pumped!  DG Hollums is coming to preach!  He is an awesome communicator who really is on the cutting edge of what God is doing in the lives of this generation.  He has a heart for Jesus that translates into a powerful message to change lives.  And he has cool tatoos.  Maybe after this baby is born I might get some too!  J  We’ll see—

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Last night I watched a PBS special on the founding of America’s National Parks.  Ever since Tim and I visited Yellowstone several years ago, I watch everything I can on the great parks.  I was incredibly moved to be in the vastness of nature and see first hand the wonders of God’s creation.  My dream is to return someday and share the experience with my children.  Even though they are still too small for such a grand adventure, it is enough to go on less dramatic excursions.  We spent time over the summer in the Smokies, taking in the mist covered mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.  And before Noah’s first day of school we went on a day trip to Mammoth Cave and walked two small trails.  Our little hike around a pond was the most successful venture.  For a few brief moments our lives were transfixed by the sound of bull frogs calling to each other over the water.  Simple miracles—we had never heard those before.

 

I feel close to God when I am in nature.  Its silence and simplicity have a way of revealing to my heart all of the ways I make life more complicated than it has to be.  I love Jesus’ words that admonish us to consider the lilies of the field, to forsake worry because God clothes them in glory and they are but grass.  How much greater is His love for us.  But how many of us ever take the time to actually walk in a field?  When do our lives in this fast paced world intersect with things only God made?  Everything around us is man-made.  If you take your shoes off you can probably find a spot that says “man-made materials.”  I believe this is why last night’s special resonated so much with me.  It told the story of how ordinary people fought to reserve the natural wonders of our country for everyone to enjoy and experience, to not allow unthinking and unhindered “progress” to rob us of the natural treasures that can never be replaced if destroyed.

 

Interwoven through the show was the story of John Muir, the European born conservationist who founded the Sierra Club.  Largely because of his efforts Yosemite National Park was created, and later Yosemite Valley was later added.  The friendship and influence he had upon President Theodore Roosevelt resulted in the preservation and conservation of many sites that otherwise would not have been spared.  The end of his life is rather sad though.  He spent his last years trying to save another valley from the influence of progress and lost.  The city of San Francisco eventually won the right to damn up the Tuolumne River (which originates and runs through Yosemite National Park) and turn Hetch Hetchy Valley into a reservoir for the city’s use.  Heart broken, Muir died in despair. 

 

But that’s not the end of the story.   After seeing how the construction of the damn impacted the valley and surrounding area, many conservationists began to work to arduously to strengthen and shore up the protection offered by federal authorities for National Parks.  Because of their efforts, the existing lands that have been preserved through the national park system are far safer than they were in the fledgling years of the project.  His efforts to save Hetch Hetchy Valley were not in vain.  Others noticed and were inspired.  What did not work for him eventually worked for them in ways he could not have imagined, with affects far more reaching than his efforts alone.  Yet without his humble gift of passion to ignite theirs, their efforts would not have even existed.

 

And that’s the thing.  I’m sitting here stunned by the power of this realization, the power of the faithful effort humbly given.  Often our efforts seem small and inconsequential.  Often they are thankless and menial.  Often they are unnoticed and dismissed.  And often at the end of the day, we throw in our towel defeated, sometimes even in despair because we don’t believe we made any difference at all.  Yet Heaven has a different perspective.  It touched my heart tremendously to hear one of our new students talk about how she received one of our small care packages last year.  Even though she never made it up the hill for any of our meetings or events, that gift was a huge encouragement to her.  For years putting those bags together has felt like wasted effort, yet in that one moment it seemed God pulled back the clouds and gave me the perspective of Heaven. 

 

We cannot judge the viability of our lives.  We are too immersed in the earthly dimension to clearly see how we impact those around us.  Yet we may be comforted with this thought:  God honors our faithfulness.  As we keep giving ourselves into God’s hands, trying our best to live right, each day seeking His guidance for the little things, and then by faith (because often we don’t have a clue) just going with what we got, we can trust that God will lead us into paths of righteousness.  We can also trust that God will take that daily offering and transform it into something that leaves an indelible mark on history, something that is beautiful and lasting:  “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people” (Galatians 6:9-10).

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

What Season Is It? Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hey everyone!  Hope you are all doing well!  I so enjoy the times I get to spend with you, just hanging out during the day between classes, or at worship in our chapel, or in our very spirited discussions on Thursday nights.  Please know that each one of you are so precious, in God’s eyes and in mine.  And if you are reading this and haven’t been over to check us out yet, come on down!  We would love to see you.  I promise you will find folks who are glad you came.  Find out what you’ve been missing!

 

This week here’s the scoop:

 

Tomorrow night at 6:30pm in the chapel, we continue our look at Grace.  Tomorrow’s message focuses on the durability of Grace.  It’s not a word we are used to in this day and age, but its implications for your life will astound you.

 

And then what we’ve all been waiting for……

 

PROGRESSIVE DINNER!!!!!!!!!!

 

This Thursday night we will meet at the Wesley Foundation at 5PM to begin our tour of all the United Methodist congregations in town.  I am so excited about this!!!! We will have such a great time.  Here is a run-down of the schedule:

 

5:30PM STATE ST. UMC—APPETIZERS

 

6:15PM ST. JAMES UMC—SOUP & SALAD

 

7PM  BROADWAY UMC—MAIN COURSE

 

7:45PM  CHRIST UMC—DESSERT

 

8:30PM  FAITH UMC—COFFEE & TEA

 

Why are we doing this?  You may not realize that each one of these churches (as well as many others who are not in our immediate area) provide for our ministry in some way.  All of them help feed us on Thursday nights or during finals week providing a home cooked meal.  They help us out with worship, sending praise teams to lead us once a month, giving a chance for our student worship leaders to rest and be refueled.  They also volunteer for our work days, painting, mulching, cleaning, whatever needs to be done to help us out.  Many of them have members that serve on our Board of Directors, making sure we are financially healthy and sound in our business workings.  Each one of these congregations loves you, and shows that love of Christ in tangible ways.  This is an opportunity for us to see where they are and get to know them as well!  And many of you stay in town on weekends and need a place to worship, to connect with a church family where your gifts can be used in great ways too. 

 

So I look forward to seeing you soon.  If you have any questions, just give me a call, e-mail, or we always have FACEBOOK! 

 

If you need DIRECTIONS let me know!  J

 

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Time continues to be a topic on my mind.  This morning I spent time preparing to teach my University Experience class.  We are focusing on the subject of time management, and I have asked all my students to complete a time management chart that has a block for every hour of every day.  They have to fill in the chart by activity, color coding each different kind and labeling each block of time according to how it is being spent.  Afterwards they are to write a paper on what they learned.  In my preparation, I made a time management chart for myself. 

 

It would be so easy to just keep the same one hanging on my wall as last year’s, but there is something about the discipline of creating a new chart each year that is good for me.  I guess it has a way of holding me accountable for the choices I am making, or at least it forces me to be aware of the choices I am making.  That awareness is a gift; with it I am empowered to make different, wiser choices.  Unawareness robs me of the power to choose the kind of life I really want to live. 

 

Here is what I learned this morning.  I have been allowing stuff to creep into the time in my schedule that belongs to God.  It’s not that I don’t think about God a lot during my day.  I do.  It’s not that prayer isn’t a regular part of how I spend my time.  I talk to God a lot!  But what I have not been doing is just being, allowing a fallow time in my schedule where God can just show up and do what He wants to.  I have not created space where I have an opportunity to “lie down in green pastures,” to sit “beside the still waters,” to “restore my soul.”  God hasn’t had the room to shepherd me because I have been so busy shepherding everyone else.  Even my prayer time has been about praying for someone instead of just being replenished.  No wonder God keeps waking me up in my bed at 3 am.  I’m preoccupied with other stuff every where else.  How’s that for confessional!

 

As I finished coloring my chart this morning, a verse of scripture came to mind, and I wrote it in brown across the top:  “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).  Beside it I wrote last week’s verse of inspiration:  “My times are in Your hand” (Psalm 31:15).  I wrote them in brown to remind me that I am only dust after all.  All the grandiose ideas I have about being everything to everybody, and accomplishing everything that lives inside my head, are after all unrealistic.  But if I never take time to slow down, and simply be a sheep led by The Good Shepherd, I will never have the insight or wisdom I need to know the season I am in, to decipher which things are most important, and to have that special awareness of God’s Holy Spirit within me that gives life to my days and always directs my steps right to where they need to be. 

 

I share this because old habits die hard.  I remember that it’s not just “out of college” schedules that need a heavy dose of heavenly overhaul.  I remember that the craziness of my life started way back in the good ole days, when higher education began to demand more of me than I thought I could give.  I know many of you live that reality every day.  Just know you are not alone.  God knows you have responsibilities and obligations.  He also knows better than you and I what our deepest and truest needs are as well.  When we live each day from the palm of His hand, everything finds its rightful place in the grand scheme of things.  It all has a way of working out.  My challenge to you is to make sure you have given God time in your life to tend to the needs of your soul.  You could do it yourself, but quite honestly, like me, you are only dust.  We have no way of knowing what it is that really breathes life into our fallible bodies.  We need to allow Someone better able than us to lead us into green pastures, so that eventually we will also walk in right paths.  Notice the right paths, those paths of righteousness (right way-ness) only follow the moment spent lying in green pastures and reclining by still waters.  Don’t be afraid to let Him restore your soul.  It is the best time-management choice you will ever make.

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

All Will Be Well--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hey everyone!  Did you have a good weekend?  I did—and I’m so glad to be back on campus with you.  I feel so blessed that I get paid to walk this journey with each of you.  If I’ve forgotten to tell you lately, YOU ROCK!  And you have a special place in my heart.  So how about all the cool stuff we have going on this week?

 

WORSHIP is tomorrow night, 6:30pm as usual in the chapel.  We will begin looking at our theme for the year:  FREE FOOD.  What are we really saying when we offer people Grace that is best demonstrated in free food?  What does it mean for us?  How does it change our lives forever?

 

Also beginning on Wednesday @ 3pm LADIES SMALL GROUP!  Yay!  It’s time to start up again.  I know the time may not work for everyone, but we might be able to have some student led groups at another time as well.  I’m so excited about what we will be doing!

 

THURSDAY is free meal and program.  We will be looking at what does it mean to pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.”  Wow, what does it mean?  Come and find out. 

 

Anyone up for stuffing bags with me?  Our project for the week is to get our grab bags out to campus!  Yay!  I have more to put in them, but just need help dropping candy in. 

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Time is a big deal for me lately.  I am constantly seeking to know what time it is.  It is time to walk up the hill to teach my University Experience Class?  Do I have time to prepare my lesson?  Was the time I gave it adequate?  Is it time to lead worship?  Is it time for students to start arriving for our weekly meal?   Do I have time to make an extra trip to Walmart to get last minute groceries to make sure we have enough to go around?  Will all the projects for the beginning of school that fit in my head fit into the actual hours and days I have allotted to fulfilling them?  These are the time questions that I wrestle with every fall.  However, this fall my time questions are punctuated with more down to earth, basic concerns (for those of you who don’t know, I’m 27 weeks pregnant):  Is it time to eat?  My stomach is growling.  Can I wait the extra half hour at the nice restaurant or do I need to just get something fast because I am SOOOOO hungry?  Do I have time to pee?  Where is the nearest bathroom?  When will I go poop?  I sure don’t want to miss that important time each day!  If I don’t go, does that mean something is wrong and I’m in for another painful episode where I spend the afternoon in the hospital?  Then where does my time go?  Did I take the time to rest like I’m supposed to?  Did I remember that rest time right now is the most important time, that it’s no longer wasted time but healing time?  What if I don’t take time to rest, will my body crash?  Will I have enough time to devote to those I love so much-- my three precious boys at home, my dear students at my Wesley home?  Did I take the time to make sure that this baby growing in my belly is safe and nourished and healthy?  Where does all my time go?

 

It seems like such an insignificant question, but it’s one of the most important questions I struggle with each day.  I realize now that the decisions I make regarding my time affect not only me, but others. I want to honor the time God has given me in a way that honors Him, and especially those He has placed in my care:  my students, my children, my husband . . . as well as this Jeremiah boy who will be born in a couple of months, and this body that must keep him safe and well until he arrives.  How I spend my time does matter.

 

It didn’t used to seem like how I spent my time was such a big deal, but even as a young person I struggled with time, as I see many of you doing.  I see you struggling to adjust to the demands of your professors, each of whom believes that his or her class is the most important one you will ever take in your college career and levies assignments to match that expectation.  I see you struggling to find the time to work, knowing that if you don’t work, you won’t eat, or be able to pay your tuition, or even buy your books.  (btw, if you are worried about eating, please come see me.  I don’t want any of you to be hungry.)  I see you struggling to make sure you have time for friendships and Wesley activities, needing that precious time to unwind and laugh, and just be.  I see you struggling to juggle time commitments to family members, who are still important in your life, but not necessarily a part of your everyday life.  I know that like me you ask yourselves often, “Where does all my time go?”  And the pressing demands of each day also tend to stretch into worries for the future:  Will I be able to graduate on time?  Did I lose too much time with that bad semester?  What happens when it is time to declare a major?  I still don’t know what I want to do.  What if the time I am spending in college, working so hard for, turns out to be wasted time, and I can’t get a job when I get out?  What if the time I have invested in this relationship turns out to be a dead end, and I end up without a life-long companion?  As it turns out, time questions are not just big deal questions for me, they are big deal questions for us all.

 

I spent some time today going through a box in my office.  In it I found some odds and ends and a few forgotten pictures chronicling forgotten moments in my life.  The one in particular that caught my attention was a picture of me and Tim, sitting in a swing at Camp Loucon.  We had just started dating and were at the Wesley Foundation’s fall retreat.  It was the beginning a relationship that would stretch 16 years and would eventually produce three children (almost).  Sitting there with my brand new sweetheart, I had no idea that one day I would be leading Wesley Foundation retreats at Camp Loucon, or that the man I was sitting next to would be the anchor that would keep me strong, grounded and tied securely to God’s grace for rest of my life.  I had no idea then that I would end up where I am now, joyful, crazy, and finally at home in the craziness that I am.  Like many of you, I was a college student filled with apprehension and even some fears of what my life would be like, what would lie ahead.  But what I have learned since is that God is in the details.  Every moment life is held in His hands, and He has no intention of ever letting go.  As Psalm 31 says, “But I trust in You, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’  My times are in Your hand.”  God is constantly guiding, shielding, nudging, PUSHING, pulling, encouraging, molding, helping, holding, hoping, building, and pruning us.  Every moment that He is active in our lives (and that would be EVERY one of them) is an act of love.  We cannot get away from Him, and when we entrust ourselves to Him (instead of fighting Him), just letting ourselves be held by the Strength that shapes the universe, we can rest in knowing that all will be well.  I can confidently say to that young woman (and young man) sitting in a wooden swing at Camp Loucon, “All will be well. You will see; all will be well.”  And I confidently say it to all of you, whom I see each day giving it your all, doing your best, and struggling to make the most of your time, “All will be well.  You will see; all will be well.”  And because I most often need to hear the sermons I preach, I say to my self even now, “All will be well.  You will see.  All will be well.”

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu