Confidence is something that many of us lack. We are capable of doing great things in our lives, but the lack of belief in ourselves keeps us bound in our inadequacies and we live forever in the land of complacency.
I lived in the land of complacency in different areas in my life, up until September of 2010. God blessed me with the vision to put on a Gospel event at San Francisco State University, and rather than entertain the idea only in my mind and no where else, I decided to step out on faith by fully trusting God—leaning totally on Him—believing that He would truly lead and guide my steps.
The event took a total of eight months to plan, and it came into fruition on April 21st, 2011.
The event was held in McKenna Theater, the current biggest theater on the SF State campus, and there were over one hundred people in attendance. There was poetry, Gospel rap, live gospel music, praise dancing, and a powerful and touching gospel skit. It was a unique event that was quite new to this SF State campus, and many of the people that were in attendance on that night and those that helped to make the event a successful one are still talking about it.
It was a great success and I never even imagined that the Lord would ever use me in the capacity that he did to bring such glory and honor to His most Holy name.
For Spring Break, I took my first train ride home to Southern California Riverside on Amtrak. It was a total of 12 full hours that I was every bit of excited for!
I told all of my friends, “I feel like the Polar Express!”
There weren’t too many people in my car once I had gotten on board. Just myself, one other woman, two other gentlemen, and the Train Car Assistant, that was all.
I looked for and found a cozy seat next to the window and made myself right at home.
I checked one bag, and took the other on with me, in which I had packed many of my old journals to read through, my bible to read through, some snacks, and my laptop.
I made myself nice and cozy, reclined my chair, and put my feet up. Once the train had begun moving, I gazed out of the window for a while enjoying the scenery. It was a rainy morning, but once we got going close to the afternoon, the sun began to peak through and then shine through the clouds; it was beautiful.
After a while, I made a few phone calls, had some lunch, played around on my laptop, and then I took a nap.
As I was shifting position in my seat, I heard over the intercom, “It is now 6 p.m. and we are serving the last meal for the evening, please come to the dinner car if you would like to have dinner.”
As I heard the train assistant, I said to myself, “You have five more hours on this train, you ought to go eat,” so I hopped up, grabbed my wallet, and headed to the dining car.
Before I left for my trip, my aunt told me to enjoy myself and to ride in class--don’t be cheap--especially being that this was my first train ride.
So, I took her advice and ordered two slabs of barbeque ribs, mashed potato’s with broccoli, and some nice chocalaty dessert, a total of $17.50 (not too bad for a college student’s budget ey). It was a great dinner.
After I had finished, I talked with a gentleman who told me lots about his life experiences when he was in college, the Vietnam War, and his job that he had recently and happily retired from. We enjoyed one anothers company as we gazed out of the large windows at the sun setting sky.
As time neared 8 p.m., the sky grew darker to where all we could see out of the large windows were our reflections. So, we shook hands and parted our ways back to our cars.
Headed back to my seat feeling nice and full, I sat down, reached in my bag to pull out my laptop only to find that it was not there.
“Oh God! Oh God!” I thought to myself. “My parents told me! They told me not to leave it! My Aunt told me not to take that laptop out!” “Oh God! Oh God! What am I going to do? My life is on there.” The thoughts that ran through my head as I double and triple checked my bag and seat. My laptop had been taken! stolen! along with the colorful pink stripped case that it was in, and even the charger, it was all gone; gone.
“Okay, okay, stay calm…we’re going to go back to the dining car and tell someone. Stay calm, don’t raise a fuss.” I said to myself.
As I walked back to the dining car, not having said a word to anyone about my laptop, I felt as if everyone that I walked past was now a suspect.
I approached a dining waiter who was wiping down a table, “Excuse me sir, I went back to my seat and my laptop is gone, someone took it.” “Oh sh*?!” he said. “What car are you in? Okay follow me.”
He went back to my car and spoke to the train car assistant and told her of the situation. She said she hadn’t seen anyone and that she had been there the entire time. As they talked back and forth and more train car assistants came to the scene, I began to zone out and sink into the reality of the situation.
I stood there in the aisle, put my hands up to my eyes, closed them, and I began to cry quietly. As the train assistants and dining car waiter grew quiet, I could feel all of their eyes on me.
“Don’t worry, you will get it back, we’ll find it” one train assistant told me as I shook my head in agreement with what she said, though I still thought to myself, “God. Man! They told me not to leave it. I feel so dumb. They told me. Oh God, what am I going to do.”
As I sat down, the train attendants got a plan together to search every inch of the train while they also kept a look out for any possible suspects. After they had searched and didn’t find anything, the conductor met me at my seat and told me that he had an idea that had worked before. Within the next few minutes, I heard the conductor over the intercom announce, “There is a thief on this train. We know that you have stolen a laptop and we will find you. You can return it now with no questions asked.”
After the announcement, the conductor and train attendants waited for someone to show up while they continued to search for it. All that I could do at this point was sit there and wonder what lesson I was supposed to learn from this.
I thought to myself, “Why did this have to happen to me? I left it here at lunch time and nothing happened, so why now? What am I supposed to get out of this? Should I pray? What?” and I just sat there looking into space. I didn’t know what to do.
After more time passed by, I thought I would go back to my original seat to look for it again, “Maybe I overlooked the area,” I thought. I checked the above luggage storage and beneath the seats and still there was nothing. After searching in two cars, I gave up and headed back to my seat.
When I turned around I saw the conductor walking towards me with something in his hand. At this I began to smile with great relief and joy. “You found it!” “Thank you so much, thank you.” He handed my laptop to me and told me that he was glad that they got it back to me.
I then asked him for all of their names and the address to where I could send a “thank you” letter. He gave it to me and I thanked him again. Before he headed back to the front of the train, out of curiosity I asked, “So where was it?” and he said, without wanting to give out too much information, “It was in a place that we never would have looked.”At his response I understood that the most important thing was that my laptop was returned back to me in one piece with the charger and the case.
He smiled at me and shook my hand as I said thank you to him again and he continued on his way. “Thank you Lord! Thank you!” I said to myself. I got it back!
Filled with joy as I took it out of the case--as if it was a brand new gift on Christmas day--I sat down and began to write the thank you letter. As I wrote it I still asked myself, “What am I supposed to learn from this?” besides keeping a close watch on my belongings at all times.
And then it came to me, “God has my back even when I’m slippin!”
In my right mind, I knew that I shouldn’t have left my things unattended on the train. I hesitate to leave my things unattended in the library at school, so why do it on a train? But for whatever reason, I did not do what I knew that I should have and ended up suffering the consequences of my actions. But thanks be to God that he placed the Amtrak employees on that train to work in my favor!
Every person on that train--from the attendant in the dining car to the train car attendants, to the conductor, and even some of the passengers--acted as if their very own laptop was stolen and they searched for it as if it was theirs, while giving me constant reassurance that they would find it.
I felt very important and highly esteemed by them and almost as if I was some type of high profile/VIP passenger. They were a true blessing and I thank God for the experience.
This experience was a symbol of what life can be like for many of us. We can set out to do something, plan for it, enjoy it and the things and the people that come along the way, and then out of no where (it may seem at the time) something totally unexpected and out of our control happens. But God is always in control and though we may make mistakes and beat ourselves up with the “I should have done this,” or “I shouldn’t have done that,” God still carries us through time and time again.
Thank you Lord for having my back and catching me before I fall.
Psalm 55:22
~Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.~
(New Living Translation)
~Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field, do not arise or awaken love until it so desires~
Song of Solomon 2:7
Love is Patient
Love is Kind
Love is Caring
Love is You
Love is Sweet
Love is Serving
Love is Deserving
Love is You
Love is Stubborn
Love is Forgiving
Love is Helping
Love is You
If Love truly is all of these things, then Love, I will wait for you
Because
I am Helping
I am Forgiving
I am Stubborn
Love, just like You
I am Deserving
I am Serving
I am Sweet
Love, just like You
I am Caring
I am Kind
I am Patient
Love, just like You
Patient
Patience
Love, I will wait for You
Because
Love, true love
It will surely come to You
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
YouAloneareGod
I was almost in tears the first time that I had watched this piece entitled “You” by Amena Brown. In fact I was in tears by the time the video had finished.
It is absolutely amazing how God can speak to each of us at a time when we need Him the most, and He does it in ways and at times when we least expect it. I don’t remember what I was going through when I had watched this video, but I do know and remember that I needed it.
Through her piece, Amena Brown speaks about many of the things that people who have a relationship with Jesus Christ can relate to. God is merely an awesome and glorious God who cares about His people.
God is a Heavenly Father who loves His children more than we could ever imagine. He even loves those who don’t yet love him. He loves everyone of us so much that some 2,000 years ago He sent His one and only son Jesus Christ to come down to this earth to go through what we as human beings go through. Jesus came to serve, to seek, and to save those who are lost and in need of his love, of his care, and and of his protection.
Jesus Christ came to die for the sins of this world so that we may not only live a life more abundantly here on this earth, but so that we may have everlasting eternal life after physical death on this earth in heaven with Him.
Jesus Christ came to die for the sins of this world and to raise on the third day just for you and for me.
Once you gain a heartfelt understanding of God’s love for you and truly accept His beloved son Jesus Christ into your heart, you too will be able to feel what Amena expresses through her piece in such a way, that you feel as if you could have written the piece yourself. That is the way that I feel every time that I listen to it. I love because He first loved me.
~For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believe in him shall not perish, but have eternal life~ John 3:16
No one ever said that the road to the top would be easy. No one ever said how hard it would be either. College is a journey that can take many twists and turns. Sometimes it can go great for one semester, and maybe even greater the next, and then sometimes one semester can take a total detour and you wind up on a road you never imagined you would end up on.
But despite what you encounter along your journey whether good or bad, and whether you were happy one moment, or sad the next, remember to keep pressing on towards your goal. It is not always about how you start, or even about what you endure along the way, but about how you finish at the end.
Along the journey to the path of your dreams, remember to enjoy the big and the little things, stop to enjoy a breath of fresh air, love yourself everyday, and always keep in mind that neither success nor failure is final.
~Do your best this semester, and only you know what your best is~
Trying to go throughout each day without a sufficient amount of rest is like trying to drive a car with little to no gas in it; you won’t get very far and you’ll end up destroying the engine in due time.
Rest is the most important thing that every individual must not neglect. Often times many of us, myself included, think of rest as a reward or as something that we should do only if we’ve finished all that needs to be done. But resting each day is something that no one should consider a treat, but rather an every day obligation.
Rest—a periodorintervalofinactivity,repose,solitude,ortranquility—is the curtailment of energy expenditures that allows the body to redirect energies to restoration.
Genesis 2: 2-3
~ By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.~
Has anyone ever asked you this question: Who are you?
What did you say?
When I was recently asked this question, my answer went something like this:
“My name is Raenika Ashley Butler, I am junior at San Francisco State University. I am studying Psychology and after I receive my BA degree, I hope to attend grad school here in the Gerontology program. I have a fraternal twin, a younger brother who's nineteen, and an older sister who's twenty-six….” And so on and so forth I went.
Once I had finished telling the person who I was, I realized that I hadn’t really explained who I was, and that I had only told the person what it is that I do, what I hope to do in the future, and how many siblings I have. I never really told them who I was.
Honestly, the question who are you is a tough question to answer, because the first things that often times come to mind are evolved around the social constructs-- school, work, and family-- that shape our lives.
For instance, many of us have been students for at least fourteen years. So many of us might begin answering the question by describing ourselves as students or as accountants, or psychologists, or biologists, even though a student, or an accountant, or a psychologist, or a biologist is not exactly who we are.
Taking a second shot at the question after deeper thought, my answer went something more like this:
My name is Raenika Ashley Butler. I am a sweet, loving and caring, goofy, strong-willed, and sensitive young woman. I am a simple gal and I enjoy simple things in life. My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the center of my being and it is in Him that I live, move, and breath. I am a great friend to those that call me a friend. I am a great listener, and I can talk until the end of time, though I can also be quiet for hours. I desire to make a positive difference in someone’s life, even if the only thing that I do is make someone smile. This is who I am.
I now invite you to join me in defining who you are outside of the social constructs that we live in by leaving a comment below answering the question: Who are you?
