A few more Maui pics...

Looking down @ Honolua Bay...one of the places we snorkeled at.

After snorkeling @ Honolua Bay...we were just imitating the fish. :)
We saw a small octopus, a few blow fish, swam with a school of hundreds of fish, saw a turtle & lots more beautifully colorful fish!

The tropical jungle like trail down to Honolua Bay.

Listening to the sounds of the jungle? Or, were we lost?
Or, maybe we're just REALLY funny!

Hanging out at the dock, before sunrise, waiting to board the boat for our Sunrise Whale Watching Trip...AMAZING!

The sun is coming up...

and up...

and up!

Whale tail!!! We saw several whales, a few baby whales (i.e. calves), heard the song of the whales, and saw 2 whales breach. WHAT?!?!

Breakfast @ Cheeseburger in Paradise after Whale Watching. A breakfast of champions! Hawaiian omelette, macadamia nut pancakes, cheeseburger & fries (shared by the three of us that is)!

Maui pics...just a few for now!

View from the lanai (deck).

After dinner with the Barnes' @ Kimo's.

Sunset from Stacy & I's table @ the Hula Grill...one of my favorite places!

View from the other side of our lanai.

Sunset on Easter from the lanai. Beautiful!!

Gifts

I have come to realize lately that I have a really hard time receiving gifts. Whether it be a tangible gift, the gift of words, the gift of time or some other sort of gift...I don't know how to receive them. I have a hard time because I don't believe, most of the time, that I deserve it. Why would I deserve to receive gifts? What have I done to earn a gift? What do I do to repay someone for a gift? Am I capable of giving a gift worth receiving?

Well, God is pretty funny and it just so happened that Spring Break was filled with gifts! Gifts I didn't expect. Gifts I didn't earn. Gifts I couldn't possibly repay. Gifts I didn't feel worthy of. Gifts! Gifts! Gifts! And, I am still sitting with what it looks like to truly receive...just receive.

I honestly can't write about all I received but I will share a few. First of all, I got to go to Maui...GIFT! Secondly, I got to go for a few days all by myself before my friend, Stacy, was able to meet me there. Time alone...GIFT! Time with Stacy...GIFT! We had a free place to stay...GIFT!!

Before I left I realized, with the help of my Spiritual Director, that I felt a sense of responsibility to make sure my time there alone (Easter day) was full of incredible encounters with God. Funny thing is...I am not God (shocking, I know)! It was then I realized that I needed to not "make" God time but I needed to wait on God. I didn't need to make a perfect plan that would somehow make me worthy of having a significant time with God, I just needed to recognize that He was already with me and just be with Him. And, it was in this waiting that God met me in a very simple but VERY significant way. GIFT! GIFT! GIFT!

Could there be more? Yep! Did there need to be more? I don't know...but it happened!

Linda was also in Maui that week and took us, After getting almost two full days by myself Stacy arrived. And, we had a great time together! Snorkeling! Laying by the pool or on the beach! Whale watching! Great conversation! Good food! Coffee! Sitting out on the lanai (i.e. deck)! All of it...GIFTS! A couple we know (though I know them far less than Stacy) was in Maui during the week and unexpectedly took us out to dinner twice to incredible restaurants. GIFTS!!

Honestly, I feel like I could go on and on about all I received in just one short week...but I haven't even processed it all. But, while I was in Maui I started to read a book called "Surrender to Love" by David Benner and God is speaking to me deeply through this book...it is incredible! I want to share a few quotes from the book that have both challenged and comforted me in the area of receiving gifts...unearned gifts.

"But as noted by Kierkagaard, unresolved guilt always damages the capacity for love. The reason for this is that the guilty self feels that it deserves punishment. It also feels like a dangerous self. Unconscious guilt makes me feel that I have to withdraw from others, lest I damage them by my love. This leads to self-preoccupation, and the result is always a serious impairment of my ability to give or receive love." (p. 43)

"I want to earn what I get. And for the most part I am content to get what I earn. Nothing grates more than a handout. If you doubt this, just ask someone who lives off charity. What humans want is to earn the love we seek. The Christian God comes to us as wholly other--so different from the gods of imagination, so far beyond my control. Encountering such a God is terrifying because encountering perfect love is an invitation to abandon ego. A god of our own making would be much less terrifying. But, such a god could not offer me what I most deeply need--release from my fears and healing of my brokenness." (p. 47)

These words...and many more...are powerful to me and where I am at on my journey. I am learning about the fears and guilt that reside deep within me and how they keep me from receiving gifts...LOVE.

School

Sometimes I love school and sometimes I just don't. For the last several weeks I have spent most of my free time outside of work writing papers and reading for my class. And, as much as I am enjoying the content and challenge of this course...I am SICK of it! I am SICK of not spending time with friends and family or just relaxing on my couch because I have so much school work to do. How can something be so good and so not good at the same time? I have no clue! In fact, I asked my counselor the same thing today...he didn't have an answer for me. Why am I paying him? ;)

Well...the good things is that my class ends tomorrow. All my papers will get turned in & from 8:30am - 12noon I get to discuss ethics and then...DONE. I have several pages left to write on two papers but even if I go to bed at 3am...I will be able to come home after class, take a nap and not think about anything school/homework related for a few weeks. YAY!!

I am SO thankful for my education and the opportunity I have to learn in this program AND I am so thankful to complete one more class and be that much closer to graduating!!