So many firsts

My first time watching a burning palm tree...must've looked similar to what Moses saw on Mt. Sinai

Texas is the place of many firsts for me...my first time moving away from home, working a full-time job, buying a car, paying rent,  eating barbacoa, interviewing for medical school, driving five hours all by myself, going to Chinese school, finding a church.  All in all, mostly very good and exciting things.  But Texas is also the place where I got my first $50 fee for accidentally entering my payment information incorrectly for the electricity bill, my first time re-visiting a car dealership to return the warranty my dad said I didn't actually need, and my first time getting a speeding ticket. My time in Texas has been bittersweet, but I am grateful for every experience that the Lord has given me here.  He has taught me so much about trusting in him alone and not leaning of my own understanding.  For example, that speeding ticket. 


I am one of those girls who is a pretty confident and safe driver.  I can be impatient with traffic, but I never go crazy and weave through cars or anything of that nature.  When the cop that caught me speeding pulled me over, I was so peaceful with it, knowing that God had a reason for letting me get this ticket (even though I wasn't a danger to anyone on the road).  It's funny, because I had just read the verse Hebrews 12:6, "the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son," and the story in 1 Kings about the man of God who disobeyed God's command to not eat in king Jeroboam's territory.  The man of God was punished, alright.  His head was bitten off by a lion on his way home.  Okay, you may be wondering what that has to do with me getting a speeding ticket.  Well, quite a bit.  The man of God disobeyed God and was punished.  I disobeyed the speed limit and was punished.  There are consequences for disobedience.  And yet Christians can rest assured when they are punished that it is according to God's will and the punishment is served in love.


It seems like such a foreign concept in today's society that punishment can be given out of love.  I don't think the cop who pulled me over gave me a ticket out of love, but he did say that he was concerned about me hitting a deer going as fast as I was.  But I know God allowed this to happen so that I would grow closer to my Father in heaven, having to trust that he's letting me go through this for a reason.  Perhaps God's trying to protect me from the deer that jump out at night.  Or maybe he's answering my prayers to be more humble by killing my prideful speeding.  In any case, I cling to the words in 1 Corinthians 12:9-10 "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." If God has to break me and put me through trials to make me weak enough for his power to be made perfect in me, then I am grateful for even my speeding ticket.