Chicago
This past weekend I visited my sister in Chicago to caught a glimpse into my her life at NU. Ah, those good ol’ college days, where did they go.
I love flying, mainly because it’s a time when I can completely unplug. I guess I can thank the FCC for rules banning cell phone use after a plane leaves the ground. Being unplugged leaves me with no expectations to fulfill, no one to answer to, and nothing to keep me from being.. “ME”. My Friday afternoon flight to Chicago was smooth sailing. Chicago is a beautiful city especially in the evening. The sun was setting just as my flight came in for its final descent; caught a great view of the city from up high. I was greeted by my sister and boyfriend. Way, who I haven’t met, was taller than I expected and very polite. He was quite talkative, and always spoke with great candor. He drove us back to campus, making it in time for fellowship.
Here I was reunited with friends that I had met at Urbana 2006. The topic of the evening was genocide and the guest speaker was a survivor from Sudan. Make a difference Divest from Sudan. After fellowship, I joined a bunch of my sister’s friends for late night munchies. Here I was introduced to and fell in love with “Be Bim Bop”, a Korean dish. I later find out the evening’s message and event were coordinated through my sister. I’m proud that she is able to service with campus ministry. It provides a growing opportunity in leadership which may flurish into a unique pashion or calling in leadership roles.
Saturday morning my sister and I met up with Stephanie, and we set course for downtime Chicago. We ventured to the John Hancock Observatory where we got an awesome view of the lake and city from up high. Checkout the attached photos. We made it back to campus in the evening for dinner.
Sunday church service is a 20 minute van ride north of campus. My flight back to Philadelphia had gotten canceled due to deteriorating weather conditions the night before. Finding a new flight home became an urgent matter that morning. It was so quicidental then that the sermon message was about “Worry”. “The beginning of worry is the end of faith, the beginning of faith is the end of worry.” If you are caught up in worry, look towards the birds. If God has provided for these birds, won’t he provide for us? For we are his children! (Matthew 6:25-34)
Making the best of it, I ended up staying an extra day in Chicago and made it back into work Tuesday morning. I’ve had an incredibly stressful week, and I’m glad it’s over with. But recently I’ve found that I’ve developed an unhealthy emotional dependency on work. As Smith writes in Courage and Calling: “Sometimes we treat the organizations we work for as though they have a parental function. We expect the one who supply our paychecks to care for us. The organizations we work for will let us down time and time again.“ Pray that I may leave when I need to leave, pass the ball when I should pass the ball.
