grillen, spielen, lernen

At a team outing

Summer is finally here. Kind of. I am so excited that the weather has been warm. Often I literally walk outside and just smile because it makes me happy. It is crazy what a little sun can do for the soul. Life has been super busy though, but at the same time really good. Hence the lack of blogging. Between German class becoming more intense, ministry continuing, soccer training, and support raising; there isn’t a whole lot of spare time. I still can’t believe it is already May and I fly to America in a few weeks. I haven’t even really had time to think about it or get that excited. But I am excited. I will definitely miss Germany though and especially my team. I absolutely love the team I am on. The girls are great and we have had so much fun hanging out outside of training and getting to know each other. Last Saturday we grilled in a local park and just hung out for six hours. I brought an American football with (a somewhat foreign object here) and we played catch for a long time. We also watched the semifinal for the Champions League as a team, and as many of you know being a Wörle, we are huge Bayern München fans, so it was a big game. Luckily, they pulled out the win otherwise Dad wouldn’t have been a happy camper. It was amazing and I can’t wait for the final on May 19 against Barcelona.

My awesome roomie :)

Soccer has just improved overall and I am enjoying playing even though at times the situation is frustrating. When I think about giving up soccer at some point in my life, it breaks my heart. Yesterday at training, it was one of the first times I just played without thinking and felt so free. It’s as if nothing else in the world mattered and when you enjoy your teammates it makes everything that much better. In bible study we have been going through a series on how God desires for us to be transformed into the likeness of His Son and how we can put ourselves in a place to encounter God’s grace and love.  We connect it to sports and learn practical ways that we can serve/love our teammates and use our talent as a platform to reach others. As you may know, soccer has been a battle the entire year and I was just talking to someone the other day about it and realized how much has changed. It is crazy to think last fall I would be terrified for training and literally would bike home almost in tears singing worship songs, and now I get excited for training some days (obviously there are the lazy days though too). Just another way that God has been faithful. In training I have really been focusing on using it as an act of worship and remembering that even if I work hard and don’t get “rewarded”, it doesn’t matter because I am working for the Lord and not for man (Col 3:23).

Lately, I have been just so worn out and tired at the end of my long days that I just want to crawl into bed and pretend that my to-do list doesn’t exist. There are times I will sit down on my couch to have my quiet time and say to God, “Can we just hang out right now and kick it?” I don’t know if you have ever been in that place where reading, processing and thinking seems like the most overwhelming thing EVER. It has been good though because it has taught me to just be with God and sit in His presence, which is something I tend to struggle with. Also trying to be a prayer warrior because at times I feel so helpless and burdened by the hurt and dying world that we live in. There are so many people that need the love of Jesus, but where do you start? I have been trying to trust the. At AJ on Wednesday, we heard a story about a married couple that were missionaries in China (1930’s) and ended up being executed (beheaded). When they were taken away their daughter was left behind, wrapped in a blanket, and someone found her and took her in. Eventually she went back to America and was adopted. With that being said, the mother (Betty Stamm) that was executed had written in her journal two years earlier:

Grilling out in the Park 

“Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all, utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Send me where Thou wilt. And work out thy whole will in my life at any cost now and forever.”

I have been trying to read this each day and make it my prayer. I want to pursue the Lord wherever that may bring me. Betty did that with her life. We all can do ministry right where we are. I have been challenged with this though. Do I truly give myself, my life, my all, to Him? It is easy to give the things that don’t matter that much, but what about those things that are really hard to let go of. And at what cost? Support raising has been tough lately, but I keep asking myself, do I truly believe that the Lord will provide? One time, I heard a definition of faith that I really liked. It is: “Faith is taking God at His Word and believing that what He says is truer than how we feel or any circumstance we will ever face.”

So these are the things that I have been challenged with and just been processing through, but I hope to write more soon.