Leading is nothing more than having a list of names to pray for

Sorry I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks, it's been a mad hectic buzz of activity.

Actually have a rather lengthy post about my reflections of the past overly unsustainable semester haha, but it's only halfway done haha.

Anyway, thank you all for your prayers :) I am absolutely confident that there was an underlying peace despite the obviously horrid consequences of losing a computer, and I know that peace came as an answer to all your prayers. Just got my computer back two days ago -- I couldn't recover my data, but I have my most important stuff backed-up, so I can live with that :)

Just wanted to post some very quick thoughts.

1. I was talking to my cg leader from freshman year, and she said being a cg leader was nothing more than having a list of names to pray for for the entire year. Very piercing reminder to any of us who have any positions of spiritual leadership.

2. Am slowly beginning to understand the dynamics of Christian growth. Looking back over the semester, I realize the periods of growth for me were when I reached the point of complete trust in God and His will for my life - and not my own efforts/grades/eloquence - and saw Him work; or when I struggled to submit certain areas of my life, and subsequently learnt to give it up. And conversely my periods of dryness were when my prayers lacked faith, and thus even when God worked there was no realization; or when I didn't search my heart for sin or was living in denial and wasn't actively seeking for renewal.

And it really isn't that our relationship with God is dependent on Him working miracles, but that our relationship with Him active ongoing conversation, rather than a monologue - if we don't give Him room to speak into our lives, we have no right to blame Him for our stunted or non-existent growth.

3. Will be serving in a cg (or family group as we call it here). Am really excited, for much personal growth, but more than anything to learn to love and have a servant's heart. Which is why I brought up point #1 :)

4. Hehe if you have time to kill and want a good mentally-stimulating online game, I recommend Desktop Tower Defence.

please pray

hey guys
I'd really really appreciate if you could remember me in prayer -- my computer just crashed :( I was scanning something on my printer, then it suddenly turned off, then my computer froze and gives me error messages at startup. sigh

Really really hope I'll be able to recover my data. I usually back up my stuff, but for some reason the last backup somehow didn't quite work, and because I overwrote previous backups I definitely don't have a good working copy of a lot of things. And ask any college student, their life exists on their hard drive :( and I have my finals beginning tomorrow, so it's not quite the best time for such a thing to happen.

but amidst it all, I choose to be thankful:
1) that I still had some data backed up. and that a lot of work I've done over the past few weeks have been either submitted online/sent to other team members via email, so I can slowly re-piece together my work.
2) that this didn't happen last Sunday night. if not I'd be absolutely destroyed, because I had a final project due last monday and that I was up all night for (red bull gives you wings)
3) that I don't have anything immediately pressing that I need my computer for
4) that my roommate has an extra computer and is extremely gracious in letting me use one of his
5) that I have the extended warranty, so even if I need to replace my harddrive it should be free. and I'll get a lot of extra technical support in service and in software when I call in tomorrow
6) and above all else, that I know God had a purpose in this. to either remind me of how vulnerable I am and how much I need to depend on Him; that my life isn't sustained by the things of this world and my material possessions; that if i think I can keep my life going on my own strength and hard work all it takes is for a small hardware error to occur that could wipe out my energy and enthusiasm.

so I guess please pray that I'd be able to recover my data, but more so that in this time I'd learn to find strength and sustenance in God.
thanks:) you don't know how much I appreciate it.