I Can Do All Things Through Christ

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (Phil. 4:13)
This semester I took a class that drove me to claim this verse as my own. A class that made me face something that has been something that I have feared ever since my early years growing up. Thatwould be the fear of water, and the class would be lifeguarding class.

Hold on. Why in the world would someone who is afraid of water take a lifeguarding class? That's just stupid. =\ Yeah. . . you're probably right. But that's just what I do.

I had a good reason though. I'm going to be counseling at a camp this summer and the camp is right on a lake and it's good for the camp's insurance rates if all of their counselors are certified lifeguards. The camp actually offers a lifeguarding crash course so technically I could have gotten certified at camp. But there is no way that I would have been able to pass the examination. So originally I was just looking for a swimming class so that I could learn how to swim so that I could pass the life guarding class at the camp. Sadly, BJ doesn't offer any swimming classes, so I had to go for the next best thing, lifeguarding class. =P

Now, my fear of water was not that I would freak out when I would see water, or anything like that, but when I would submerge my head, my heart rate would increase rapidly and my whole chest area would lock up. Which is why I could not do underwater breath holding contests because even though I could hold my breath for slightly over a minute on land, under water that would drop to about 20 seconds.

Technically I guess you could say that I already knew how to swim. I could get from one side of the pool to the other. But the manner in which I would do so was with much splashing and keeping my head out of the water at all times. If I put my face down in the water I would not be able to get the air that I needed. The whole - exhale underwater, turn your face to the side, breathe, and then repeat - thing was not working for me. First off I could not exhale while under water. It would take all of my conscious thought just to keep my lungs from locking up and to exhale in a controlled manner, so I couldn't breath out and keep swimming at the same time. Secondly, when I did turn my face to the side and breathe in, I would inevitably suck in an amount of water with the air, which would not only hinder my breathing, but it would also hurt, since now I have chlorine and salt water rushing down my breathing tube, which never feels good. Part of our homework was to swim 300 yards, 12 lengths, twice a week. Given enough time I could get back and forth 12 times in that pool but it would take a great deal of effort.

I claimed Philippians 4:13 as my verse for this task, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me" (NASB). At the beginning of the semester many times I went to the pool and spent a good hour just practiced breathing. I would take a breath, put my face under the water and breathe out. Practicing and practicing for multiple hours just to learn to breath naturally and be able to do it without thinking about it. I probably looked pretty ridiculous to the lifeguards on duty, standing there in the shallow end doing nothing but blowing bubbles the whole time.

Eventually I got good enough at breathing that I advanced to the next step and swam and breathed at the same time. After a couple weeks I finally figured out how to not suck in water when breathing in, that helped me swim quite a but better. I figured out that I needed to exhale most of my air with my face underwater, but still keep a little bit of air so that when I turned my face to breathe in I could blow out that last bit of air which would blow away all the water right around my mouth. Then when I breathed in, I didn't suck in water.

After I learned how to breath well enough to not inhale a bunch of water, I worked on my stroke. I sought advise from friends of mine who swim, and then the internet as well. I tried some different things and saw what seemed to help and what didn't. I got better and better, still far from the model of perfection, but I was still improving. By the end of the class I felt pretty confident that if someone were in the pool, drowning, I would be able to jump in and save him.

I'd say that the most memorable part of the whole class was during the final swim test. We swam a timed 300 for a grade. 7:30 and faster was an A, 9:30 and faster was a B, then 11:30 and faster a C, and so on. I really wanted a 9:30, but that was faster than I had ever swum in practice. I practiced and practiced, and the fastest that I could get was 10:37. =( Hoping that I would get an extra adrenaline boost when doing the real thing I still hoped for 9:30, but I realized that it might not happen.

The day came for the final swim test. 24 half-naked guys stood around the pool while Mr. Miller gave some last minute instructions. We got into 3 different waves. After everyone from the first wave finished, the second wave would go, and so on. Knowing that I was the slowest in the class, I got in the 3rd wave, so that I wouldn't hold up the other waves. I helped count laps for the first 2 waves, then when it came my time to go, I could feel my heart pounding. I stepped back, took some deep breaths, said a quick prayer, then readied myself to go. I can't remember whether he used a whistle or just shouted "Go!," but either way, at the signal, I lunged forward and stated my trek. One! Two! Three! Four! Breathe! One! Two! Three! Four! Breathe! I splashed along. I quickly ran short on breath, so I switched to 3 strokes per breath instead of 4. One! Two! Three! Breathe! First 100 yards down.

Now I have to switch to the breast stroke (also known as the frog stroke) for the next 100 yards. Kick! Stroke! Breathe! Kick! Stroke! Breathe! I reach the half way point and my legs feel like jell-o, but I keep going. I reach 200 yards. Now I switch back to the front crawl. One! Two! Three! Breathe! By now, most of the others are done. I finish one length, 75 yards to go. My arms and legs feel like they are about to fall off, but I keep going. One! Two! Three! Breathe! By the time I finish my second length everyone else is done. 50 yards to go. I stop for a couple seconds to try and catch my breath. I hear Lance Souza, my lap counter, encouraging me to keep going. The rest of the guys join in the shouting.

I push off from the wall to finish my last 50 yards. One! Two! Three! Breathe! My lunges have an intense craving for more oxygen. Gasping for breath, I switch to 2 strokes per breath. One! Two! Breathe! One Two! Breathe! One! Two! Breathe! Every muscle in my body aches, begging me to stop. I reach the other end of the pool. Need. More. Oxygen. Says my body. I take 3 deep breaths then push off to finish my last 25 yards. One! Two! Breathe! One! Two! Breathe! Hand after hand, leg after leg, pushing and kicking with all my might. Gasping for breath, I press towards the mark. Half way there! One! Two! Gasp! One! Two! Gasp! I catch a glimpse of the guys cheering me on. All 24 of them standing there watching me press on. I've got to keep going. Hand over hand. I can see the end. Almost there! I give my final kick and reach forward. My hand makes contact with the wall. I grab hold of it and pull my head out of the water and gasp for the sweet oxygen that I have been so deprived of. All the guys cheer. I remain there in the water, holding on to the side of the pool not by choice, but rather because I lack the strength to even pull my body out of the water. But I had finished.

Mr. Miller dismissed the guys and after I minute or two I had regained the strength to pull my bone weary, muscle sore body out of the water. I then sat on the edge of the pool for probably a whole minute before standing up. While sitting there, Mr. Miller informed me of my finishing time, 9 minutes, 52 seconds. Not the 9:30 I had hoped for, but still considerably faster than I had ever swum it before. And considering how I was doing only a couple months before, a tremendous success.

Way back on our second day of class we had a swimming test (not graded) just to see where everyone was coming from. I was far and away the slowest in the class coming in at 20 minutes or so. Other's times were anywhere from 5 to 12 minute. By the midterm swim test I had improved quite a bit, making my time an almost decent 12:31 min:sec. And now, for the final 9:52. I would consider that a success. I really can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! Sitting back in my room I thought back to the many times I was in the pool, standing there in the shallow end, practicing inhaling and exhaling, feeling frustrated, and praying to God. "Lord, I thought that this was Your will for me, but I'm just not getting it. I know that You want me to work at camp as a counselor this summer, but I'm just not getting this swimming thing down. Why? Why isn't this working? Lord, help me. Lord, I need You." He did allow me to get it though. Slowly, but He did. And through it He taught me patience and endurance.

I now knew by experience, that the words of James 1:2-3 (NASB) are true.
2Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
3knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

At the time I wasn't considering it joy to be struggling so much with swimming. But now, looking back, I do. I see that the Lord was doing a work in me and for that I am very, very thankful, and I rejoice and praise Him for it. Praise be to God!

Tim

P.S. Now that I've been able to conquer my Hydrophobia, I'm going to work on my Consecotaleophobia, Venustraphobia, and Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. =P

*Quick disclaimer: None of the pictures here were taken by me, or any they of me, I just found them on the internet to break up an otherwise aesthetically lacking post. =)

It's Christmas Time!

It's Christmas time at Bob Jones!

Classes have finished. Finals are done. And all the students have scattered in their different directions.

It is December 17th, and earlier this morning at 10:40 a.m. chapel at BJU dismissed and several thousand students threw their bags in a vehicle and drove away.

I was excited to finish the semester, but somehow not quite as excited as I was when we were approaching Thanksgiving break. And I think that that is because I was so burned out before Thanksgiving break. But still, I'm pretty excited to be done with this semester. :)

I was a really good semester, I had some easier classes that allowed me to focus better on some of my harder classes, like Greek and English. Photography and Logic were probably my two easiest classes. I think that it's pretty obvious why Photography was easy, I had already previously learned most of what they were teaching on my own, so that wasn't much of a challenge. Logic though, is a bit puzzling why it would be an easy class. Well it was easy because if you didn't get anything lower than a "B" on a test then you didn't have to turn in the homework, and that was a huge blessing, because I could understand how to do the problems when he explained it in class, so I didn't have to spend any time outside of class doing homework for that class. I could have gotten a better grade in the class if I had actually studied for it, but I chose to rather spend time studying for other
classes, and considering I already had 97% in the class, without studying, I didn't really see much need to improve on that. Amazing class though, it makes me want to switch to a Math or Physics major, because I just love how math works together and how things fit, if done correctly. (Logic has a lot of math involved in it.)

Greek and English on the other hand were quite a bit more of a challenge than Logic or Photography. I managed to do pretty well, but I'm glad that I had enough time to devote to them. I ended with a solid "A" in Greek, and then a decent "B" in English.

English was an interesting class. I was in 103 this semester, Composition and Literature. Ah, literature…. I really came into the class with a positive outlook. I wanted to like this class, I really did. But it was hard to do that. I don't really enjoy reading fiction to begin with, but I read the assignments and most of them were fine. Although I can't say that I particularly enjoyed the really weird ones, or as my teacher called them, "memorable" ones. "Miss Brill," "Paul's Case," "Araby," and "The Destructors" are a few that come to mind. "The Destructors" took the cake as far as pointlessness goes. (Look it up and read it if you want.)

But anyway, the part that really made it hard for me to enjoy was when we would read into the poems or short stories further than the author even intended. Like for example in "We Real Cool." by Gwendolyn Brooks.


We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.


Nice poem. But why is the "We" on the line above, and not on the line that it's supposed to be on? Well according to the teacher that is so that the very last line "Die soon." doesn't have a "We" which signified the aloneness in death. When we die it doesn't matter what we did, or what friends that we had. It doesn't matter that we were "real cool" we are still going to die alone. So, it's a warning against the gang mentality because they thrive on their friends.

Now, I can see why you might say that, it even makes sense (which is a whole lot better than some times).
But….
That's not what the Author said that it means. According to the author the reason that she designed it that way was so that you would have to stop after the "We." The purpose wasn't to remove the "We" from the last line, that was just a side effect of the main purpose. "The 'We'—you're supposed to stop after the 'We' and think about their validity." (Taken from "An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks" in Contemporary Literature")

So, that kind of thing bugged me some, but I got over it. :)

I'm still glad that I had to take the class and I still managed to learn from it. If nothing else it taught me that as a left-brained individual living in a right-brain dominated world, I'm going to have to realize that most people's minds don't work the same way that mine works. :) And that's the way God designed the world, so I'm not going to complain about it, I’m going to praise Him for it.

Anyway, I really enjoyed all of my classes, even English (though a few things bothered me, it was very good overall). And it was an excellent semester with much profit.

I'm glad that I can be in Florida now though getting to do some of the things that I don't have time for at school. :)

Z Bogiem!
Tim

Record Breaking Week

I'm a guy who likes to keep records. I like to keep track of things and see when I can break them. Like keep track of how many dates I can go on in a semester, or how few hours of sleep I can run on without crashing, or how many hours I can clock in at work in a week, stuff like that.
Well, Sunday, Nov. 8th began a week in which I would break 3 personal records. (And some how manage to survive the week relatively unscathed.)

All of the records had to do with work, I would set a new record for the most hours clocked in during a school week, the fewest hours of sleep required to function for a full day, and the most nights worked in a row.

Previous records

Most hours worked during a school week: 24:58 hours

Fewest hours of sleep yet still able to function for the whole day: 3:05 hours

Most night shifts in a row worked: 3 nights

New records

Most hours worked during a school week: 37:01 hours

Fewest hours of sleep yet still able to function for the whole day: 2:40 hours

Most night shifts in a row worked: 5 nights

Now, you might ask, "How did that happen?" It wasn't too difficult actually. Going into the week I knew that it was going to be a busy with work, but that just seemed to be the way that everything fell in place.

I normally have 20 hours, but this week I had to fill in for traffic for people who were training for intersection traffic, so that's 4 extra hours. Then I did night watch one day which is another 4 hours. Then two people specifically asked me if I could sub for them on Saturday, so that's two more 4 hour shifts. (Actually the one guy had an 8 hour shift that he wanted to give me, but I said that I could only do half of it. Otherwise I would have had 12 hours on that Saturday. :\ He found a sub for the other 4 hours though. )

So, if you've done the math, you'd see that that is 16 more hours that I normally don't have. So, that makes 20+16 which equals 36, and then an extra hour is time added up from the beginning of shifts, because the four hour shifts are really more like 4 hours and ten minutes, because I get there a little early to set up and get into position. But anyway, that is how I managed to get 37 hours in a single week.

How did I end up only getting 2 hours and 40 minutes of sleep though? Well on Tuesday night I was working night watch and that goes from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. Then I went to night watch breakfast which adds another half hour or so to that. Then also, Tuesday night was a mess as far as weather goes, it was cold, raining, and windy, because of the nearby tropical storm, so I got drenched, from both the rain and my sweat because I was wearing a raincoat which doesn't breath.

So, yeah I was sweaty, nasty and cold, not a good combination. Since I wasn't really super excited about going to bed like that I decided to get a shower after I got back from nightwatch breakfast. I got back from nightwatch breakfast at 3:35 a.m. and then hopped in the shower to get clean. After my very hot, refreshing shower I snuggled in bed and set my alarms for 6:30.

Right after setting my alarm I noticed the time, 3:50 a.m. Then I thought to myself, "So, you basically have two and a half hours to sleep before you have to get up again to go to breakfast then traffic, then classes." "Also, you have classes until 1, and then work from 1 until 4. So, if you do get a nap it won't be until later in the afternoon. And even then, you have to study for your big Pentateuch test tomorrow, and then your Greek test the day after. So, you probably won't get a nap at all."

I wasn't able to get a nap, but by God's grace he allowed me to stay awake for all my classes and chapel, and even that afternoon when I was studying for my tests. It took some doing, but God did it. By 9 that night I looked pretty rough. I was so looking forward to going to bed that night it wasn't even funny. (Even though it was only going to be for 3 and a half hours because I worked that night too.) I went to bed that night right after prayer group at 10:45 and by the time the 11 o'clock bell rang I was already deep in slumber. And when I woke up at 2:30 to go to work again, I actually felt refreshed and ready to go. I think that somehow the Lord compacted 7 hours of sleep into those 3 and a half. :)

Then I was tried, but still fine for that whole day until I was able to get a glorious, full 7 and a half hours of sleep that night. It was amazing!

Then, finally working the night shift for 5 days in a row. This isn't nearly as intricate as the previous paragraph, but that's good. Anyway, I normally work Sunday night, Monday night, and Wednesday night. But I subbed for a guy for the previous Saturday night, which gave me Sat, Sun, and Mon nights in a row. Then I worked night watch on Tuesday night, so that connected Sat, Sun, and Mon nights with Wednesday night, making Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, and Wednesday nights all in a row. I figured it out, and I got about 18 hours of sleep in those 5 nights put together, averaging out to be about 3:36 hours of sleep a night. A bit rough, but doable.

Well... All in all, a very memorable week. Busy, but good. (And to tell you the truth, I've been busier with school work some weeks.) And don't feel sorry for me, I bring this upon myself. If I didn't want to work 5 nights in a row, I'm quite sure that I probably could have gotten a sub, but I didn't because I wanted to see what working 5 nights in a row feels like. But yeah, don't feel sorry for me, I love my job. I wouldn't give up this job for any other job on campus.

This is Tim. I hope that you enjoy your night's sleep.

Thanksgiving Break!

I am so glad that it is Thanksgiving break.

At the time of this writing, I am in a vehicle packed with 8 college students on the freeway heading south. Heading down to Woodardsville where we will stay for the 6 days that comprise the Thanksgiving break.

For the past two weeks I've really been struggling to keep my head above the school work waters. By God's wonderful grace I have been able to hol

d things together until now, but I'm not sure how much longer I could have lasted. I know that God planed for this break and He's going to use this time to allow me to recharge and refresh.

There are several factors that have made these past two weeks quite stretching. First, Greek really seemed to pick up the pace and it's been taxing to devote the time to understand the lessons and learn the vocab. Not to mention the fact that we meet 4 times a week, so basically, I am having to spend probably about an hour of my study time every evening working on Greek homework alone. At least I am also taking Logic, which takes almost no time to study for. Logic has a really nice setup because if you have an "A" in the class, then you don't have to turn in the homework, which is super nice because, I can understand the concepts when he gives the lectures in class, so I don't need to spend any time outside of class doing Logic problems.

The other thing that has been taxing on my time has been work. I'm not really sure quite how it happened, but for the past 4 weeks I've had consistently more than 20 hours. This past week I had 31, and the week before that I had a record breaking 37 hours. (I have a different blog post dedicated to that week.) But the point is, I've had a lot of work recently, which has been taking away from my time and my sleep.

Last week was one of the hardest week that I've been through in a very long time. I honestly never even considered suicide, but I did think about how easy it would be to just go down to west gate--that's where public safety keeps all their equipment and stuff--and taking one of the guns and just simplifying my life by a great deal. And I think about how wonderful it would be to be in heaven, and not have to worry about school, or relationships, or anything anymore. I would be in heaven, and I would see Jesus, and I would be able to sing wonderful praises to his name. I would be able to sing with a voice far more beautiful that I could even imagine. It would be amazing.

But then I stop myself, and get back to work. Knowing that if God wanted me to take the easy way out then he would allow me to somehow die in a tragic accident or something. I definitely would not take my own life.

But, to the point. I was feeling really tired, frustrated, and just plain feeling down one evening when I was coming back from studying at the library. And on my way in I checked the night mail pile like I always do, not that I expect anything, but just incase. And to my surprise I had a small note. So, I opened it and it was a note from Sarah, just telling me that she was praying for me, and that she knew that I had been having a hard time with work and people and other stuff. I seriously almost cried when I read that note. I plopped down in my chair at my desk and prayed to God and thanked Him for the amazing friends that He has blessed me with.

That one short note brightened my whole week. Just to know that I'm not going it alone.

So yeah, I've been burned out, and this break is going to be an amazing time to recharge.

Looking forward to it!

School update

 Well, this is my first time posting a real post via the E-mail feature, so we'll see how it goes.

 

I haven't written anything on here since school started so I'll start all the way from the beginning when I came up to BJ for IST (In Service Training). All public safety workers have to come back to school early for training, 1 week for freshmen, and 2 weeks for returning students. So, as a returning student I came up to school in the middle of August to beginning my training. Even though I worked over 120 hours in that 2 week period before school, I wasn't nearly as busy as I am when school is in session. I checked out a few books from the Library to read in my spare time. All of the books that I read were beneficial in at least some respect (non-fiction books). My favorite though, was The Five Love Languages which was recommenced to me by a friend during the summer.

 

Although I was greatly enjoying absence of school work, I was still excited for school to start up. Classes started well, albeit extremely fast. I can remember that every semester it seems that after only one week of classes, and I get down in the routine, it feels as though I've been at school for ages already.  Now, half way through, I'm still doing well in classes, could be doing better in English, but that should change soon. :) Photography, Logic, and Greek are all going extremely well.

 

I am in Photography Fundamentals, (Pho 100) which is my easiest class by far. I am miles ahead of anyone else in that class. Since, as an entry level class, most of the students have had little to no experience with DSRLs, whereas I have had my own since May 2008 and have been researching photography since February earlier that year. Our teacher, Mr. Block, has called me the "assistant teacher" on several occasions, and I have had a couple different people from my class stop me on the sidewalk and ask me a question about an assignment. :P It's fun. It is very fun, and even though the book work is stuff that I've known for a long time, I am still learning in the class, through the various assignments that we have. When I get off campus, I plan on uploading my pictures that I have been taking for the assignments.

 

I have been staying very busy so far this year, but God has been gracious, and has allowed me to keep things under control.

 

Work has been interesting. I have been working a lot at the welcome center so far this semester. I have 20 hours a week scheduled normally, but for the past 3 weeks I have subbed into an extra 4 hour shift, so it's been keeping me busy. Last week I got 30 minutes short of 25 hours, half of that time was between 11 at night and 7 in the morning. But I'm enjoying it. I love my job! I am so glad that I chose Public Safety over say the dinning common, or custodial, or any other on-campus job. The job itself isn't necessarily "fun," because of the pressure and the stress. There is quite a looming responsibility when working as a Public Safety Dispatcher. But I enjoy the job so greatly because I know that I am learning so much from this job. Not only am I learning problem solving techniques, and other valuable life skills, I am also being trained as a 911 dispatcher. If I were to work for the police department, or EMS as a 911 dispatcher, I would already have an excellent head start on training over someone else who had never worked as a dispatcher of any kind.

 

Well I guess girls is the next topic at hand since I've touched on everything else that I can think of. No girlfriend yet. *parents breathe a sigh of relief* And none on the near horizon either. I suppose that could change quickly, but several things would have to happen before that. One being a phone call with my parents getting their advice.

But anyway, even though I am very busy with school and work, I have been able to find time to have a social life. On Oct. 3rd, I went on my first dating outing which was not my own society's outing. Charity Taft was the girl who asked me to accompany her on the Ambassador's dating outing. The main attraction was horse back riding, but since everyone couldn't go at once, they had games organized to keep everyone who wasn't riding busy. The games were quite enjoyable. I had heard about the legendary "hand-holding games" that people play on dating outings. I must say though, it did feel weird when we joined hands to participate in the first hand holding event. Having never held a girl's hand before (aside from my sister's) it was a new and enjoyable experience to me. Charity's hand was a great deal softer than I was expecting, but I'm sure that was due to my inexperience in this area. Although holding Charity's hand felt weird at first, after a while I got over that, and I realized that hand holding is quite enjoyable, and something which I wish to pursue sometime. Like, when I'm married. ;) The rest of the day was enjoyable as well, especially the horse back riding. We were able to ride the horses on a train in the woods for about 20 minutes. I hadn't ridden a horse since I was probably 7 years old or so, and even then I can barely remember it, so this was basically the first time that I've really ridden a horse, so it was a lot of fun.

 

I'm going on another dating outing here soon. (Oct. 17th) Jessica set me up with one of the girls in her society, so that should be fun. :) Other than that I've had several other dating opportunities, such as artist series, a performance hall play, and a couple vespers. But I shan't bore you with details, so I'l simply say that they all went quite well, and leave it at that.

 

Well then, let me try this E-mail update thing, hopefully with success. :)

 

Tim Petersen