At 5 in the morning I lazily rolled over and turned my alarm off, then climbed out of bed tired but so stoked. I shuffled half asleep from my bed to my closet where I grabbed my black-and-white romper and a hair tie. Then I headed towards the bathroom to wash my face and get ready for the day. After I was dressed and ready to go, I grabbed my purse and headed down the five flights of stairs. I sat in the student center eating an apple waiting for everyone to come downstairs. Finally all 10 of us had made it downstairs, passports in hand, and we began our journey to the train station. We stepped onto the train, found our seats, and fell asleep as the train sped towards Roma!
By 7:30 the train had pulled into the station and we began our exploration. We headed to the closest bar (this is what Italians call coffee shops) to grab a cappuccino and a croissant. As we sipped our drinks and snacked on breakfast, we circled on a map all the places we wanted to see and the best route to see all of them. You see, we only had a day in Rome and we wanted to make the most of it.
Our first destination was the Spanish Steps, and my goodness, the view from the top was absolutely stunning.You can stand there and just see everything -- all of Rome -- it is crazy! Then we headed to Piazza del Popolo, where we watched as small children ran around playing with bubbles. Our next stop was the Pantheon; it was incredible. You walk in and you are just taken aback by the size of it and how ancient it is. Afterwards we trekked on down to the Trevi fountain, which was under construction, but no movie will ever do that fountain justice, because it is flawless. Then we headed towards the Capitol, which is so massive and just fascinating to look at. We decided we would end our day at the Coliseum. As we walked up to it, every history lesson on it, movie featuring it, picture of it I had ever seen of it swirled through my head. It was very strange to see something I had learned so much about and talked about for hours in person. It was like a culture shock to actually be able to walk through it and realize that this has been around for so long; millions of people walk through this and have for centuries.
As we went through it, though, we started to talk about what a great day it had been. We had seen so many pieces of history, but none of us really new much of the history, we just knew they were historical sites. Notice that I did not describe anything historical about any of those sites, which is because I had not gone fully prepared to Rome. We went with a map and some ideas, but we did not look into anything or get any historical background on the things we saw; we just saw them.
I think this happens a lot for students studying abroad, but I also think it is common in our faith. We go to God often asking for something we really want, and then God gives it to us, but we are not prepared to receive it. We have not been in our Bibles, worshiping, or preparing our hearts for whatever we are asking for; instead, we have just been asking. When we get it, we either do not realize God is giving us what we are asking for, because we are not looking for it, or we sit there and think, shoot, what do I do with this; I know I wanted it, but what do I do now. God put all these awesome things in our lives for a reason, and we just need to be prepared to see them. So open your eyes, look for the gifts God is giving you, get in the word, go to that Bible study -- maybe it will prepare you to see the gift that God is about to give you.
