Little Bit of Figuring

I've been thinking a lot lately about God’s plan for me at this point in my life, and I think that I have a couple things sorta figured out, and lotta things not figured out, but here goes.

1. I am here to learn several things during my college season, and not just academically.
2. One of those things that I’m going to master is gratefulness.
3. Another thing is recognizing how blessed I am, period.
4. One more thing I’ll learn is how to not judge things based on appearances, because appearances are definitely not the only thing that matter, and first impressions definitely can be deceiving.
5. I know that I am here to solidify my relationship with Jesus.
6. I am here because I have something to bring to this community, and because this community has something for me.
7. I am far away from my family, friends, and general comfort zone, and I appreciate them more each day.
8. I am making friends here that will be my friends for life, and if any of these new friends ever head to my part of the country, I will do my best to give my best.
9. I can think that I have a plan and a “what’s going to happen after graduation” scheme, but God’s is what I really want to go by, and mine will be tossed to the side if and when He says so.
10. My room-mate and I are room-mates because God orchestrated it.

That’s all for now, but basically, this is an amazing time that the Lord has me in, and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Whoa! Hello, two year anniversary!

This morning I logged into Blogger and read my BFF’s blog post from yesterday: it was her second anniversary of blogging! I thought, gee, I wonder when I started blogging, and lo and behold, it’s today! January 29th, 2009 saw my first post. Thanks, BFF, for inspiring me to start this!

I was cleaning my desk off a couple weeks ago, and I realized I have a ton of cards that people have sent me {I love mail, btw!} and all I was doing was keeping them in my drawer. I thought, that’s not how it should be!

So I took out my sticky tack {I love sticky tack, too!} and created a collage of sorts on my wall above my desk. It’s artsy and a bit chaotic, and I add to it whenever I get something in the mail. {author’s note: if you would like your letter on the wall, please send a letter to the author. If you do not know the author’s mailing address, please email her and she will remedy that situation. Thank you.}

I think it’s a better use for them, because I look at my beautiful collage thing and I know that I am loved and missed and making new friends.

I love lazy weekends! My roomie and I are catching up on Criminal Minds {I love Reid!} and doing homework in between… and we’re painting our nails during. Yup, it’s safe to say that this day is revolving around Criminal Minds. Woot!

So BibleGateway allows you to search different passages in the Bible, in basically any version, and I just connected some dots and realized that it will READ the passage to you if you so desire. I thought, well, listening to Scripture would allow me to (a) hear God’s Word, (b) accomplish the “read your Bible homework,” and (c) accomplish other mindless homework assignments {list-making really is mindless, Dad!}. So yesterday and today I have listened to Luke in chapter-size chunks. This nice gentleman reads the chapters; sometimes he sounds a bit robotic, and sometimes he gets really into it and sounds like he has a pretend British/American accent… it’s soothing, really!

Well, that’s my day in a nutshell. I’m about ready for one more episode of Criminal Minds!

More Musings

Hello, friends! It seems like it’s been a while since I wrote, but I guess it hasn't been all that long. Maybe I've just been busy in between posts! Probably…

This semester has been so much fun! I’m taking 5 credits, which is an overload {hey, I've never been called an under achiever!} and I’m really loving it. My three business classes are Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and my required courses that aren't in my major are Tuesday and Thursday. This schedule is really nice, because my biz classes are one after the other, and two of them are with a really great friend. Then there’s lunch, which is nice because by the time I get there, most people have already left. Then I have a break, which is my homework and laundry time, and then I work for two hours and am done. It’s very nice.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are even nicer, because I work two hours in the morning, go to class {with my roomie!} for two hours, lunch, then another class for two hours, and then my roomie and I go to the gym for 30-45 minutes, and then we’re both pretty much done for the day. It’s really nice.

My classes are so amazing. Well, one is challenging {déjà vu of accounting-bleh!} and one is half-way boring, half-way interesting, but it’s with a couple friends and the teacher is chill and easy is a good break from challenging! Then there’s Market Research… omg it’s going to be lots of fun but lots of work! I’m really excited to get into it and really get going. The teacher is also my adviser, and I really like her. This class is different than others, because it’s almost entirely student-led, and it’s more like “let’s get in there and do what we’re learning” instead of talking about stuff we will eventually do. It’s really cool, and I’m really, really excited.

This semester seems to be closer to the end then the first one did. I guess it’s because last time I kept saying “Three more semesters! Three more semesters!” and now I get to say “13 weeks and 2 more semesters!” So it seems closer… and part of it I’m sure has to do with the fact that I’m an official senior this semester… I’ll be a senior for the rest of my college career; even though this is my third year of college, my credits {haha, overachiever again} have qualified me to be a senior. I think it really rocks, even though I’m saying I’m still in my junior year.

As of right now, I’m going to London this July. Augh!!!!!!!!! My roomie will be there the same dates; my hall chaplain will be there the same dates; and my BFF will be at Oxford for those same dates. Can you say PARTY IN ENGLAND!!!!!!! So yeah. Nuff said.

I hope you are all having a fabulous 2011!

So Blessed…

As I've been away from home, I've come to recognize to a greater degree how blessed I am. If you recall, I wrote about this earlier, but I cannot stop praising my God for His amazing blessings in my life. Check out this list!

I have several families who drive 40 minutes to pick me up from college on Friday evening or Saturday morning, and then drive me 40 minutes back to their home, and then drive me 40 minutes back to college on Sunday afternoon, and then return home themselves. What sacrificial love is that!

As just mentioned, I have families to stay with on the weekends! Not one, not two, but many families who love me, a total stranger, and welcome me into their home on a regular basis. I cannot describe how grateful I am to have a week-end family and a church family. They are praying for me, and I can tell, and I am full of gratitude for these amazing new family members.

My family {natural and church} at home MISS me! And they tell me! It is so nice to know that I am thought of and remembered… today, I got 2 birthday presents in the mail, one from my BFF and one from my parents. I am so loved- how does anything else compete?!

My God is so amazing, and I love His Word!!!!! The present from my parents is a Message translation of the Bible- I randomly {or not!} flipped to Psalm 51…ahhh, Jesus! Here it is:

“Generous in love- God, give grace! Huge in mercy- wipe out my bad record. Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry. I know how bad I've been, my sins are staring me down.

You’re the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair. I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born. What you’re after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean; scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with your praise.

Going through the motions doesn’t please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.

Make Zion the place you delight in, repair Jerusalem’s broken-down walls. Then you’ll get real worship from us, acts of worship small and large, including all the bulls they can heave onto your alter!”

Don’t you LOVE that!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!? I love it, and I love my God- He is full of abundant blessings!

The underlined sentence is my emphasis- Year of Overflow, anyone?
Be blessed!

Musings

Scientifically, there is a “feel good” chemical released in the brain when you complete a task. Reaching a goal, be it to clean the floors or run a marathon, is definitely good, I think we would all agree. But what about not finishing something? Is there any glory in not completing something or seeing something through? Does it matter when your convictions are at stake?

I've walked out of performances because I disagreed with the agenda being promoted. I've put down a book, unfinished, because the content doesn't need to be in my mind. I've turned off movies and tv shows because I didn't want my money going to support their cause, or because I didn't want to have images ingrained in my mind. I think we agree that these are worthy reasons to not finish something.

But what about when there’s nothing wrong with finishing? What if you lose interest or motivation, and seeing this task to its end is a chore? Is the pleasure of finishing a task worth the effort to actually finish?

I’m pondering this because I started a book thinking it was about one thing that I was really passionate about and interested in, and now that I’m into it a bit deeper, I don’t think it’s what I thought it was. Do I push on and see? Do I finish it because of principle? Or do I leave it on my book shelf? Gosh, just writing my options makes me want to go read it and at least see if it turns into what I had hoped. Problem solved, I guess… thanks for listening.

Welcome, 2011!

So a few of the bloggers that I follow have posted some book lists, or quotes and passages from some of the books that they've read, or something they've learned from the books that they've read, and I think that I've represented my reading habits very poorly on this blog. I love reading, and I have a variety of favorites, but I haven’t shared any of them for a while {except my recent passion for Sydney Carton}. Let me give you a peek of my bookshelf right now.

• When Character was King by Peggy Noonan {thank you, sis!}                           
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo {the unabridged version- I’ve been in it since June or July}
• Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills- all about the speech Lincoln gave at Gettysburg. Remember that President Lincoln wasn't even the main speaker at the dedication!
• just finished A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. Sigh of contentment and utter happiness! I love that book… as my BFF just put it, the book is like an old and dear friend that I had forgotten, for a time, just how much I loved it.

This is a very short list, I know, but remember that college students sometimes have to put their required readings at the top of the priority list… breaks are for reading, that’s all I’m gonna say!

If you have any suggestions, please let me know! I look forward to reading your book lists, too!