Something Beautiful

I am entering the whirlwind...and it's gonna be intense. The next two weeks are going to fly by, and I will blink and be facing finals. I have three papers to write, one due Wednesday, one due Friday, and one due next week on Thursday. I have a Spanish presentation on Wednesday. I'll be working a ton because I'll be helping administer evaluations this week and next. On top of that I need to get the family Christmas letter written and sent, and I have a friend getting married in 12 days, so we have her bachelorette party, shower and wedding. I have MOPS this week, so that takes out my Wednesday morning. Basically I'm in crunch time, and I'm starting to freak out a little. Plus, there is everything that God is doing in my life...being on the Potter's wheel always seems to be a bit stressful. I know that He is going to get me through this, but I keep feeling like I am constantly at the breaking point in my life. I'm ready to be done. I was telling a friend this

I just had the most glorious run...ever!! It was truly fantastic. I never get to run at night at home because it's dangerous for me to run alone and my neighborhood is kind of shady. But tonight I was outside gazing at the stars and enjoying the bright moonlight, and I just had the stongest feeling from God that I should go for a run. So I did...2 miles, and it was so delightful!! :) I also finished up my data set for my econometrics paper tonight, and I have run my regression analysies, so I'm just working on compiling all of my data into a paper and making it all look good. Although, I did notice tonight that my paper isn't due until next Friday. I thought it was due on Thursday, so it's nice to have the extra day even though I will hopefully be mostly done with it by Tuesday. Tomorrow I need to finish my Spanish homework and start working on my Psychology paper. My English paper is getting shoved to the back burner because it isn't due until later, but I do need

This is a fantastic morning! It was perfectly lovely outside this morning, so I went out to have some quiet time and to enjoy the beauty that God has seen fit to surround me with. What a delight!! I also carried on my day-after-Thanksgiving tradition. Some people get up on the Friday after Thanksgiving and go shopping for their Christmas gifts...not me. I enjoy sleeping for as long as I want and then I get up and have a piece of cold pumpkin pie for breakfast. That's just my little tradition, but I like it. :) Anyway, so while I was enjoying my slice of pumpkin pie, I was also spending some good time with Jesus. I've kind of been shoving my quiet time to the side for the last couple of days, and I felt that sorely. I hate when I do that, so today I was determined that God would get the first part of my morning and He could have as much time as He wanted. And it was delightful...and humbling at the same time. Part of the reason that I have been putting my quiet time off until la

Family Thanksgiving was good...it was fun to see everyone...it was good to eat delicious food (in fact I am still stuffed from lunch which was almost 8 hours ago). There was the announcement of another baby on the way...that will make 7 grandchildren plus 2 on the way for my aunt and uncle. How crazy/awesome is that?!?! It seems like it wasn't that long ago that my cousins and I were just kids ourselves, and now they are all having kids. WOW! I was rather delighted because as I was on my way up to my parents house a couple days ago, I was thinking how I would probably want a beer or red wine with the Thanksgiving feast, but how that was unlikely to happen. (Some in my family don't approve of drinking) However, my cousin's boyfriend's parents brought wine for all of us...that was wonderful! And after dinner we all just sat around with wine and beer and had a fun time talking and catching up. It was altogether a delightful day...except for the part where I was asked (by d

It's hard to believe that it's that time of the year again. Has an entire year gone by already?? It won't be long until we climb into the family car with 4 pies, a cheeseball, some muffins, and minus one sister and head the hour drive over to my aunt and uncle's house for lunch. There will be noisy children, the smell of delicious food - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn (my stomach is rumbling just thinking about it) - and lots of joy and thankfulness. We have much to be thankful for. My aunt and uncle have 7 grandchildren with 1 on the way - their only unmarried daughter is bringing her boyfriend and his parents to Thanksgiving. My other aunt and uncle have a 2 year old - the most precious 2 year old ever. My family has 2 daughters in college (soon to graduate) and many other things to be thankful for. And me, I count myself among the blessed. Good friends, amazing family, a wonderful prayer partner, awesome sorority, the world's greatest roommates, a minist

I slept for 10ish hours last night...lovely! I woke up this morning in time to tell mi madre good-bye before she left for work, and then I crawled back into bed and went back to sleep for about 4 more hours...so nice! Yesterday I had a very lovely thought about trees. I was walking on campus, and I was so sad because all of the trees look dead. I asked myself why all the trees look dead, and the immediate answer was because they are dead. As soon as I thought that I realized the fallacy of the statement. The trees aren't dead - they are merely sleeping, waiting for Spring to return to their glorious leaf covered state. So I asked God why when the trees aren't dead He allows them to look dead. Answer: Because things aren't always as they appear to be. Just because we see something one way doesn't mean that that is really the way it is. I hinted at this in on of my recent blogs when I talked about knowing that what I was feeling was a lie, and yet it seems like the truth

Rest is important to normal, healthy functioning. Having too fast a pace of life is linked to increased risk of heart attack, hypertension (high blood pressure), ulcers, and increased risk of suicide. When we don't rest our bodies have no way to recuperate and heal themselves. It is while your body is sleeping at night that the different parts of you are able to heal. That's why when you are sick you are almost always sleepy...because your body is telling you to rest so it can fight off whatever is plaguing you. Americans are horrible at resting. And think about it seriously...when was the last time you really took time to just rest and relax?? Even when we go on "vacation" we are still stressing about all the other things that need to be done. Even when we set aside time to rest, we aren't resting. This is a difficult lesson to learn, especially in our society that is so driven and task oriented and always pushing to get to the top of the next ladder. Nevertheles

This is what God keeps telling me. The last several days, I have just really felt like I need something from Him to let me know that He's still working. And He just keeps telling me to keep going...keep walking...keep pressing forward. It is so difficult when everything around me is telling me that He isn't working...that He has forgotten me...that I'm just chillin out here with unmet desires that will never be fulfilled. That's a lie - I know it is. But as certainly as I know that it is a lie, it is difficult to tell myself that what I'm feeling isn't the truth. Why is it that what we feel feels more like the truth than what we know is the truth?? I just must keep telling myself what the truth is. God loves me. He is working on my behalf. He has plans in store for me. Just because I can't see Him working doesn't mean that He isn't. He is good. His plan is perfect. And I trust Him! Trust in the midst of heartsickness...it's tough. Good thing God

I am tired...that seems to be a theme in my life right now. I'm thinking Sunday afternoon nap will be happening in the near future...but only for a little while because life doesn't stop. Let's see...what has been happening in my life lately?? The student I tutored last week did really well on the test, so that made me super happy. That is my reward when tutoring...that my students do well. That makes me happier than any other form of repayment. Looking back over my last several blog posts, I realized that I have been full of unmet desires a lot lately...or perhaps I have just been more vocal about being full of unmet desires? Which ever it is, my unmet desires have become a prominent feature of my blog posts lately. We talked about this in my Thursday night book study this last week. And in talking with my mentor, I have come to realize that I'm not really sure what my heart is longing for. Sometimes I am positive about the longings of my heart, and sometimes I just do

Today has been quite the day. I have been going basically steady since I woke up at 7:52 this morning and realized that I was running late for my 8 AM meeting. As I sip my coffee, laced with a touch of rum cream, I'm contemplating all that happened today, and attempting to process. God has reminded me of many things today, but those reminders have come in the midst of some difficult stuff. My friend blogged about decisions and how a decision requires a choice, a willful choosing of one path over another. Right now I am being faced with a choice to believe God or not to believe Him. To believe that He is good and working for my good or not to believe that. My head wants to believe, but my heart is rebelling as it tells me time and time again that it is not satisfied with what it has. Bottom line: my heart is longing for my husband. But piled on top of that are multiple other layers. There is the layer of the future and what that holds (or doesn't hold). There is the layer of fin

I'm exhausted, but surprisingly still functioning. I just spent the past 5 hours tutoring in economics and then talking to the same person for an hour and a half longer about God and life. And I wanted to check out of life at 3 this afternoon. So here I am 7 hours later still not checked out....sigh. Something I thought of tonight. Every time we give a gift, we give a little part of ourselves that we can never get back. I'm not sure that is a complete or correct thought, but a thought none-the-less. I love using dashes. I love it in the this-makes-my-heart-so-happy-I-could-almost-start-dancing way. :) I'm so glad that next week is Thanksgiving break, but unfortunately I will not be taking much of a break as I still need to work on papers because I have two big papers due the week after Thanksgiving. But then I'm basically done with school work. We have 5 weeks of classes left...including finals...scary! I'm going to blink and open my eyes and be at graduation. Well,

I woke up this morning and like every other morning for the past several months, I took my temperature...98.3 degrees. Most people would look at that and say that my temp is low...normal is considered 98.7 degrees...but actually I'm running a low-grade fever. Yep...my temperature jumped a whole degree since yesterday. Compare that to a "normal" temperature...and it would be like running a temp of 99.7 degrees...yep a fever. AWESOME. So all that to say...I feel awesome today...at least I have no where to be until 1 when I have to go to class. In other news...today is my big sister's birthday. She is 23 today. Wow! I remember when it used to seem like 20 was really old. Next thing you know we are going to blink, and we will have children our age. Yesterday I e-mailed Professional Massage Therapy (the massage therapy school here in SGF) and they called me back yesterday afternoon. I have an appointment set up to go visit/tour the school on Friday at 4:30. I'm looking

I lost it during the response time during church today...I was sobbing like crazy, and it was really good. I feel like that is all I have done lately - cry, but still it was really good. My heart has been so sore lately - broken over the condition of the world, over my own frustrations, over my friends problems. I should have known that this was coming. Last week was such a crazy spiritual high, I should have expected the crash, and I did expect it, just not in the way that it happened. It has been a rough week since then. I have felt like God isn't doing anything in my life (I know, crazy, since I ran a marathon for Him a week ago), but nevertheless I have been feeling like I have taken these extraordinary leaps of faith and nothing has happened as a result. H reminded me this morning that just because I can't see things happening, doesn't mean that they aren't. God is working, and I can't wait to see what He reveals when the time comes. "Father, glorify Your

I am ready for an adventure. Seriously...I am ready to go somewhere new and I am ready for something to happen. The past week has been rough. Unmet desires flaring up...laying those same unmet desires at Jesus' feet...same unmet desires flaring up again...over and over again for over a week. Add in some heaviness due to the condition of the world, and so many other things and that is how I'm feeling. I am so frustrated over the way guys and girls treat each other. Why can't we all just respect one another? I know I don't treat the men in my life like I should...I'm working on it, but at the same time women aren't treated the way they should be either. I am broken over the condition of the world. It seems like no matter where I'm at, work, class, walking on campus, everywhere I see people looking for fulfillment in places that will not fulfill them. And I cry for them. I cry because children have to grow up in this world where everything is so messed up. I cr

Wow! It still hasn't sunk in...I'm not sure it ever really will. My friends are helping me with it as much as possible because they keep telling me that. Most of the run I don't really remember. You get in the zone and just keep going. My dad ran the first half with me and it was amazing to be able to talk with him and enjoy the run with him. Most of what I remember is the finish line. I will never forget coming around the last corner on the course and seeing the sign "26 miles down... .2 to go!" I'm crying even now as I think about it. I started crying then. That was the only time during the entire run that I was out of breath because I was choaking back sobs as I was running. Then I came around the corner of the building and saw the finish line. Then I saw my Dad and my sister. My Daddy is so awesome!! He was standing there waiting for me with his finisher's medal around his neck. I remember being so proud and so determined at the same time. By now I was