Monday, August 27, 2012

Ahhhhh!

Wow, so, August is gone. The title of my post is named after my reaction to the realization that it's been well over a month since I've posted at all. Shoot! It'd be an understatement to say that my life has gotten busy in the last month. It's almost insane, really. 

There's much to say in update of my life, but I really don't have time to sit down and write it all out. God has done much and I feel He deserves much more than an honorable mention, but time is pressing even now. I will say that my quiet times with Him have been absolutely amazing! He has blessed me with over a dozen girls in the connection group I co-lead with my dear friend and roommate...what??? (Last year my best attendance was 4 girls.) I've gotten to meet some freshman girls and get them connected, and our Bible study kickoff went super great and I can't even count the number of new Christian friends I've made already in Salt Company. Mostly, I feel I've been showered with blessings. 

But along with showers of blessings, there have been sprinkles of pain and hard times. These, I feel also deserve much more than an honorable mention and I really wish I had the time to spill out my heart a little bit.  One of the hard things was that one of my dearest friends and accountability partner has transferred and moved away. I think it gets harder with the more time that goes by since it's been such a long time since I last saw her. Hopefully at some point I'll have a working car so I can make that happen. But it's a little sad to come up the stairs to my new room everyday and walk past the empty room that used to be hers. 
An other hard thing was a death of a friend. I'm still trying to sort it out, really. It doesn't quite seem real to me as I feel so far removed as it is. This friend and I were fairly close in high school and would share exciting happenings and vent in hard times together via texts and phone calls. In high school, he didn't care much for God as he carried some pain in his heart that he felt only made him a stronger and tougher person. We had several conversations about God but he seemed pretty stubborn about it. I remember some time after he got back from serving in the army overseas that he called me to tell me that it's impossible not to believe in God when there's a war. I was so overjoyed that'd he'd made a decision. And then another time he had called me and left about 3 different voicemails on my phone (which I had lost for 2 days) with the exciting news that he was going to be a father and it was going to be a girl. I think my returned call to those voice mails was our last conversation. At least, voiced conversation for sure. It was a couple years ago now, but I don't think we ever stopped being friends. Now he has past and my heart aches just knowing that he is a friend I will not get the pleasure of talking to for the remainder of my earthly life. 
However, there is so much hope for eternity as I don't doubt he faith in God. I quite look forward to future chats and story sharings whilst sitting at the feet of our Lord. My deepest prayers, now, are directed towards his dear wife and daughters as well as siblings and parents whom he has temporarily left behind. I can't imagine their pain right now, but I truly hope they feel the presence of the Lord as He wraps them in his mighty arms. 

Another new thing in my life is that I'm quite close to being convinced that I may have Celiacs Disease. I think I should probably be tested. As it is, time is an issue as it is and the last time I went for medical tests around here they spent 3 hours poking me 5 different times and fishing around with their needles trying to do blood draws. After having successfully (and painfully) captured their desire two viles of my  precious blood the nurse escorted me out to the full waiting room with standing room only and announced to my boyfriend (who was seated all the way across the full waiting room doing his homework) that I would be needing a lot of love that night. Talk about awkward and embarrassing. We left rather quickly after that whilst the other patrons in the waiting room chuckled to themselves at our expense. 
All that is to say, for the time it would take to be tested for this disease that I think I have... I don't have time right now. Perhaps I'll make some sometime. 



As far as other things in my life.. I do live in a new place.. cuz every college student moves every couple months, right?
What a lovely large space I've moved into!




This is the view from the corner looking back towards the door


And I also set up my futon all by my very own self and added a coffee table.. it's quite the set up. :)


 What would be really nice would be if some lovely lady would move in and occupy the room next to mine. As you can see, the living space is quite nice.. and this is only my room. It's part of a house that has a lovely kitchen, dining room, living room, etc. My roommates are absolute delights!! And I'm co-leading a Bible study with one of them. I think if anyone should choose to move in, they would be blessed as I have found myself blessed tenfold. 

Also, psychology. It's my new major. If you can remember my post from last year at this time, I was trying out social work. That is still a distant future dream of mine. Perhaps. I'm still trying to sort out my life. I guess I've always considered myself to be somewhat independent, but when it comes down to making serious life decisions it's hard to want to commit to anything knowing that it could end up being a poor life choice. Plus, I feel like since I'm doing all of psychology in the next two semesters I could have made better use of my previous three years of existence studying things I found to be enjoyable. Oh well, live and learn I suppose. With my new major comes my new role as a nerd. Or, I feel like a nerd anyways. Maybe it's actually called being responsible. I read my texts books, I've already started studying for my midterm exams next month, and I like to do my homework a week in advance if possible. 
It's not easy, though. Whilst dining tonight with my some of my friends who've been with me since my first Cru meeting freshman year, (one of them being a senior like myself and the other being a first year grad student) we found ourselves all in agreement that this new resolution to be good students with good grades is quite a bit more taxing than desired and actually not that fun. I suppose it works for me as the two people that I made special effort to give my time to in the last year or two have both moved away and my social life (active as it still is) leaves quite a bit of room for spending the needed hours with my Bio psych, social psych, developmental psych and ASL textbooks memorizing terminology, taking notes, grasping to understand vague concepts and preparing class presentations on assigned material. I understand now why your classic nerds wear glasses all the time.. with the amount of time I spend reading material off the internet or out of the text books, my contacts are almost glued to my eyeballs by the end. 

I hope all this ranting doesn't sound like complaining. I'm actually really happy. I'm enjoying life a lot. Like I've said, I've made new friends already this year. And I make it a point to befriend (or at least attempt) whomever I sit by in any class. So far, I've only been given the cold shoulder once. :) I like making friends in class. There's too great an amount of grumpy people in class or in general to not take the opportunity to give someone a cheerful hello and ask them how there day is going. It's amazing how a persons face can look quite different after you smile at them and they feel lead to smile back. Smiles make things more beautiful I think. 

Anyways, I think that's all I've got for now. I think at this point I need to go to bed and attempt my readings in the morning before class.