Almost done!

Wow...my brain is tired! Had two exams today. They went fairly well. I only have one last exam tomorrow morning! So glad all the projects, lectures, and exams are coming to an end. However there are other things I am not so happy to see come to an end. There are a few people that will not be returning next semester, whom of which I am going to greatly miss. Two girls on our hall of beauty are leaving. I say hall of beauty because our hall meshes together so well and each girl has such an inward beauty. Change is so hard to deal with. I know when I come back here in January things are going to be quite different, some friends gone, new classes, new routine, working. But I keep forgetting that this Christmas is going to be change too. It already has been to a small degree. I went home for a couple of days last weekend and I loved seeing the house decorated. There are going to be the same traditions, which I so took for granted, but now am so excited about. However this year I am coming home from a world of my own. Home is still my world, but this is my independent world, a world that home somehow fits into. Which sadly I haven't done the greatest job of integrated both worlds.

News Updates:

Winter Formal went well. I went with a group from my hall. My "date" is on the right.

I have a job for next semester! I am going to be my adviser's "assistant". It should be a good stress free job. Looking forward to getting to know him better.

Ashley and I are officially the best pranksters ever! Filling buckets of water and dumping them on the would be pranksters. Result: an inch of water on the bathroom floor and fun pictures

The pillow heist that the senior and freshman girls (including me) tried to pull of while the fire alarms were going off in the boy's dorms was somewhat a success. Me and two others were held hostage by the boys after trying to ward them off with plastic ninja swords. We escaped without the pillows...but cleverly stuffed deodorant and a toothbrush in our pockets : )

I get out for Christmas break the 14th and am sticking around to celebrate my birthday. So I will be home the day after.

Well that is just a quick update. I hope all is going well and I am looking forward to seeing some of you over the Holidays!

The College Girl

Jonathan

One of my good friends, Emma is going to not be returning this coming semester. She is taking the time to spend with her family while her mom fights cancer. She will be a great help to the family, being able to help out with the other seven children. I went home with her to Missouri for Thanksgiving and had a great time getting to know the family. Emma had been praying that God would show her what and where her role is as her mom was diagnosed with cancer earlier this semester. While we were there Emma felt a peace being at home that only God could bring. So as hard as it is on her and on the ones of us that will be staying at CIU, she is going to take the semester off and return Fall ’08.
After reading something by Beth Moore, this was my reaction. Oh side note, Jonathan was David’s very close friend in the old testament, a friend that was very dear to his heart.

In a few weeks I won’t be able to have a confidant by my side. The person who began to walk this journey with me only a short time ago will now be a daylights time away from me. The comfort that is so easily obtain will be far from me. My jonathan is going home and my heart aches.
God is teaching me through this situation already. For some reason in my life the word obedience has been reoccurring. Why in the midst of this situation, I am not completely sure. I know that my jonathan is following God, that her obedience to Him will be blessed. But what does obedience have to do with my life? John chapter 14 starting in verse 15:

If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Maybe I am to obey God in the sense that I am to accept that this is His will. I know that this is of Him. I know that this time will be just what that family needs. And I am so proud of my jonathan for her courage. I am going to miss her so much though. I need to fully trust God in this, not just knowing, but believing with my heart that this is His will and His will is perfect and all that matters. Through my love of Him I am to accept this and not wallow in what could be different. My jonathan has ministered to my heart, she has befriended me, and she has cared about me. And all the while God has constantly been faithful to me and ministered to me in ways I never imagined. How He has used this friendship to grow my spiritual walk has been such a blessing. There is a part of my heart that selfishly feels abandoned and cries, wondering why all happened as it did. But God says that I have the Spirit within me, the Counselor. He stands with me through this pain and I have not been abandoned.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

He will never leave. God is constant! Never changing, always present! Comforting, loving, compassionate and so merciful! God is in me so why do I even have the right to feel alone? Will I mourn…yes. But the Spirit within me provides peace.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

This is His pleasing and perfect will. So why should I worry, why should I be afraid? I should be confident in what He is doing in all aspects of this situation.
God has all authority and he has supremacy over humanity and all creation. Freedom is found in His Spirit and through obedience to his authority.
In her book, Breaking Free, Beth Moore says obedience is perpetually following hard after God. Obedience is inviting the Spirit of God to flow freely through us. Obedience is learning to love and treasure God’s Word and see it as our safety.
We are to follow hard after God even when it hurts, when we are torn between our “two worlds” like my jonathan is.
A truth that is starting to become so evident to me is this: It is not about me and it is not about others, it is about God. “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” John 6:38. Jesus lived because His father said to live so that we might have life. He had no other reason to live. This is what life is about...it is not living to see how many attachments you can make or to see how stuck in one place or one situation you can get. This life is about growing and walking with a God that knows far more than we do. Allowing God to send us, move us, keep us, and grow us. Moore says, “Jesus had to trust His Father’s will completely. Although rejection, suffering, and shame were part of His experience, Christ accepted His God-given ministry at every difficult turn because He trusted His Father’s heart”. God wants us to trust His will through every stage of life…our life is our ministry…we are to trust God with our life, knowing that He is all we need and He is the only one we are to live for. He has blessed us with Jonathans and I am so very thankful. But he wants us to live a life that is willing to change, willing to be sent, willing to stay. Relationship is one of, if not the most important thing in life. However, life is about God. The world does not follow suit.
Moore says, “We seek to please Him. He seeks to perfect us—and life works. Not without pain, but with purpose.”

God has supremacy. God has authority. He is in control. My life is for Him. I am to live in obedience. I am not alone because of the Spirit in me.

My heart is filled with praise because of my jonathan. I am so very proud of her. I trust God to deepen this relationship and I give Him all the glory. I don’t have a shadow of a doubt that my jonathan will be walking this walk with me for a long time and that this situation will be such a growing time in my life as well as hers.

Please be praying for the Rea family. Emma’s mom’s name is Diana.

Ketchup :]

Hey everyone! Sorry I have been so slack. I went home this past weekend and I loved the time I got to spend in Charleston....so refreshing. God taught me alot through the past weekend. One thing I saw was how I need to better be in contact with all of you. So I appologize for that.
I was trying to think of a way I could catch you up to speed on everything. I had to write a letter for the church so I could continue my scholarship...so this is it and it pretty much sums up the past months.

I have been thoroughly enjoying my time at Columbia International University. That does not mean that everything has been easy or all fun and games, but God has been at work in my life. Before coming to CIU I prayed that God would put a finger on my heart where I needed to rely on Him for healing and change. I guess I did not think there was too much God would point out, but once I got here, I realized how wrong I was.
When I arrived at CIU, God began to provide for me relationally. God convicted a sophomore named Emma to get to know me. And I am so thankful because within a couple of weeks I opened up to her and told her what I had been through in the past year. I showed her how wounded I was because of my past and since then she has been walking the journey of healing with me. This brings me to the first lesson that God taught me and is still teaching me: to be vulnerable. I heard the word vulnerability over and over and it finally sunk in that it is not a bad thing, that it is actually something that requires God’s strength and courage.
I have one more chapter in John and Stasi Eldredge’s book Captivating, which I have been reading every week with Emma. This book has spoken to my heart in a powerful way and I highly recommend it to any woman. I have learned that God delights in me and I am to take great delight in Him. God showed me exactly where my wounds were and that I am to let Him into those places that I desire to keep hidden from others, and even at times myself. I am to allow Him to touch even the tenderest parts of my heart. This book has made evident to me the extreme hatred Satan has for all people, but especially women. Satan fears my beauty and role as a woman, so he feeds me lies that make me question that beauty God has bestowed on me. I have to be alert and armed for Satan is stealthily attacking. God has also shown me Himself in a different role than I have ever seen. He has shown me that I am His bride and that He longs to romance me, to speak to my heart individually. To sum it up, God has been teaching me what it is to be a woman of God and to seek an intimate relationship with Him.
Our dorm scripture this semester has been Isaiah 61:1-4, and it has continually come to surface in other things I have been reading. It says:

1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.
4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.

This has been such an encouraging passage. The promise in this passage that sticks out the most is that God will bestow on me a crown of beauty instead of ashes. God has made me beautiful despite the hardships of my past. The promise I have looked at most recently is that God gives me a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. The past couple of weeks I had a great spirit of despair, an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and not knowing what my role was here at school. However God has given me a garment of praise and I see that my whole dependence has to be on Him. Dependence on myself leads to despair, but dependence on God leads to a heart of praise, no matter what the circumstances.

CIU encourages freshman to visit churches the first semester of college and then have a church by second semester. I have been to several churches since my time here, but I am not sure if I have found one that I am set on yet. Lately I have been going to a very small church, primarily made up of older people. The service is rather traditional, which honestly has been nice. We have chapel every class day, and chapel is more contemporary style. So it is been quite a new experience to sing out of the hymnal on Sunday mornings. The pastor and his wife are young and just starting at this church. They have a few of us students over on Thursday nights for dinner and to talk. Thursdays are really encouraging and I have gotten to know some guys that go to school with me in a relaxed setting. I am thankful for those friendships that are forming.

I have been enjoying most of my classes. I am taking Old Testament Survey and I have been really surprised by what I have learned. For instance I had no clue that there was a talking donkey in the Bible. I have learned of God’s sovereignty, mercy, and his wrath through my readings for class. One of my favorite classes has been English. We have read many short stories and poems that I had read last year in high school, but my professor always applies the meaning of the writings to our walk with Christ. It might be that he brings a secular poem back to the fact that there are people who are broken and need to hear the message of Christ, or it might be that he makes us look inside ourselves to evaluate our faith. It has been a real blessing to be at a school where Christ is the center and to live on a hall with other women who are striving to live their lives for God. I need to be attentive to how God wants me to serve here at school and to those living on my hall. God has taken me through so much in my life and I pray that He will use me to minister to those who have been through similar situations. If I find victory in my battles, that victory will be nothing unless I allow God to use my story in the life of others. I am continually amazed by the love God has for me that I am so undeserving of. It brings tears to my eyes to know that He takes great delight in me and uses me even though I am so broken.

Miss you all very much!
The college girl

The beginning

Hey there! ** actually written: August 16, 2007

Okay so I am going to give this blog a shot. Hopefully you will all read and enjoy. Please subscribe so that you can get it via email.
Day before college. I return to my second home, Stratford High. Enjoyed being up there for the last time as a non-college student, even though it consisted of organizing supplies for teachers. Plus I got to see some pretty amazing Knight Pride people and the lovely Ward. Went home to conquer the task of packing. I must say packing is just annoying and of course you forget things…like your trusty alarm clock. Headed for Mt. Pleasant with Emily to buy a used surfboard. Yes, I actually have my own board now, after a month of searching! So I shall be visiting Charleston …at least Folly Beach, quite often. Continued to pack when I got home. Then it was time to return those things that were borrowed from others. Stopped by Palak and Nakul’s house. I knew I needed to get back home asap since it was an hour ‘til midnight, but that made no difference. I stayed there a hour and a half talking. It was a perfect, exhausting, last day at home.
Day Uno. Glenn and I drove up in the suburban, which could not have fit even a mouse in the back seat. As we got closer to our exit we saw three undercover cops pulled over on the side of the road and out of their cars. When we turned into CIU we found the school on lock down. You have to understand that the prison is not very far from the school. In fact if you drive up to The Point you have a beautiful view of the river to the left and to the right a magnificent view of the prison. Everyone has always told all of us incoming freshman that we had nothing to worry about, and no one ever breaks out. Well we found great irony when we were told that two prisoners had escaped. One prisoner had been captured, but the other one was still on the loose so we sat in the student center probably for like an hour. Other people had been there much longer. Found some other students I already knew and we just hung out in the bookstore. We were finally free to move in to the resident halls so we drove over to Walker, got my room key and lots and lots of help. The car was unpacked in like five minutes, but my room looked a mess. I usually don’t mind unpacking. You know, you usually just throw everything into the dirty clothes. Well…this time was a bit different. I was totally over whelmed with the great pile of things that I had no clue where to put. All organization had fled from me, until my mother arrived. Thank God for moms! The rest of the day went much smoother. I met Ashley’s (my roommate) parents. We went to dinner as a family in the school café. Where I saw Emily who I met back in December. Parents left after dinner and we said a quick goodbye. I do not like this whole goodbye thing, I much prefer to hear bye for now. Palak cried when I left and I did not want to see my mom cry. Went to chapel with Ashley after my parents left. I met Leslie who is from Dubai and who I had been communicating with over Facebook. I also re-met Monica who is part Costa Rican and a huge soccer player. Went to refreshments in the café afterwards and sat with Emily and some guys (David, Travis, Robert) that I already knew. David, who I had been talking to all summer, made sure to make fun of me about the coupon for a free buffet at CiCi’s Pizza that we received in our welcome packets. Walked back to Walker (my dorm) with Emily and went to check out her room. Hung out in there for a while, listening to two others play guitar. Found out one of the girls surfs. Came back up to my room and crashed for the night.

So that was my first interesting day. Today I bought my books! And for those who read Harry Potter, I would have to admit that I feel very much like Hermoine right now. For those who are not fans of Harry Potter, I feel like diving into the books I just bought.

Bye for now,
The college girl

PS- I could not stop thinking about Brittany all day yesterday. For those who don’t know, a girl from Stratford was in a wreck Tuesday and was thrown out the car and (correct me if I am wrong) only has a 10% chance that she will walk again. Please be praying for her and those involved. Pray that she might turn to God in this situation because He is the ultimate comforter and the greatest source of strength. It is her senior year and I am glad that she is alive to be here for it. Buckle up and drive safe!