The last little while...

Well it's been a full and busy last few weeks. My parents came up for a quick visit and we got to have dinner. Michael also turned 21! I threw him a surprise party complete with ice cream cake and it was really fun. I got him Planet Earth and we've started working our way through the episodes. We really like getting to see different parts of creation through it!

Last weekend my roommates and I all went on a little road trip to northwestern Iowa to visit Tina's house. It was a really good time! We hung out with Tina's family quite a bit and got to see Lizzie some. We took some pictures throughout the weekend, and hopefully I'll be able to post some of them later this weekend!

A small but huge chapel thought...

Well it's getting relatively late, but I wanted to talk a little bit about my today and something that occurred to me. At my college we have optional chapel on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and as I was worshiping in chapel today it hit me how great of a blessing it is that I can have time set out in my day to go and worship for an hour with other believers and to be taught something from scripture. How cool is that? And it's not mandatory! I can't really say that I have many friends from high school who have such an awesome opportunity and I am so thankful for it! It is such a blessing. After church on Sunday I've really been trying to proclaim the Gospel to myself as often as possible and chapel is such a good time to be able to do that because many of the songs we worship to are filled with it. What a beautiful reminder during the day!

We've been going through a series called "Grounded for Life" where we've been looking at what could be considered 'the basics' of the Christian faith and today we talked about Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension. One point in particular caught my interest from today's message and it was a quote from C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."

Wow, he says it so well, how stupid humanity is for trying to claim He was a great moral teacher. I mean come on, Jesus can't even be called that if everything He said about Himself was a lie because last time I checked it wouldn't make any sense for a "good moral teacher" to lie about his identity while doing his "good person" thing. Oh humanity, open your eyes so that you may see Truth! How our selfish, sinful selves keep us from Love. I pray that eyes and ears would be opened and hearts softened so that they too could have the beautiful Gospel of our Lord Jesus the Christ proclaimed to them and be known by them as Truth.

Today begins my first full week of college for Fall 2010 and I can't say that I'm super excited about it, but I am excited about the weekend I had!  Friday night we had a birthday party for one of the girls from my freshman floor and it was just a really good time to connect again and hang out.  Some of us came back to my room afterward and watched part of Emma.  We finished off the night by going over to Emily's room, she's a freshman RA and it was fun to visit!  It's so crazy to me when I think about how much has changed in the last two years and how much my friends and I have changed (for good).  It was just so clear to me how much more grown up I am compared to freshman year.

Saturday was also fabulous, probably more so because I got to see Shelby and my Uncle Kent!  They were up in the cities for a volleyball tournament at Augsburg and Michael and I went to watch.  It was so much fun!  I love volleyball and watching it was so great especially since it was Central.  Central volleyball just has a special place in my heart as it has always been a family thing for me.  The last time I went to a game I went with my Grandpa Butch and I have some good memories from then and other Central volleyball games.  So watching volleyball was great but seeing Shelby and Kent was way better!  I know I've been at college and away from home for two years now but I still miss not getting to see Shelby (and all my family) as much so I really treasure those times I do get to spend with them and wish there could be more.  I don't really know what else to say other than that it was so good and I wish it could happen more often! 

Sunday was also very good.  Church was so uplifting.  The songs we sang were just filled with Gospel truth and the message was from Jude and focused on remaining in God's love through building yourself up with the Gospel, praying, and waiting eagerly for Heaven.  I was reminded of the fact that while my love isn't fixed or perfect God's is.  His love for me is forever and it never changes, not even when my love for him is less.  The pastor shared this analogy with us: it's like a mother holding a young child, both are holding on but the child's safety rests in the strength of their mother's arms not their own.  After church Michael and I got Chipotle and then just relaxed for a little while before finishing up some homework.  We spent tonight over at Jason and Claire's (Michael's brother and sister-in-law) apartment for dinner and games.  I love getting to hang out with them, they are so much fun and yeah I just really appreciate them and getting to see them as often as we do. 

It really was a blessing of a weekend and I'm very thankful for it.  Hopefully it will help me to be more joyful tomorrow when I wake up to be at work at 8:00 :) 

5-4-3-2-1

Five roommates sitting in the living room, four drinking cups of tea, three wearing long(er) sleeves, two wearing tee-shirts, one minute we're focusing on our tasks and the next minute we're not. 

I love this, sitting in the same room at the same time with all of my roommates.  Last year this never seemed to happen, but this year it has already happened quite a bit and the school year has only just begun.  I'm really excited for this next school year.  I'm excited to get to know my roommates and other friends better, I'm excited to have my mind stretched (ok, more or less I'm excited for this), and I'm excited to see what God has to teach me this year!  I think back to how much I've learned and changed over the last year and know it will happen again. 

God is good, and in moments like these it's very clear to me how blessed I truly am.