Ahhhhhh....

That "ah" there in the title is one of those contented "ah's" not like a yelling "ah"

it's a contented "ah" because this past week was Spring Break and some of my friends and I roadtripped it to Florida and then hung out on the beach...and if you didn't know, the beach is one of my all time favorite places. I can spend long, extended amounts of time there...
Now it's back to real life...but I sure can't wait for Myrtle Beach this summer!!!

22...

So I really meant to write this post around my actual birthday, but clearly that didn't happen...

Anyway, I have now spent almost a month being 22 and it is still weird. I'm having a difficult time wrapping my mind around the fact that I am basically an adult. It's not that I feel old. It's really that I still feel young...

When I'm sick I want someone to take care of me.
My roommates make fun of me because even thought I should know my way around the kitchen I still look incompetent.
I still have to call my mom to ask her questions that I should probably at this point know...thanks for not minding : )
I still tell on my sister sometimes when she annoys me.
Some mornings I really need someone to come into my room and make me get out of bed.
My room gets messy.
I'm easily distracted and I can't help but laugh at inappropriate things...
Ok, the list could go on and I know there were some things I wanted to add on there but I can't think of them now...

I feel like everyone else's lives are moving on. I can't tell you how many people I know who are getting married in the next year (don't worry mom and dad I'm not in a hurry to be married) and most of my friends are graduating this Spring and figuring out what the next step is.

I, on the other hand, am still in school for another year and not even close to getting married, which again I am not in a hurry to do. I know if I was graduating this Spring I would be in panic mode because I don't feel like I should be at this point yet and I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but when do I start feeling like I'm a grown up?

Hebrews 11:1

So recently the verse Hebrews 11:1 has been on my mind. It's one of my favorites, thus being the URL for the blog...anyway, it says "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of things we do not see."

I know what I hope for and I know that God knows those things too. And I think He knows even when we're not so sure and feeling a little lost, like we're wandering aimlessly, which at this point is what I feel like a lot of the time. I take comfort, though, in the thought that He knows the desires of my heart and just as in Jeremiah 29:11, He has a plan for my future and whatever it is its good.

Faith is hard, though. It's hard to wake up everyday and be able to say, "Ok, Lord, I don't know the plan but I know you do so I'm going to leave it in your control."...maybe that's not difficult for some, but I know for me as a worrier and needing to know the plan that handing those things over can be a daily struggle.

I'm ready to be out of here, not to leave the people I love here, but to be onto the next step even though I have no clue what or where that next step is.

I'm simply having to continually have faith that I'm here another year for some plan I don't understand and that when it's time, His time and not mine, I'll be on to the next place He wants me to be.

Break...

I love breaks...the real kind where you don't have any homework to think about...I was fortunate to not have job this break either (ok that was kind of sarcastic...it would have been nice to have still been making a little money as there are still groceries to be purchased and utilities to be paid...oh well)

Christmas break is always especially nice for its extended amount of time and the first semester behind you.

I love getting to read what I want to read when I want to read it.
I love sleeping in.
I love curling up and watching a movie.
I love not having to think about some sort of project or paper or reading I should really be working on.
I love catching up with friends, who even though we haven't seen each other in a while it can still pick up where it left off.
I love Christmas and its meaning and the traditions and the time I get to spend with my family.
I love being reminded how much God has blessed me.

And I also love all of you who read this and I hope your holidays were good and relaxing and that God blesses you in this new year.

Lucky...

I know that I get behind on my blog and don't update it enough, and sometimes I don't think I'm so eloquent. I know what I want to say and it's all there in my head, but when I got to write it down it never sounds quite as good...I just needed to get that out there. It doesn't actually have anything to do with what I want to write about...so with that being said and out of the way...

I was just thinking the other day how luck I ended up when I came down here to good ol' Springfield for college. Yes, I was homesick for a good amount of my time Freshmen year, but it didn't really take long for me to make good friends who I could depend on. I knew pretty much right away that we would probably take care of each other for the next four years. My roommate situation wasn't always ideal, but I quickly made friends with the girls across the hall and spent a lot of time with them and I still laugh about some of the things I remember...sorry that was a little cheesy...

Then I also got plugged in right away to a Bible study. My leader was an RA in my building and instantly took us under her wing, and still still to this day calls us her babies and we call her "mama." Allison made us be friends and it was a good thing even though we thought it was dumb at the time. She was always in our business and making sure we were making good decisions and not doing anything too crazy. She always asked us about her lives and I always knew she genuinely cared about us and really wanted to know what was going on. To this day I still see her on a regular basis and she still asks me all about my life.

That Bible study was where I also met the rest of my best friends down here at school. They were strong, Christian girls and we were all going through the same stuff and created an awesome support system for each other, that included sleeping on each other's dorm room floors when things weren't so great. That still is intact 4 years later. I don't think I would have made it through that freshmen year without Mama Allison, Jody, Dana, or Gena. They are how I met the rest of my friends and what set the stage for the rest of my college career.

I just feel really blessed because I know that without any of them I would've ended up miserable and maybe made bad decisions about what I wanted to do with my time while here. God's smart like that and it is obvious to me He was looking out for me the whole time, not that I didn't know that before, but it was sometimes we need Him to just make it painstakingly obvious and He did.

Wishing...

So for the last week or so we have been talking about inner city schools in my education class. We are reading a book called Ordinary Resurrections by Jonathan Kozol and in it he talks about the time he spent with the students in an elementary school in the South Bronx. It is not full of statistics or lecturing about how the public school system in disrepair, which it is and needs help desperately, but it is full og the precious encouters he has with the students and their innocent insight into life and the things they deal with in their everyday lives. I love it and it is certainly not a book I will be selling back to the bookstore.

The main thing, though, is it takes me back to this summer. The particular kids I got to spend time with were not from the Bronx, but from Washington Heights in upper Manhattan, and contrary to popular belief Manhattan is not a place entirely made up of wealth and tourist attractions. I also see the kids at one of our ministries called Father's Heart, where we served dinner to them and their families and hung out with the kids. Sitting in class is hard because I want to be anywhere but in that classroom talking about these kids...I want to be out there with them.

I don't know where it started or why, but it is a fire that started and I can't extinguish...sorry for the cheesy metaphor, but I don't what God is going to do with this passion but I know He has a plan.

Familia...

This is going to seem random and out of nowhere, but I really love my family and the way we do things and I wouldn't change any of it for anything : )