Merry Christmas Eve

I was recently at my Aunt Nancy's house to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family and she informed me that I had not blogged in awhile. And, alas, it's true, I have not! So, I will catch you all up. The fall semester, for me, started getting extremely busy in November. From the end of November until mid-December I worked on four major projects for the end of the year. By the end I finished a 16 page Exegetical Paper for Greek class -- don't be fooled, this paper was a great deal of work! I translated Matthew 28:1-20 all on my own; altogether I spent around 8 hours translating/parsing/all that grammatical stuff. I spent around another 15 hours researching/writing the actual paper. It was a crazy time. But, in the end, it was a paper I was extremely proud of! I also wrote another paper for my "Holy Spirit, the Church and the End" class. I wrote about Free Liturgy in the Pentecostal/Charismatic realm and Traditional Liturgy and what the two have to learn from one another. That was probably my favorite paper to write! It was very moving to write and it also was one of those things that really helped me shape my beliefs further, ya know? If you've never read Simon Chan (Liturgical Theology, Spiritual Theology, etc.) you must! He hails from the Assembly of God denomination and has some wonderful things to say about traditional liturgy. I wrote another paper for Philosophy on St. Augustine's view of evil as the privation (lack) of goodness. It was a great paper to write, too. My philosophy professor asked if I'd consider submitting it in a local Philosophical writing competition. Still deciding on that. Last of all, for my Worship Planning class, I had to design my own worship service down to a tee. That was a wonderful project! I really enjoyed it. I decided to design a Southwestern College Chapel service -- I centered it around one theme, "Light up the World" (I will attach the graphic I designed for class). That project really allowed me to be imaginative -- something I am really good at :). We presented our planned worship services for our final in class. It was a blessing to be in a group of so many wonderful worship planners. That pretty much summed up the semester for me.

On to Christmas happenings -- not much has happened yet. As I stated earlier, I went to my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Pat's house for a few days to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family. Kyle went along, of course, and my family was very adamant about him being there. They like him, I think ;). My Aunt Nancy loves to sew -- she quilts and does many other talented things. In the past, she made everyone in my family a stocking complete with our names embroidered on them. This year, she made one for Kyle! It was very thoughtful of her.

For the next few days I am staying at Kyle's family's house and will celebrate Christmas with them on the 27th. After that, I will be headed back to Holcomb and will hopefully be there to stay for awhile.

Next semester I am very excited for everything going on at school. I am taking 15 hours -- a full load, and part of that load includes a 5 hour practicum in Campus Ministry. I am very excited for that. I will also be transitioning in to be the college's chapel student admin. That should bring wonderful opportunities to dream as well. Anyways, Merry Christmas!! I will try to blog a bit more often.

Seasons

For those following,

Things have been going well around here. Life, like always, has been quite busy and we've seemed to completely by-pass fall, which I am rather bummed about. 45-50 degree weather shouldn't be allowed yet ;). I am, however, enjoying the beauty of fall--especially here in Winfield and at SC. It seems like God hand paints our campus every fall, and as a girl from Western Kansas where there's no tree in sight, I LOVE it! That's been great. Our campus, over the past week has had somewhat of a hard time. One of our fellow students and his family lost his parents in a tragic car accident last week, another student lost his brother to an illness, another his cousin in a car accident, and I had a friend that lost one of her high school classmates in a car accident.

Looking back, last week was a week of challenges. As things were happening, there would be so many times that I would be in prayer asking God "why!?" Sometimes we just don't understand--sometimes we will never fully understand purpose and tragedy until we see God face-to-face. Through it all, I felt God telling me, very clearly in fact, to hold on to the knowledge that "He is good." Grief is an interesting thing. It's something that is so difficult to see and even more difficult to go through. However, it has such a bonding quality. I've never seen our campus come together more than they have since last week.

Today, chapel was quite the blessing. The student whose parents passed last week was there to sing and help lead with all of his heart in worship--a very touching sight and a testimony of faith to many. Another couple of ours at SC also got engaged at chapel today! It was very sweet. Chapel was packed out with many SC students and staff to come together and celebrate--a very different feel and theme from last week's chapel. Last week, the SC family came to grieve and realize that in life, there is a time for sadness. This week, the SC family came together to celebrate, and realize that in life, there is also a time for joy!

At the end of chapel today, I yet again heard God's voice in my heart whisper "See, I am good...." and He didn't just say that to prove a point and I don't just say that because today was a day of joy. Without last weeks sorrow, this week would have been "joyful" in a very different way. I don't exactly understand the mystery of grief, but I know there are seasons of it and those seasons contribute to the joy factor that follows. SC had a valley last week--the lowest one at that, but our "mountain" was only as high as it was this week because of our sorrow last week. I am not sure if this exactly makes sense, but I sure hope it does. I think it's important to pick up on.

May I pass on the message again, and again, and again....

God is indeed good. He's good.

And may we believe it again, and again, and again