2014.

This has become a tradition for me, creating fun monthly goals and exciting long term goals. Last year, although I didn't complete every goal, I still did complete most of them and by the end of the year I felt very accomplished and blessed. Maybe this could be your New Years Tradition too?

        2014 Long Term Goals

1  .    Memorize Psalm 119

2  .    Pray for the persecuted church

3  .    Be more intentional

4  .    Create better dietary habits

5  .    Be held accountable

           Monthly Goals

·          January – Find a mentor at Covenant

·         February – Make a snow angel

March – Donate 10-12 inches of my hair

·         April – Leave a note in a library book

·         May – Go Krispy Kreme dumpster diving

·         July – Watch a 4^th of July fireworks display

·         August – Create dorm decoration with my roomie(s)

·         September – Go hiking, tubing, (and)or swimming

·         October – Buy a pumpkin from a real pumpkin patch

·         November – Write a thank-you note to someone I love

·         December – Go ice skating

Upon reflection.

I will begin by saying how personal this blog post is to me and the strength I have needed to post it. Please read with an understanding heart.

 Being home I have the an opportunity to reflect upon my last semester of college. Three words have come to mind during my reflection. 
Adjustment. 

Stagnant. 

Hopeful.

Adjustment.

     College has been an adjustment for me. It is so much more different than I could have imagined in both good and bad ways. I have found that I have adjusted my time to fit my school and work schedules as well as making room for my social life. Unfortunately my time with Christ is where I have compromised. In a sense, I have been fitting Him in. Whether it was the extra half hour before bed with my flashlight, or the ten minutes of free time before my laundry was finished, instead of adjusting the busyness of life for Christ, I have adjusted my time with Christ for busyness. This in turn has led to the next word.

Stagnant.

     Where is my spiritual growth? Surely I haven't turned away from God. I've continued to read His word, have had deep conversation about his faithfulness, served Him through volunteering, and prayed before meals and bed. But yet, I feel farther away from Him than before I left for college. And why? I squeezed Him into my schedule and prided myself in this as if it was my own humble deeds. I've drowned in self-righteousness. And through it all I have been so loveless. Tonight my sister read 1 Corinthians 13. I realized what a case I have made for Paul's words. The chapter reads,

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love."

      How little anything profits without love. And how little I have profited the Lord. Oh that I may change. Oh that I may learn to love well. Oh that I may be broken by my selfishness and desire to bring glory to Him alone. 

Hopeful.

     And yet, in all of my sin, I praise God for His grace and His mercies. Praise God, for He has given me the grace to recognize my self-righteous spirit. He has chosen by His sovereignty to reveal to me the darkness of my ways. Praise Him who forgives and desires to change my stagnant heart. "His love never fails." And because He has first loved me, may I now love Him and love others. I know that the Lord my God is faithful and that He will complete the work which He has started in me. (Philippians 1:1-11) And in this I have hope.

Well, one semester down.

         I am happy to say that I have officially survived my first semester of college. My goodness, what a journey it has been. I have loved the many memories and laughs I have shared with my new friends. Hikes in the mountains with people I'll never forget, dinners and deep talks with girls on my hall, and countless beautiful sunsets while sitting in the arms of my Creator - everything has swept me off my feet, challenged me, and taught me to remember God's faithfulness.

        College is funny in that it makes you continually question who you are and what you're doing. I for one, still haven't figured that out quite yet. I know my God, but still do not know all that He has in store for me.  And what I've realized is that no one has it all figured out. Not even those who seem to continually radiate Christ. We all are working through life, unknowing of what will happen next and filled with wonder about our futures. But if there's one thing I've learned its this,

"But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one... May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ." (2 Thessalonians 3:3,5)

      

So what does God hold in store for me during this next semester and in this coming year?

I have no clue. But I'm excited to find out because He is faithful.

10 days.

10 days until I go back to sunny florida for Christmas break. I can't describe how I feel about it. I'm not just saying that to be artsy, I mean it. I don't know how I feel about it. I love my home here in the mountains. How marvelous it is to be nestled up in my college window seat, chilly air numbing my fingers as they hit the keys of my computer. I feel as if I'm sitting up in the sky. The trees are all bare here and a deep gray has taken over the entire mountain. Today is the first day in a long time that the sun has been out and how marvelous it is, my relationship with this mountain is surely something special. As I typer a hang-glider is soaring adjacent to me over the valley below. How amazing to be here. How blessed I am. Oh how I love it.

Be all there.

        Rain taps against the glass. Lights whoosh by the car. The continual hum of pavement passes beneath the car. My parents converse in the front seats and I sit quietly in the back tapping on my keys. We’re driving 80mph away from the place I love so much – my Floridian home. I’m beginning to learn I have to be okay with moving on, letting go, and making new memories. I need to learn to make new memories in new places with new people. Recently a quote by Jim Eliot grabbed my attention. He stated, 

“Wherever you are, be all there.”

        That’s my goal now, to be wherever I am, and not just in physical presence, but completely there in all aspects. 

Prayers from home.

How marvelous it is to sit here at home. To be quiet. To rest. To breath in the warm sticky Florida air and listen to the crickets, the wind chimes, and the rustling of trees in the wind. God, these past few months have been so busy. So full of fun, but the same time so hard and tiring. I'm thankful that you are continuously with me at college and that you go before me. I'm thankful for your presence at all moments. As I enter into these last few weeks before the semester ends, please guide me. Help me do what is right even when its so hard. Help to be patient, even when I'm being tested. Guide me in your paths of your righteousness and help me to live by faith. Let your will be done in my life, deliver me from all that would cause me to sin, and guide me. Continuously. For you alone are faithful.
I love you Lord.

Lessons From Pooh.

                 "How lucky 

        am I to 

       have something 

                        that makes  

 saying goodbye  

          so hard."

                             -Winnie the Pooh