i’ll take care of you

This past weekend, one of my favorite couples got engaged!! (they just graduated from Cornell this past May). The bride-to-be is a dear friend of mine whom I’ve been walking and serving alongside of for the past 2.5 years while at school, and the groom was actually helping to lead the first small group I ever joined at GCF! So both of them are both very near and dear to my heart and I’m so so excited to see what the Lord has in plan for the both of them as a couple. What’s kind of crazy is that they’re both less than a year away from college! Sometimes it’s really that surreal how close I am to graduating and entering a very real world of work, life, and weddings yay :)

 

… and of course, after spending most of the day with them (and dozens of surprised yet joyful people), the first question everyone has to ask is, ‘So when are YOU getting engaged?’

at eleven ten

I’m so excited to hear that The Time Traveler’s Wife is being made into a movie! I read this book in my senior year of high school for a writing seminar class and have been enamoured by it ever since. Maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for old fashioned romance, but it’s one of those books that I reread every year or so. I also think Rachel McAdams would make a great Clare :)

 

So lately I’ve been talking about relationships a decent amount with one of the girls I meet up with. Beyond the initial giggling and questions about my S.O., we were sharing how especially in Christ-centered relationships, they are one huge way to shed light in a world of broken, promiscuous and self-satisfying relationships. Over the summer, my fellow interns were often shocked by how I did not cohabitate with or engage in pre-marital shenanigans with my boyfriend, as if these things were that commonplace within collegiate relationships (though, sometimes also with Christian relationships but that’s for another time). I realized I love and appreciate my boyfriend for different reasons than why the world may think… how when I am struggling he first offers scripture and encouragement to me rather than himself. Or how he prays over and for me to receive His blessings and know I am loved by my Father first and foremost. Or simply how he is in the Word everyday, all the time, and has a heart after His own which encourages me to do the same. (I like it when he feeds me too =D)

 

Romances like the Henry and Clare’s are great, but they’re not real. What is, is a Truth that never fades, never lies, never disappears, never lets go…

all i have to give

There are times that I could seriously contemplate leaving this school and be satisfied in never hearing from anyone here again (save a few people). It’s a rather sad and sobering thought for how cold I can be sometimes and how little I can actually care about the other people here when push comes to shove… am I more bitter? More jaded? More tuned into this reality that these seasons of life are so fleeting and things simply change…?

 

I am reminded of the LORD’s promise that He has removed this heart of stone and given me a heart for flesh, but its times like these that I’m really reminded, I am sin, sinner, unworthy, undeserving of any love or grace. In an email to my small group today I shared a passage in Romans where Paul reminds us that even as sinners! while we were sinners He came… He died… He redeemed. While my heart is calloused and bruised and cold He has come to make me whole to bring more Glory to him.

 

how many times have i gone astray?
the number’s the same as the stars in the sky…

every time You’ve taken me back
and now i pray You’ll do it once more 

please take away my life
when i don’t have the strength
to give it away to You 

the resolution

Well, there is it. The Chicago Cubs… breaking hearts since 1908 =/

 

ANOTHER YEAR…… (as we say every year). You’ll see — one of these days we’ll make it to the World Series and I shall make it — right along the first baseline, cheering them cubbies on. (Unless of course, Jesus returns and raptures us all before then,… which is looking to be quite likely as of now….)

For the early birds, Cornell will be on the Early Show on CBS! Alumni David Price will be doing something or another, but hey free coffee :) /7am EST.

As for now… another long night ahead as I type up scientific reports for why energy levels of mercury are quantized. w00t!

PS. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but recently my blog post titles have been songs. Props if you can guess what they are :)

for the widows in paradise

I should begin seriously praying about where to go overseas next summer.

 

 

 

(and how I shall break the news to the parentals…)

stuck on You

One of the more interesting aspects of working a minimum wage job 10 hours a week to pay for you know, electricity and heat and internet is where I work — Anabel Taylor Hall. Or, for those not familiar with my school, it’s the home of the United Religious Works. It’s essentially three floors of all the somewhat mainstream religious groups you can find all under one delightfully terse yet ‘loving(?)’ roof. We house groups ranging from Latter Day Saints to Hillel to Navs and Cru and IV and Christian Scientists and the Humanists and pretty much 30+ others.

 

With Ramandan these past few weeks, a number of students from MECA have been coming in and out of the front office asking for keys, equipment, etc. for their daily prayer meetings. The first time one of the guys came in, we shared a conversation as such:

 

“Hi, can I get the mic?”

“Sure no problem — what group are you part of?”

“Meca. It’s for our daily prayer meetings for Ramandan.”

“Cool — what happens during your prayer meetings?”

“Well… we basically give praise to God and say hymns and recite things out of our books. It’s different from Christian prayer because instead of just asking for things, we actually worship Him…”

 

At which point I mentally went ‘Oof!’ How sad is it that the impression of our conversations with a gracious and righteous Father is simmered down to only this — a nagging child asking for more and more… stuff? =/