1 week before my return to SPU

Disneyland here I come! (almost)...we leave Tuesday at 3 am..Yikes Bikes! I guess this will be my last time in California for quite a while...which I guess I should be used to by now, but my 1st quarter at college was quite rough and I was home a lot. I thought a lot about my situation at SPU, yes I do miss home, yes I don't agree with the doctrine of the school, and yes I miss the love of my life, BUT I need to serve God regardless of my location or circumstances, and I need to not be such a downer and try to enjoy college while I'm there! Maybe what's holding me back is that I'm afraid I might actually like SPU and not want to come back. Right now I feel the only reason I come back is Seth, and sometimes my family, but as soon as I see them I discover that nothing has changed and that they are as disfunctional as ever. Besides the family being disfunctional, I have seen my mother grow tremendously and really start to discover the heart of God. My only hope is that she can continue to grow and not feel that I am her stronghold but that she can rely on the Lord. This quarter at school will be a lot about discovering what God has for my life in the present time and to not worry so much about what my future holds. I am excited for my history class and also my bible study in Romans! After doing so well on my first set of final grades I can only hope that I start a pattern of similarity :) Scarily, I feel that I am finallly growing up! Maybe too fast, but its exciting and I can see how much my perspective on things has changed since I've been gone. In conclusion, I leave this verse :)

1 Thessalonians 3:7-8
Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.

Post Christmas...

So Christmas was yesterday, and its so hard not to get caught up in the materialism of the world. I hear some of my friends telling me how for the past 5 years they have told their parents not to buy them anything because they dont need it, and here I am asking for so many things. And here I am the day after Christmas asking myself what I am going to do with all of the stuff I got, where am I to put it in my tiny dorm room? Do I have enough room in my closet? Do I even need any of this? The one new thing I experienced this holiday season was how Americans are obsessed with buying things for everyone on their list, not for actually being with them and spending quality time with them. The things we buy for people become none other than a sort of pay back for being our friend, impersonal gifts flood my shelves from people that just needed to say that they got me something, and this somehow gains my favor? I think about this...and at the same time my sinful nature makes me wish I got more stuff. I can only pray that by this time next year I wouldn't wish for anything or ask for anything other than love and support from my family and loved ones. Where did this break go? I can't believe I only have a week left! buuuuut...disneyland here I come :)

Starting Over

After a ton of pretty much trash talking from others, I took my last post down. I guess my disclaimer was that...Christian thoughts, ideas, language pretty much everything is so normal to me now that when people from my old life really don't understand it and think I'm a crazy person when I talk that way. Not only did I not expect them to read my blog, or even care nonetheless what I am doing with my life now, I didn't expect quite the reaction I received. I did come off judgmental though and I apologize for that, I am in no place to predict another person's salvation. I also remembered what Christ talked about in John 15 -
"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason."
These words immediately lifted me, and made me realize that this kind of thing should be expected from non-believers. Besides all of the drama...Christmas is almost here, and I must go to sleep!