"Jesus You alone shall be my first love, my first love..."

you know those moments in life when you can't quite put your finger on the word for how splendid and lovely it is? moments when you are forced to simply stop. just stop and look at what's around you, listen to it, breathe it all in. enjoy it, for once. those breathtaking moments.

beautiful moments.

i've had a lot of beautiful moments. one was today, sitting beneath a clock tower and writing while the wind blew through the trees and the sunset turned the sky lovely colors. one was the first time here at school that i truly just...laughed--like really laughed, and couldn't stop. some of my beautiful moments wouldn't look so beautiful to an outsider. for example, some have been when i sat alone in my dorm room crying.

but there's a common thread between them. these beautiful moments...they are moments in which i've discovered new pieces of myself i never knew, and moments when i learned new things about the Lord that i never knew. or sometimes re-learned things i allowed myself to forget. each day the Lord opens my eyes to new aspects of Himself, and of myself. the ways he does this aren't always pretty, but they're always...beautiful.

what a wonderful thing to be able to delight in on a daily basis.

"looks like somebody's got a case of the mondays."

mondays may very well become the death of me.

i mean, they already are what they are just because, hey, they're mondays. but now it's oh so much more than that.

i used to wake up early because i enjoy it. sleep in only when necessary--i hate sleeping in cause then you have that weird feeling like you've lost your day...anyway. now i wake up early because i have no choice. i get ready, get to my 10:00 class early, you know, the usual. then i proceed for the next ELEVEN HOURS of my day to rehearse music and cram my mind full of information, almost nonstop. two separate hour-long breaks within that period. i am not free until 9 PM. remember, i wake up at 7 AM. then there's studying and working out. ACK! is just about all i can say for mondays.

"so...do you like...stuff?"

"You alone are Savior and You alone are God; i'm alive i'm alive i'm alive i'm alive..."

a happy day...

new friends made...

reunited with old friends...

rain...

uhm, lemme say it again: RAIN...

picking up where i left off with guitar...

got a roommate (woot!)...

found some new music to love...

finding new friends to love...

learning to love this place. what God is doing here in me...is new and exciting and weird and amazing and scary and...wonderful. His enduring faithfulness gives me so much strength to persevere day by day. what a mighty God we serve! and even though i go through trials, how can i worry, when i see His faithfulness, His grace, His love? i know that my Lord is so much bigger, so much stronger than anything i will ever face. praise God for that!

oh. and did i mention i went out and danced in the RAIN today? cause i did. :)

first day of class today. you could say it was pretty exciting. :)

i'm kind of mellow right now...not in a bad way, i've just got a lot on my mind. today for the first time since i got here i had a few minutes to just stop and recognize the beauty of my surroundings. i mean, i knew that i loved this campus, but that kind of got shoved to the back of my mind with all the stresses of moving in and starting school. imagine that...i'm in the middle of this great place, God's beauty everywhere just proclaiming His might...and i overlook it. because i let myself get too stressed. how dumb am I? but yeah...God is great. He's just right here. with me. faithful. LOVE IT.

classes were cool today. i have some amazing teachers--some of them eccentric, perhaps, but amazing nonetheless. i know i will learn and grow a lot this semester. i have to laugh, though, at one particular situation: i am stuck in a beginner piano class, with people who have never taken before. now, i wouldn't mind at all, but i opened the book to the chapter we were told to review just now, and realized: this is the same material from the books i've been TEACHING out of all year. and now i'm "learning" it. the professor asked if there were any advanced students in the class, and said he would get me into an accelerated one on tuesdays and thursdays, but i think he forgot...well, thus is life! but it's okay, cause i made a friend in that class, and she's UBER cool! we actually have three classes together! :) and our schedules are fairly similar, so we're gonna start working out together. i made friends in my psych class too. so far i still even remember their names--and trust me, that's a feat. i've met a lot of new people this week.

i have FRIENDS. yay.

i ate at the cafe for the first time today. THAT was an adventure. well not really. but it WAS the first time i've felt full since i've been here. so...a plus!

okay. back to homework. i'm not saving it all for tomorrow, or the next day, or the weekend. nope. NOW.

who AM i?

"complications arose...ensued...were overcome."

i'm here!!! i'm at school, and i guess you could call this my first official day without parents...they left yesterday afternoon. life here is proving to be well out of my comfort zone. so i guess that means it's exactly what i'm looking for! i'm out of my bubble. but it is still proving difficult figuring out exactly what i'm supposed to be doing with my time sometimes. maybe once classes start time management will be easier...or maybe i just need to stop waiting for things to get easier, and be a big girl and figure it out.

i don't want a single moment of this to be about just learning. i want it to be about following wherever Christ leads...being covered in the dust from His sandals...loving people, loving everyone, so passionately that they just have to know why anyone would ever bother to love them that much...letting every part of my life point directly to Christ rather than back towards myself.

i've got to go. i've got to go do...something. but no more sitting in my dorm in the middle of the day. as always, i will continue to update when i can...

"Grace's amazing hands, they hold me.
They are soft as a feather bed.
They would never strike or scold me,
Cause they know the words that will work instead.

I always thought that love was frightening,
I always thought it'd be so rough.
Love has sent me down an angel, baby
I knew it was Grace, just by a touch.
Just by her touch.

Grace's amazing hands, they're ugly,
They're bruised by the blows that I have blown.
She knows well I don't deserve her,
But she laughs and says, That's the way love goes.

I always thought that love was frightening,
I always thought it'd be so rough.
Love has sent me down an angel baby,
And I knew it was Grace, just by her touch.
Just by her touch.

What did I do,
What did I say?
For love to smile down on me,
And show me amazing grace.
C'mon and show me grace"

--dave barnes

"the author of my hope is writing the greatest story ever told"

i know i will be excited about school. i really will be. but i'm just not, right now. i feel like my life's been on fast forward since i got back from Holland. i don't like it. can it just slow down for a few seconds? aaaaaaaargh. yes, that's how i feel.

man...it's not that i don't know God's doing great things here. i just hate leaving friends and family right now. it feels like an awful time to leave. but i know that God is sovereign...that His timing is best...that He is faithful, and that he loves me. i guess leaving is just always hard. maybe it never feels right. but right now it REALLY doesn't feel right. some part of my heart is very unsettled about it all. but it is at this time that i need all the more to trust in the Lord and in His mighty plan for my life.

and while that's true, what i could really use right now is someone to sit with me while i cry a little.

" Here in town you can tell he's been down for while
But my God it's so beautiful when the boy smiles
Wanna hold him but maybe I'll just sing about it

Cause you can't jump the track
We're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass glued to the table,
No one can find the rewind button boys so cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe, whoa breathe just breathe" --Anna Nalick

"take a look at the stars; don't they remind you how feeble we all are?"

i love the stars. i love the rain. i love thunder, and lightning.

today was awesome.

in fact, i have had quite a few consecutive days that could be called awesome. some of the best days of my life...and i'm living them, right now. this has been the most incredible summer, hands down. what God has done and is doing in and thru me this summer is incredible. dude, i'm so excited just thinking about it...

oh man. i can't even imagine what will be next in His plan for me. nope. can't. ack! okay...going now. much love to all...

i read this on a myspace bulletin. i usually don't like those, but i thought this was really sweet...

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." --jessica, age 8

i'm having Holland withdrawal symptoms. i can't even explain how much i miss it. in fact, before i even left i was trying to figure out in my brain if i can go back over spring break. God willing, it may just happen.

i'm only beginning to see just how much this trip has changed me. but i am different, in many ways. perspectives have changed. i'm getting more and more out of my comfort zone, and liking it. aside from that, certain inside jokes keep popping into my head at random times...so then i'm just laughing and people don't understand why. and what makes it even better is that i'm still a little "drunk tired" because of jet lag so everything is about ten times more funny than it should be. good times...

anyone feel like hopping on a plane right now to Holland? i know i wouldn't mind one bit...