Encouragement

My first few days have not gone as planned. I have been surprised with some unexpected things I need to take care of. Things have been a little shaky so far, but God is constant. He is Sovereign. He will provide. This song was sung in chapel today, and the words just resonated with me. Hope you enjoy it! :)

Peacemaker, Fear Taker, Soul Soother, Storm Smoother
Light Shiner, Lost Finder, Cloud Lifter, Deliverer,
Hear Toucher, Truth Lover,
Who other could be Fear taker, Peacemaker to me,

Mind Clearer, Sigh Healer, Hand Holder, Consolor,
Wound Binder, Tear Dryer, Strength Giver, Provider,
Heart Healer, Kind Father,
Who other could be, May Savior, Peacemaker to me,

Let Your Peace Rule in my heart,
Let Your kindness fill my thoughts,
Let Your strength secure my soul,
Let Your peace take hold in me,
Let Your Wisdom guide my will,
Your compassion fill this place,
Let my anxious thoughts be still,
Let Your peace rule in my Heart,

[Chorus]
I need You,
Let Your Peace Rule in my heart,
I need You,
Let Your kindness fill my thoughts,
I need You,
Let Your strength secure my soul,
In My Life Lord,
Let Your peace take hold in me,
I Trust You,
Let Your Wisdom guide my will,
Believe You,
Your compassion fill this place,
I need You.
Let my anxious thoughts be still,
Lord, in my Life I Know
Let Your peace rule in my Heart,

(repeat Chorus)

Heart Toucher, Truth Lover
Who other could be, Fear Taker, Peacemaker to me

Peacemaker by Greg Ferguson

Semester Number 4

Today I began my 4th semester of college (I suppose 5th is you count the 7 hours I took this summer). It is kind of weird. I still feel like a freshman a lot of the time. I had 3 classes today, and a lab. Here is the 411 on what is going down so far.

1. Microbiology: I am pretty intimidated by this class, but I am actually looking forward to it. I absolutely LOVE my professor. He is awesome. He used to teach med school classes (and he himself is a doctor, of course), so he knows what's up. He did not try and shy away from the fact that this class is going to be incredibly difficult... but I am ok with it I think. He truly loves what he is teaching and his enthusiasm rubs off on us all I think. We had a time for Q&A today, but I sat quietly, as usual. I would have considered talking if I could have thought of a question. Oh well. He assured us that we will get sick many times this semester, seeing as how we will be working with bacterias and viruses in lab. He also pointed out that a lot of the organisms we will be working with could kill us... so we need to make sure to follow safety procedure. Ha. Tight. I know this class will be very difficult, but I am looking forward to it. He is also putting an emphasis on making this a "medical microbiology" class, considering 99% of the students are going into the medical field. That helps make this more exciting, because it will be very practical. I think I will learn a lot from this class!

2. Wellness Lifestyles: This is probably the single most pointless class I will take in my time at obu. It is basically a cross between highschool health and P.E., but it is required, so here I am. It is only 1 credit hour, and definitely won't be difficult, just unnecessary. Luckily, it only meets Mondays and Wednesdays, which is nice. There isn't to much to say about this class. Although, there is a guy in my class from New Orleans. I really wanted to talk to him about the Saints... but he was on the other side of the room and I am such an introvert these days. Maybe I will work up to it one day? haha

3. Lit of the Western World: This is the lit portion of Civ. I already had a history credit, so I got out of Civ for this semester. This seems like a basic lit course. A ton of reading, of course, and daily quizzes, but it isn't horrid. This will be work, sure, but I am not too worried about the class overall.

4. Microbiology Lab: We actually had lab today, which I was not expecting. We went over some safety procedures, seeing as how half of the stuff we will be playing with in lab could infect us and kill us ;). Then we took samples of various things (I swabbed the inside of my mouth, for example) and put it in a petri dish and put it in the incubator. We will examine it next week in lab. We also looked at various specimens under the microscope. Nothing challenging today, but it will get harder. We have two projects during lab. The first, we create our own experiment. The second lab (which is way cooler) will be towards the end of the semester. We are given an unknown pathogen and a patient history. We will have to use the microscope to examine the specimen, look for clues in the patients symptoms and history and use our knowledge about various bacterias and viruses to make a diagnosis. That should be really cool, actually!

All in all the first day went well. I am exhausted, but such is life. Plenty of homework to keep me busy tonight. ;)

Tomorrow I have Arts and Ideas, my skills lab for intro to nursing and jazz and hip-hop. I will post about those tomorrow sometimes. On Wednesday I have my intro to nursing class, which I am sure I will mention at a later date as well. Here we go with the semester... full speed ahead!

Oh yes, and the most important thing of all...

THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!!!

Who Dat! :)

The Saints game was very possibly the single most, emotionally taxing, 4 hour period of my life. I didn't handle it well at all. Ha. I paced around my room the whole time, never once sitting down. I talked (very calmly) to each Saints player and shared my hopes and dreams with them. When the fourth quarter came, my whole body was shaking so bad I could hardly support my own weight. I couldn't pick anything up, because my trembling hands would just drop it. My heart was racing faster then it ever had. I almost couldn't bear to watch the field goal. It was ridiculous. But then, they won! I wish I could have video taped my reaction, because I will never be able to reenact it again. The happiness I felt was overwhelming. It was beautiful.

Aha!

At one point on Sunday, Mark Howell mentioned those times when one is reading scripture and suddenly has an "aha" type of moment. I have experienced that before, but not in a while... until tonight. I was reading through John as part of my journey through the gospels and I got to the passage in chapter 11 in which Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. I have heard this story, and read it myself, a hundred different times; but tonight something stood out to me that I probably would have just skipped over most other times. Here is the passage:

38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days." 40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?" 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me." 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." John 11:38-44 (ESV)

For me, the aha moment lies in verse 40. I have been praying, for a rather long time, for God to just show up big in my life. Praying that His Holy Spirit would be evident in my life. That I would be sensitive to the Spirit in my life and that God would reveal himself to me. Lately, I have been frustrated, because things haven't been happening on my time table. I read this passage, and this verse, and I felt like I was punched in the stomach (in a good way), "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God." I don't know if it gets much clearer than that. So, as I pray and as I wait, I will continue to believe, and in His timing (not mine), I will be able to witness the glory of God. Praise God.

NFL Playoffs and the Issue of Hugging

Ok, so I am going to tackle two totally unrelated subjects within this one post. I apologize now if this becomes too long, or too boring.

I will start of with a few of my thoughts from the playoff games that have taken place this weekend. All my stats will be courtesy of nfl.com... because let's face it, I won't be able to remember this all off the top of my head. I am not that good.

Arizona Cardinals 14 @ New Orleans Saints 45:

This was obviously the game I was most interested in. The two hours leading up to this game were some of the most stressful I have ever experienced (in regards to football, of course). Watching the Cardinals and Packers game the week before made me realize that Arizona was going to be a worthy competitor. Logically, I knew the Saints were finally healthy and they are the highest scoring team in the league, but my emotions were everywhere. My family has been watching the Saints for about 43 years, and they have this amazing ability to loose. So, I knew I would not relax until the game was completely over. The first play of the game was a rushing touchdown by Hightower. My stomach turned. However, the Saints came back with furry. Drew Brees threw for 247 yards, had 23/32 completions- a completion rating of 79.1%, had 3 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, 0 sacks and 0 fumbles. I couldn't have asked for more. Reggie Bush had, what I would classify as a breakout game. He has finally learned how to run 'north and south' and not 'east to west.' The result was awesome. He had one rushing TD, one punt return for a TD and 84 other yards. This is the Reggie Bush the Saints need. What I was the most pleased with is the fact that the Saints got back to their trademark of using ALL of their resources. They had five separate players (Hamilton, Bush, Shockey, Colston and Henderson) score touchdowns. The ability to do this is something other teams in the NFL lack. The Saints also had 27 first downs compared to the Cardinals 15. I do not say any of this to bash the Cardinals by any means. I respect them as a team, especially Kurt Warner. However, I can't help but brag on my team! :) This is a big deal to the city. I am so pumped for them.

Baltimore Ravens 3 @ Indianapolis Colts 20:

Again, I was clearly going for the Colts in this one. They maintained a solid lead throughout the game, but I did found this game to be rather boring. Maybe this is because I just come off the emotional rollercoaster that was the New Orleans game, but I couldn't stay engaged in this game. Peyton Manning completed 30/44 passes, threw for 246 yards, had 2 TD's and 1 interception. A good game, but not "great"... especially for Peyton Manning. Maybe I found this game to be somewhat boring because Baltimore did not do anything worth mentioning. It didn't feel like a playoff game by any means. Joseph Adai, Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark all had solid games. The defense was able to come up with a fumble, and even cause a fumble on a ball that would have been a Manning interception. The Colts had 22 first downs whereas the Ravens only had 12. To me, this is an important stat in any game. Glad Peyton Manning and the Colts won!

Dallas Cowboys 3 @ Minnesota Vikings 34:

Out of respect to those of you who read this and cheer for the Cowboys, and out of a desire to maintain some class, I will keep my insults and my jokes between my family and I. It is no secret that I am very glad the Cowboys lost today, but I must say, I was disappointed that this wasn't much of a game. Dallas was not able to make it into the inzone during the entire game, which is somewhat unheard of for them. Romo was sacked 6 times, threw 1 interception and lost 2 of his 3 fumbles. With stats like that, the defense would have really needed to step up to give their team a chance, but alas, Brett Favre played the way he has for so many years and pulled off a big win. Brett had 4 touchdown passes of the game (although, I don't think the last one was at all necessary*), completed 15/24 of his passes and threw for 234 yards. That is a good game. Adrian Peterson wasn't able to get much down on the ground, but I suppose it wasn't really needed this game. My only hope is that the New Orleans offensive line will be able to hold up against this Minnesota defensive line next week!

* I found the last touchdown to be unnecessary because the Vikings had clearly one the game. Also, the pass was made on 4th down. I just feel like it was adding insult to injury. With that said, I don't play football, so I don't know what goes through players heads. I would assume that most players wouldn't turn down a touchdown possibility, no matter the score. I would assume its almost second nature to just go for the score. I really don't know.

New York Jets 17 @ San Diego Chargers 14:

This game has been the game I have been the least interested in. However, I am still watching it (as we speak the game is on, so forgive me if my verb tenses change half through this). I have never been a San Diego fan, so I decided to go for the J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets. Haha. Anyway, I don't really know what it is about the Chargers, and I don't hate them, but I have never liked them. Plus, I am kind of pulling for Mark Sanchez, seeing as how is a rookie and leading the 5th seed through, and frankly he is pretty decent looking ;). The jets were the only road team this week to win! I think that is pretty cool. This too was somewhat of a slow game. It took a while for Sanchez to get into the game, and even then he wasn't outstanding. But, he played a solid game and did what he needed to so that his team won, and I suppose that is all that counts. The stats aren't great for either team, so I will skip over all of that. I am happy for the Jets and looking forward to seeing them play the Colts. I am hoping they can put up a fight next week... simply for something entertaining to watch.

Now, for a change of pace, onto the issue of hugging. As most of you know, I think it is fair to say that my love language is touch. It is just how I roll. I like to show affection and love through acts of touching. Whether this be a hug or a simple pat on the shoulder, I often use touch to express myself. I also respond well to physical touch. Some of you know this based on my insistence that you hug me. If I am happy, I want to hug you. If I am crying, I want to you to hug me (although I might try and initially act tough and push you away... don't buy it, it's just a defense mechanism). I am stressed out and talking a mile a minute trying to figure everything out, I want a hug. To me, hugs say "I am here for you" or "don't worry, everything will be ok" or "I have missed you/I am really happy to see you/I am sad to see you go" or simply "I love you." For me, hugs are appropriate in most situations. One of the loneliest things about being at obu, is the lack of hugs I receive. There are days when I think to myself "if only I could have a hug." I look forward to getting home for this reason (and many others). There are days I wind up in Sarah's office just so I can get a hug. It does wonders for my spirit. Some would say that because I hug so often, I don't value them. On the contrary, my friend. I value hugging more than most I would dare to say. Just because I give/receive them a lot does not devalue them for me. Hugs often say more to me than words. I find that when I can't find the words for someone else, a hug seems to do the job. I am not trying to convince all of you non-huggers to change your ways (because that would mean changing everyone I know), but I want you to understand where I am coming from. However, with all of this being said, I too have my limits. There are some people I do NOT want hugging me. Just from church today, I have a few names that come to mind. ;). The number one rule with hugging (one in which I try my hardest to always respect) is that you are only allowed to hug another person if they are willing to accept the hug. A hug is something that should be desired by BOTH parties involved, not just one. Forcing a hug onto someone is not cool. I am generally too polite to simply say no, or go in for a handshake instead, so I often end up in a rather unpleasant situation. I guess I should learn to be a little more standoff-ish with certain people. If you are reading this blog, chances are I look forward to hugs from you, so don't worry. Plus, I am somewhat ok with initiating them when I feel I need to. I like hugs. That won't change. But I do not like being backed into a corner, so to speak, and being forced to hug someone I don't really want to ;).

Never Say Never.

Ok, so I realized tonight, at about 11:45, that I lost the key to my grandmas house! I don't think anyone understands how devastating this is. I NEVER loose things... especially important things like house keys! Seriously. I have never lost a key before. I actually never loose anything. There are times I forget something when I head out of the house... but I always know exactly where it is. I am an organized person. I am neat. I do NOT loose things. Except now. Bah. I had to call my gma and wake her up so she could let me in. Now I also feel like a horrible person. :( She was very forgiving, but I feel so bad.

The most frustrating part is that I truly have NO idea how this happened. I have been retracing my steps since this weekend and at no point is it plausible that I would loose this key. It is attached to a key ring, that is attached to my wallet. Plus, the other two keys attached to said wallet are still there. What in the world?! Plus, I haven't even touched my wallet since Sunday... and I know I couldn't have lost it then because I used it to let myself in that night! But at no point on Monday or Tuesday did I come anywhere near my wallet. I haven't had a need. And wouldn't it be logical to assume that all 3 keys would be missing? Or that there would be some evidence of this occurring? But no, I have got nothing! Seriously... how does this happen?? And where are detectives Benson and Stabler when you need them ;). But seriously, this is no laughing matter. What if I lost it in public? Then some creep can have a key to my home. Absolutely terrifying. I realize that said person probably would have no idea what the key was to, but that is not the point.

I seriously doubt much sleep is in my future. I tend to be the kind of person that needs things resolved the moment after the go awry.

The weirdest part is that before I went out tonight I thought to myself "I should probably double check to make sure my key is on my wallet." Then I immediately thought to myself "Oh, there is no need for that. I NEVER loose things. Plus, there have been zero opportunities for my key to have been lost... stop being paranoid."

Never say never.

Good Stuff

"The distinguishing mark of saving faith is not perfection. The mark of faith is not that I never sin... The mark of faith is that I fight. I fight anything that dims my sight of Jesus as my glorious Savior. I fight anything that diminishes the fullness of the lordship of Jesus in my life. I fight anything that threatens to replace Jesus as the supreme Treasure of my life. Anything that stands between me and receiving Jesus faith fights—not with fists or knives or guns or bombs, but with the truth of Christ."- John Piper

Hello Houston

A few quick updates on the happenings since I have been home (to Houston):

1. Got in around 1:30 Wednesday. No flight complications. Perf.

2. On the way home from the airport, my gpa took me by chick-fil-a. It was so yummy.

3. I hung out with my gma for a while after I got home. We talked a bunch and just spent some quality time catching up.

4. Wednesday night was the CYS party. We played crack the case, which ended up being really fun. I got to hang out with LG and Danica, which of course was awesome, and see some others. Good night indeed.

5. Thursday, I went on a "date" with my gpa to see Avatar. It was an impressive movie, of course. I enjoyed it. I mean, it wasn't really my type of movie, but I could appreciate it. It was fun to hang out with my poppa.

6. Watched the UT game with my grandparents. My pop was pleased with the outcome, but I was not. However, there has been so much talk of this game already, so I won't make a discussion out of it. Although, I do love Colt!

7. Friday night I got to spend the night with Molly. Of course that was wonderful! It was so fun to just stay up late and catch up on everything. We certainly had plenty to talk about.

8. While at the Robert's home, I got to play Settlers of Catan (for the first time) with Molly, Andrew and Mr. Bill. I am chalking it up to beginners luck... but I won! :) Not going to lie... it felt good. I usually don't ever win at games. It was fun and I finally feel like I am in the loop having played now.

9. I got breakfast with my gramps this morning.

10. SVU marathon. Perf.

11. Celebrating Danica's bday tomorrow night (I think?). It should be fun to just laze around with her and LG.

12. HNW tomorrow for this first time since break! Victory.

13. I am not liking this cold weather. I am pretty used to it because it was significantly colder the whole time I was in Boston, but I am so ready for summer weather!

It is good to be back. :)

Tomorrow!

I leave Boston tomorrow morning.

I always have such mixed emotions.

I will probably get all chocked up at the airport (as usual), then land in Houston and see my gpa waiting for me and be filled with joy instantly. A rollercoaster day indeed.

I am looking forward to being back in the Lonestar state, but my dad will be missed! Living in two states is quite the adventure. ;)