Showing posts with label sunshine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sunshine. Show all posts

May 4, 2011

Sunshine

Yesterday was my birthday, for 22 years now I've been living on this earth. It's crazy to think that I'm getting that old...I know that I will never be any younger than I am today but I feel as if 22 is an age where you truly become a grown up. It's exciting, bittersweet, scary, and beautiful all at the same time.

It was a wonderful birthday full of friends, sunshine and love. I spend the majority of the day enjoying the sunshine on a hike with three of my closest friends here at Ship and laying on a beach of a lake not too far from school (the same place actually where Ethan and I got engaged a few months ago). They were calling for rain on Tuesday and miraculously it was warm and sunny all day! I loved it! We came back then and got ready for a dinner out- which was equally as good.





This past weekend I headed to Lancaster to hang out, celebrate my birthday with Ethan and (the real reason for being in Lancaster) to surprise my best friend Kari at her school's senior commissioning- and it was a success!

God has blessed me with so many wonderful people in my life, and I am not deserving of it in the least bit, but I'm so thankful for each and every person He's placed along my path :)

The past few days I've been thinking quite a bit how even though I'll be coming back in the fall I'm kind of closing the door or 'rounding' a corner in my college life, or I guess really with life in general. So many things are about to change: this summer I will be taking on a different role at the camp I've been working at the past few years and at the end of the summer, in the fall my sister will begin her first year of college and I'll be starting student teaching, beginning my job hunt and planning for my wedding. Today I completed my last final of my college career and my summer has begun. My roommates and best friend will be graduating this weekend and as everything shifts and changes I know that there is a constant. God is here, He always has been and He always will be. The same God who created the universe and holds it together is in control of my life even if the changes seem like madness He's got it.

A few days ago the director of the camp I work at emailed me the idea of being the camp's bible teacher this summer instead of taking on the role as the arts & crafts teacher. The idea scared me a little, the idea of leading chapel each week really, and so I spent a few days praying and trying to determine if this is what God had planned for me this summer. While trying to figure it out someone shared this passage with me:

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. - Philippians 4:12-13

Verse 13 is a familiar verse to most, but this really got me thinking that no matter what obstacle stands in my path, if Christ is my anchor, the one whom my identity and fully reliance is in- nothing is impossible. After I responded to the camp director that I knew it would be a stretching experience but I was willing to try it out I got a text from my friend saying that someone she knows was really interested in the job. It's interesting how God does things, I had come to a decision that I was going to trust Him in it and knew that He would give me all I needed for that job then in the end I won't be doing it after all. It was a lesson that He's more interested in the molding and teaching than in the outcome. So, this summer I will be teaching arts and crafts at camp and she will be doing bible. I'm pretty excited and content in the fact that God will use each person at camp this summer, regardless of our job descriptions, to spread His name, show His love, and bring Him glory and I will continue to trust that He'll be more than enough for me in whatever I'll be doing. I. can't. wait.

Welp, I think that's enough for today. Hope this post finds you in the middle of a beautiful week whether it's rainy or sunny, happy or sad we have Christ and in that we can rejoice and that is truly beautiful!

April 11, 2011

Warm Weather & Reminders

Today was beautiful. After a weekend of cold and rain today was beyond amazing. When I got home from Pre-K I decided to head to a park in town to read and journal (one of my favorite things to do on a beautiful day)! While there I got a call from one of my teammates from this past summer that I've been trying to get in contact with for a few weeks. It really made me miss the team, and reminded me of so much that happened this summer. It reminded me also that for as close as our team is, and for how rarely we talk now- we experienced something so unique this summer. We are a family, spread apart by many miles, each of us living very different lives but- we are unified in Christ. Whenever a phone call is made conversation picks up where it left off. I miss them very much tonight. We laughed on the phone reminiscing of the funny things that happened, and talked about some of the things that went unknown to us until we were back in the states. Then she said something a little more serious like "You know...I wish while we were there we wouldn't have complained as much as we did, I wish that we would have just looked at what was going on around us and took it in without hoping for anything more."

How true is that for everyday? We spend so much time hoping for the next thing. In Africa it was things like a shower, dreaming about what we would eat first when we got home, being excited to see our family and friends when we got home. I am not saying at all that in the moment I wasn't grateful for the experiences, because I really was, but I could have been more present in the moment. I think we all could be a little more present in the seasons we are currently in, in the moments that pass us by each day.

In church yesterday the pastor talked a little bit about how each day we spend a significant amount of time looking down on ourselves, or thinking that we're not getting what we deserve (there is a difference between humility and thinking poorly of ourselves). He talked about how these things can become idols, I had never really thought about it that way. When we complain about things and act as if we are entitled to something it kind of is like telling God that what He has for us isn't enough, like saying that we know better.

So this week I'm hoping to live with this new perspective. To be thankful and focused on who Christ is and all He's done. To not dwell on the things that aren't or on my desires but on what is.

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3:1-3