So this is the new year.

But unlike the Death Cab for Cutie song, I feel pretty different. I've learned more about myself and others - especially God - and there's so much that's been going on lately that I can't feel the same for that would be stagnant. But in some respects I am still very much the same. I'm still struggling to decide on what I will major/minor in (as a junior); I still see the world through the lens of a camera; I still can't ask questions, and the list goes on and on. But it's been an interesting process, this clash of life. To be in a completely (for the most part) new place but still the same person. To know that I can't cop out because I have a responsibility and a duty to stay true to.

Well, the first week of classes has come and passed, welcome week festivities are over, we had our first 60 degree day in DC (woo!) but things are definitely not slowing down. They're flourishing all over the place and it's so exciting! After waiting a long and tedious summer for this fall semester I am so happy that it's finally here but more than the excitement of every freshman on AU's campus combined, I am so beyond words with how God's been answering our prayers. Our first TNW of the year came with a full house. Tons of freshmen have gotten quickly involved with Chi Alpha (our campus ministry) and I'm making new friends right and left.

I am also a small group leader this semester. My co-leader and I are leading a study on women's identity in Christ. We both believe there's a lot that needs to be said and tackled in that and it's admittedly scary taking a topical study approach and not having a cut and dry chapter by chapter book study to go off of, but there's adventure in that and well, we're both pretty adventurous people. I am going to try to blog every week before/after our meetings. Don't hold me to it, though, but I really do want to try to commit myself to that because I want to make our discussions and findings available to others since I know that a lot of women's issues (especially Christian women) need to be brought up to the community's attention. That being said, I will never ever label myself as a feminist so I'm finding this all to be very interesting. We would appreciate it if you would pray for our group, btw. We meet Tuesday evenings at 8pm (and if anyone reading would like to join - feel free!)

So these are the two major things I wanted to talk about. This fall is like a sunrise to me. It was a long and hard summer filled with more patches of darkness and confusion than I expected, but like any good long winter night it is followed by a stunning display of colour and brightness as the sun surely rises again. Be brave little champion.

A jealousy for not of.

I don't really know if I've ever been the one to accept the metaphorical baton in life, I feel like I've always been the one to pass it on again. So here I am stateside while a good portion of my friends are abroad. I was used to being a spectator on many of their relationships with others, listening to the frustrations and the hopes they have for their friends but not ever going past that because there was never a need to. Now they're abroad and I'm the one behind and I have to ask myself if I'm going to accept the baton they've - possibly unknowingly - passed on to me. For any of you reading, I want you to know that I am accepting this challenge. We are in this together and this is not just one man's fight. When one falls back, another steps forward. If one leaves, another takes his place. I am developing a jealousy for the potential of people I never envisioned myself having an unforced one-on-one conversation with and it's strangely empowering. Jesus built up his disciples to be fishers of men, he left us here on Earth that we may spread his truth and love. This is not just our dream by chance, it has been intertwined in our very hearts. This is who we are and what we do. We are to worship the one true God and to spread his love - the very definition he uses to describe himself. It is so wonderfully simple and yet so, so important.

So I want to leave off with that reminder, mainly because it's nearly 2:30 AM and I'd rather not try to continue to develop my thoughts but I appreciate any kind of feedback, I'd love to discuss this further. Have a good time of day, all - wherever you may be.

Thoughts of an almost-legal adult:

At twenty-one years of age, I know what it means to be loved.

I know what it means to come home to a family,

and I know what it means to leave.

I know what it means to be a frequent flyer

but I have no backyard tree to come home to,

no tire swing in the garden,

no wall with my height annually marked.

I know what it means to pay my own rent,

I know what it means to upkeep an apartment,

but I don't understand just barely getting by

because I know what it means to have a safety net at all times.

I know how to order textbooks,

but I've yet to learn to sell them back again.

I know what it means to care about a grade

but I don't know what it means to not have an education.

I don't know how to count my blessings,

but I do know how to take things for granted.

At twenty-one years of age, I know how to make friends,

but I'm learning how to keep them.

I don't know what relationships look like,

but my childhood friends are finding spouses.

I don't know what it means to be desperate,

I don't know how to ask for help,

I don't know what it means to be broken and on my knees,

but I'm learning. Oh, how I'm learning.

At twenty-one years of age, I can't identify with the loss others unjustly experience,

but I know how to listen and I know how to care.

Yet I don't know how to talk, and I can't look inside.

I know how to follow and I know how to lead,

I know how to give up and I know how to leave.

What I'm learning most now is how to stay put

and how to stay grounded no matter how long;

to keep my heels dug in the mud and not to let up

even when it goes against my self-preservation methods.

A summer of change, a summer of growth.

My apartment has become my home.

Although the things I've collected since I was a child are currently in Dubai, I hardly have any memories in that house. The city holds no more for me either and I can't remember the person who once used to sit on her chest of drawers looking across the sand lots to the busy Sheikh Zayed Road - pre-metrorail - where the Emirates Towers stood tallest in the skyline. I have grown so much since then yet that girl is still in me. Somewhere.

My family will be officially renting the home we have in Virginia for at least the next year. This means everything must go. While we only spent a few summers in that house and didn't really invest in fixing it up and making it truly ours yet, I have gotten used to its familiarity and it was a comfort to know that it was there even while my family themselves were so far away. Now, I'll know it's there, but being lived in by someone else. The house will be empty to me.

So, my apartment has become my home. Now, I come home to the district after weekends spent gallivanting in New York City - which will be forever magical and an odd sort of solace to me - and retracing steps that my friends have taken away from their own homes.

This summer has held a lot of firsts for me. My first trips to different cities along the eastern coast; attending my first friend's wedding; my first time spending a summer away from my family and coincidentally my first summer with a place to keep coming home to. For all the pain and confusion this summer has brought me, I am ultimately grateful for it. As I can't recognize that girl from the make-shift window sill in Dubai, it's even hard to recognize the person who packed up 615 and moved into 202 only a few months ago.

The beauty of sound

In the 1970s, a Frenchman named Claude Lelouch made a short film called C'etait un Rendez-vous (It was a Date). He made it by strapping his camera to the bottom of his car and driving around the early morning streets of Paris. The film was shot in one take and is just under 10 minutes because that's all that his camera could hold. A few years back, Lelouch allowed the band Snow Patrol to use some of the footage from this film for a music video for their song, Open Your Eyes (off the album Eyes Open). I didn't realize that the footage was from a short film, I just thought it was stock from somewhere random but I just watched C'etait un Rendez-vous today and was struck by how essential a soundtrack really is to a movie. It changes your mood completely. In C'etait un Rendez-vous, the only sound you hear is whatever sound the car makes (and it's quite loud). You feel more stress than you do the calm of an early morning drive, which leads you to think that this driver must be very anxious to get to the person he's about to meet up with. In the video for Open Your Eyes, the nature of the song makes you feel something more of a longing to be with the person at the end of the film, something more dormant than a high-speed car chase through old Parisien streets. Anyways, I found it very interesting so I'd like to share that with you all. I've posted the links to both of the films below so you can experience the difference for yourself and let me know what you

A bientôt!

•C'etait un Rendez-vous

•Open Your Eyes

All this weird beauty thrown right at me

I keep hoping towards some end result that might not even be the right one so I forget the process. I see my current circumstances as means to an end instead of something I should be truly enjoying. I feel like I am entitled to more, yet I am not. I don't even deserve what I have now. Yet God is so good and so graceful. God's goodness is an overflowing fountain. With coke, not water. With manzanita sol and everything better. I am so quick to ask for more and so slow to be thankful for - and even to recognize - what I have already been given. I shouldn't try to commandeer the story God is writing for me, but I should learn to steer and learn to see and learn to thank him for everything He's given me now.

So this is me letting go and letting God. This is me moving on.

This is me with so much more peace than I've experience all year, to be able to look up and say "We have progress," instead of "Houston, we have a problem."

If you could see me, whoever I am.

This is me saying there is no excuse to not live to my fullest extent. I will worship while I'm waiting. Even while I'm waiting, there are still praises to be sung.

Life is truly a series of journeys. We never stop moving, we never stop searching. The moment we stop is the moment we've given up and the moment we've given up is the moment we die. Unless we vow to shut ourselves up in a closet for the rest of our lives, we have a new experience every single day. And even still, some children found a whole other world by walking through a closet once upon a time.

So here's to standing up and looking around. To really taking in the world around me, to seeing the beauty of life that has been placed in front of me. No more ignoring, no more passivity. I'll know my name as it's called again.

Five days without Facebook

I haven't been on Facebook since Wednesday afternoon, and to be honest I don't really feel the need to sign back on (but I will). I had a lot of homework to catch up on for Wednesday and Thursday because I didn't do any during the holiday (go figure) - not only that, but I had some stuff I really needed to work through with God that I'd been ignoring (not recommended). So, as I signed off before class I told God that I would not log back on until after the weekend. I think I meant it as a joke when I first said it, but as the days went on I found out it was really what I needed.

What I re-realized this weekend is something that really hit me during women's retreat this past semester - how much we need these quiet moments with God. I think I can push things away and hide it under the rug. If only I ignore my problem, my frustration, or my thought for long enough it will go away. But it never works. I'm finding it better - better, not easier - to face these things when they happen. I don't have to shout it to the world, but I need to acknowledge my feelings of frustration or pain when they happen. To allow myself to feel them and to be able to move on instead of bottling up emotions to the point when they'll burst out unceremoniously from within me.

This week's Bible study topic was God's sovereignty and I found myself very aware that I have not been trusting God in my life. So I gave up a top excuse for not turning to Him in order to force myself to. I am horrible with confrontations, and it seems silly that that would carry through to confronting things in prayer - but my lack of tact in that area just seems to heighten when it comes to God. Silly, I know, since He already knows whatever I'll tell Him but difficult all the same. So, honestly, I didn't come to him until this afternoon. But God is patient. Anyways, all this to say that I'm turning things around. I needed this time to be able to shift my focus back to where it should be. I ask God time and time again to show me the plan for my life and to reveal dreams to me, etc. etc. but I ignore what He has equipped me with in the present.

I read this quote on a friend's Facebook status a few weeks ago and held onto it because I knew I would need to hear it again:

"Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next."

-Elisabeth Elliot, Quest for Love: True Stories of Passion & Purity

It convicted me then and it convicts me now. Why do I set my sights so desperately upon the future if I ignore what is put in front of me right now? How do I think that will work? If I try to study for a test two weeks away without learning the things in the lesson for today, how can I except to succeed? I try to hold onto the dreams and plans I lay out for myself but I ignore what I've already been told I'm good at.

"In his heart, a man plans his ways

but the Lord determines his steps."

-proverbs 16:9

I guess the big point that I'm trying to get across is personal retreats. We usually realize we need some extended quiet time when we've already reached our limit of stress, but I want to challenge you (and myself) to plan ahead. I have this book called Secrets of the Secret Place by Bob Sorge which is filled with different "secrets" which are, as the front cover describes, "keys to igniting your personal time with God". I find it no coincidence that the chapter I read before going to sleep was The Secret of Time which led right into this morning's The Secret of Retreats. Sorge encourages us to take three day or more personal retreats and while I know there is value in that we also need to institute more regular times into our schedules. Whether it be staying off Facebook on certain days of the week, or establishing a daily hour with God - however it manifests itself, we need these intentional times away from what distracts us so easily from who we really need to be with.

So this is my challenge to you for this week - that you cut something out, or sacrifice otherwise idle time to just spend time with God. You know there's things you've gotta figure out and relinquish your hold on. So stop sitting around and thinking about how you want to talk about it, and just do it.