live your life for those that you love

And now I'm sunny with a High of 75
Since You took my heavy heart
And made it light
And its funny how you find
You enjoy your life
When you're happy to be alive

never a dull moment... wow, that's all i have to say about the past few days. between school work, school not-work, church here, church not-here (what's left of it... ::sigh::), ...people... on so many different levels..., a semi (ha!) rigorous training schedule, work work (mmm... i heart GRASS... and meetings... and paperwork... or not...) and seeking wisdom for the future (and trying not to get blind-sided by it... woah), well, i'm borderline overwhelmed, but not really... it's kind of blending together, just a big blur. some of it is exciting, some of it i'm trying to hide my excitement about, some of it is just plain scary, and most of it completely confusing. such is life. that's why i have God in charge of mine... no way i could do this on my own!

haha, you guessed it... putting off work (why else would i update?!)

randomness... i love how when you look at people here (particularly people who are natives), they always make eye contact, smile, and say hello. friendly strangers... wow!

oh, and i love endless possibilities, even if they are kinda keeping my head spinning right now... it's a good kind of overwhelmed!

off to the never-ending world of email correspondence... bleh :-P

oh wow, so the past couple o' days, eh, maybe the past couple o' weeks... who am i kidding?! the past few months have been the biggest growing experience of my life. i don't have much time to write now, but let me just say that if you haven't surrendered your life to Christ, and i mean really surrendered, you're missing out. i thought i had given it all away before, but i didn't understand fully what that meant. it means not worrying about tomorrow. it means not making plans. it means trusting, obeying, submitting. and that's all great to say, but to put it into practice has taken me up until this point to at least realize i don't fully get it, and i am confident that i will have to spend the rest of my life seeking this, daily laying my life at His feet. in a sense, by not getting it, i actually get it. all that has happened, all that i have struggled with and through has led me to this point of complete abandon to my Savior. i am filled with peace, but i can't lie- parts of me are scared. maybe an excited kind of scared though.

how many of us really believe that God has big plans for our lives? we say it all of the time. "oh, i'm so sorry you're going through this, but God has amazing plans for your life." i'm ashamed to say it, but such a true statement does not always give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. but i think i'm coming to believe that this invisible box, this cage of mediocrity is actually something that i can, will, and am in the process of breaking free of, literally fleeing from. the path i always envisioned myself walking down is just that- something i envisioned. and after all of the pain and heartache of growth, He has chosen to reveal a small piece of my new path, the path He has chosen for me. to put it mildly, i'm beyond excited!

it's amazing to me how everything is starting to make sense. "God, i know You have a purpose in all of this, but i just don't understand! i don't know." those of you who have talked to me at all in the past six months know that "i don't know" has become my answer to everything. well, now i know, at least part of the story, but i like surprises, and with this path, i think i'm going to have to get used to surprises.

so i'm a little frustrated right now, and i guess that's ok, just kind of hoping this doesn't reach that "explain yourself" point... seems inevitable, and i don't know how i feel about that...

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
-Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

well, other than being in the most awkward situation of my life, things have been good. taking this brief moment to come up for air before burying my brain in the depths of ornithology (and the 1000+ page book we're apparently going to cover in one semester... suddenly, birds are only good for eatin). looking forward to a not-work Friday night followed by a weekend of trying to get caught up and ahead in everything since the next weekend is GRASS, and that will basically take up all of my time and make me want to tie heavy rocks to my feet and jump into lake sinclair. life is good though, really, it is. God is providing, and sending me, well, i don't know where, but for once, i'm ok with this lack-of-visible-path situation going on. perhaps i am too distracted by other things to even notice. i smell coffee... mmm, coffee... that sounds lovely

was this a test? because i think i passed with flying colors.

unbelievable.

what kind of stupid do you think I am?! haha, it's actually kinda funny to know that someone is gonna lie to you and just try to catch them in it... sick mind games, I know :-P "I move forward"

anyways, school is crazy, already. um, probably three of my profs have started out class with informing us that the university just doesn't know why this class is so hard that half the class drops and those who are left do pretty miserably or "if you don't keep up, you will fail" or "some of you are in here for the third or fourth time..." nice... that's alright, actually motivated- ready to be done and move on to the next thing, ya know? not sure what that is yet, but whatever it is, I'm ready for it!

gotta run... I love night classes, they're my favorite right up there with, um, not gonna go there... ;-)