.peace.

So...I said I wouldn't start the whole obsessive computer/blog/Facebook thing again until my grades are better. They are in the process of getting better, but I just had to post about my weekend. Honestly, last week was probably the lowest of lows I've had in a long time. Basically, I went to class all day and then came home and studied all night until bed. Being surrounded by 51 other people going through the same stuff didn't make things any easier. By the time we reached Thursday (4 tests on one day), someone cried in every class we had. Woohoo for being in a class that's 90% female. ;) Regardless, by the time that day and week was over, all I needed was a sense of peace. I found that in two amazing places. Number one: in the Word. Although that seems obvious, it is SO easy for me to overlook that and turn to people and worldly things when my world comes crashing down. Honestly, there isn't a way I could have done this week without trusting in Him and staying focused on the Word. Number two: BW. It blows my mind to know that I barely knew this place a year ago. Even went I went for my interview over a year ago, I could feel "the magic of the woods" and see the beauty of His work. Thinking about going to camp was about the only thing getting me through my week. Since going home isn't really an option for my weekends, going to my summer home with my "camp family" is just as good. Being able to spend ~42 hours with some wonderful people was exactly what I needed.

I spent my weekend with 17 adults with cerebral palsy and a dozen staff members...in a BEAUTIFUL house. The Manor is nearly 100 years old and it's decorated BEAUTIFULLY and authentic to the time period inside. Being in there in one building all weekend with awesome people and some of my closest camp friends was AMAZING. What a cool cool thing to be sitting around a HUGE 20+ person dining room table with more than half of the people in wheelchairs. Just being able to look at all of the faces down the kitchen table and realize how blessed I am to be a part of something so great...that puts things into perspective. Granted, I probably spent close to 6 hours in the bathroom over the weekend, woke up multiple times every night to attend to campers' needs, my back is currently killing me from so many transfers, and I had two roommates who were moderate to maximum assist with just about every activity imaginable, I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. To be honest, I'm sure we looked crazy with people in wheelchairs outnumbering people walking around the building, but it was just SO incredibly fun. I absolutely loved spending time with my roommates for the weekend and quite frankly, it was so humbling to be able to serve them in every way, whether is was transferring them to their wheelchairs or helping with arts and crafts.

Basically what it comes down to is that I am SO thankful that God has given me a tangible way to find peace, happiness, and experience something as wonderful as BW. Striving ways to find peace are incredibly difficult in our busy-body society and I couldn't imagine how I could persevere through any struggles without the Word. And although I'm not extremely happy where I right now in life, I am thankful that God has given me encouragement through the Word and a place to consistently experience joy in my life.

.crumble.

Side note: I'm not a pity party sort of a person, but here is some major venting. Thought I should let you all know before you continue reading.

Ya know when your cookie crumbles into a million little pieces, and you're sad that you can't have it back? That is where I am. Broken and feeling like I'm drowning in a sea of stress/homework/struggles/projects.
Never have I ever felt like this before. Feeling rested and optimistic is a thing of the past and I don't know how things got to be this way. For the first time in my life, I am BEYOND struggling with academics-- it seems like I am understanding the concepts, but when it comes time to step up and take a quiz/test, I fall apart. Even when I am the slightest bit optimistic, everything seems to fall apart right in front of me. I don't know what to do and I want the "old me" back. Pronto. I'm praying that I will feel rejuvenated after a trip to camp this weekend--a place full of the BEST memories, although I'm afraid it will just put me further behind in my classes.

This is my final post until things start turning around; I'm going to try to use the Facebook/computer less until I can get things in gear.

.redefine.

With Valentines Day 2010, I would like to redefine the significance and change the cynical feelings I have towards this holiday. Honestly, it started off with a struggle. I found out that my "HS sweetheart" got engaged to a girl he's been dating 4 months...I know I am over him and that whole situation, but it still just feels SO weird. Just knowing that my first boyfriend, my first kiss, the only person I ever have seriously dated is getting married. It's hard to explain...I suppose I only feel this way because there was never any closure on the way things went down. It's just a mixture of shock/surprise/upset/weird....

Regardless, upon finding out this knowledge yesterday morning, I was able to turn to the EXACT same four people that I turned to four years ago when he dumped me, which leads me to my new definition of Valentine's Day. Being able to rely on the same handful of friends four years later--WHAT A BLESSING! They knew how torn down I was four years ago, and they were such encouraging to me yesterday, reminding me that the Lord has something so much better for me!
I know that Hallmark emphasizes Valentine's Day as a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife thing, but why not change this idea as a "Thank you for being a great friend and I really appreciate our friendship" day. I suppose since I haven't ever really had a true Valentine's Day "date", I can only appreciate this day as a day of thankfulness for true friends. On that note, I have to throw in Eccclesiastes 4:9-10: Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

How cool is it that God has created us to be relational beings, not ONLY in the realm of dating/marriage? I feel that in especially in the last two years (and even more since camp) I have learned to thrive on intentional friendships with all sorts of people. Yesterday I spent Valentine's evening with the "single people" from our group of church friends. Let me tell you...what a blessing to be single! What a great group of single guys and girls waiting patiently on the Lord to put the "right one" in their life. Honestly, being in that group made me thankful to be single. How empowering it is to be with other single people who are all waiting patiently for a great guy/girl and NOT settling for anything less! Very encouraging to say the least :) So I suppose that the conclusion of Valentine's Day 2010 is that regardless of my relationship status, I think I will now use Valentines Day as an excuse to tell those around me, how much they truly mean to me; I know I wouldn't be the same without their support! <3

.four years.

I don't know that I could have asked for spending my Valentines Day weekend with better people. I mean...ideally I would like to spend every weekend with all of my friends, near and far, but that would be highly impractical. But given the practical circumstances of the situation, I had a good weekend. I got to have my second annual Valentine's Day dinner date with a best friend from HS. I spent the rest of the weekend with my family. We were talking about the next time the four of us would be together and we concluded that it would probably be my graduation in May. With a combination of talking about how fast the last 4 years have gone since my HS graduation and spending the evening with a best friend, I have randomly been thinking a lot about how INCREDIBLY different my life is than the way I had "planned" it out, as a senior in HS.

February 14, 2006 seems so long ago. My main focus was all things swimming. I was ridiculously focused on getting the perfect splits and consumed in the whole sport. However, I don't regret all that time spent in the water/at the gym/etc. It was well worth breaking a record, swimming the fastest I ever have, and being able to experience the thrill of the State meet for a final time. When I wasn't thinking about swimming, I spent my free time attending Board of Education meetings and skipping out on English class to work on our beloved student council project. However, probably the most important thing to me at the time, was my "HS sweetheart". Little did I know that just a week after Valentine's Day, he would break my heart. My life changed a LOT after that 2+ year relationship was over. From that breakup, my college plans changed and I felt my world come crashing down.

But what a cool, cool God we serve. I never in a million years could have planned out how awesomely I have grown since then. I've become incredibly independent (maybe too much). I lead a Bible study. I moved to a place where I knew NO ONE last summer. I have been blessed to meet and work with a group of incredible individuals with a whole array of physical disabilities and illnesses. There's no way I even would have even thought about doing any of these things four years ago.

Basically, I guess what I'm saying here is that even when I think I know what's best for me, I'm so wrong. Even when I can't understand why He does what He does, there's no way that I know what's best for me. As much of my future will be determined in the next 2 months (and as incredibly scared as I am about it all), I know that He is strong and He will bring me through all the storms...even when I can't understand what He's doing.

.bodies.

So just about 1 1/2 hours after my last post (which was already late!) I got a phone call. It was a good guy friend and he needed me to come downtown with him and pick up his roommate from the bars. He was going to drive his roommate's car home and he wanted me to drive his back to our apartment complex. UGH! Definitely not how I intended on spending the wee hours of my Friday morning. Regardless, I did it. I'm ridiculously tired today, but our friend made it home in one piece---barely. Seeing his beyond drunken state last night was TERRIBLE. He barely made it up stairs, couldn't sit in a chair to drink water, and basically passed out at the kitchen table. WHYYYYY?!

I suppose the more I learn about how intricately designed our bodies are, the more glory I want to give the Creator because it absolutely BLOWS my mind. I can't even begin to comprehend how complex He created every one of our bodies. Just trying to learn all of the parts of the body is hard enough...let alone how the function, move, and repair themselves. From an OT standpoint, we have been looking a lot at neuromuscular and sensorimotor dysfunctions in class this semester. WHOOOOOA. If the SLIGHTEST thing is wrong with the system, there are SOOO many challenges that can result. To know that there are so many millions of people living in the world without serious flaws to the system, just BLOWS my mind. The absolute complexity and intricacy of the brain and every nerve makes me love and appreciate the wonder of our Creator greater than ever before.

Back to the story, I can't imagine why people want to compromise the state of the perfectly functioning bodies that He has given us. Seeing our friend so under the influence that he couldn't control his cognition and motor behaviors is just SAD! How can losing control of such an intricately functioning body be fulfilling?! Looking back on last night, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 sticks out in my mind.

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

I suppose I just don't understand the phenomena of people drinking themselves senseless. HOW could this EVER be honor God with the bodies he has given us?! Hmm....this is just a thought as my sleep cycle was disrupted by one who chose to do that.

.rollercoasters.

Don't get me wrong. I love rollercoasters; HOWEVER, when my week looks like a rollercoaster, I can't say that I'm a fan. The craziness of the last week can be seen in a) my lack of posts and b) my lack of Facebook activity the past week. And then came Wednesday. Things came to a crashing halt and I needed to re-evaluate things.

So...after 9 straight hours of class I get home to find our latest quiz grades posted for biomechanics. I failed. For the first time in my entire life, I failed a test.....which led to an immediate burst of tears and a phone call to my mom. Not to boast, but for a kid who has a cumulative college GPA of 3.954, failing a test felt like the worst thing that could be happening to me. Especially my first test in the class for the semester. WHY ME?! I thought I knew the material--I studied for that test!! On top of that, I spent my evening in my professor's office, on the phone with my mom, AND spending an hour trying to push my roommate's car out of her ice-covered parking spot. UGH! Needless to say, I was NOT in the mood for bible study after my day. But what a terrible way to think about things....I know I honestly didn't want to be there as I was SO FOCUSED on me! As if the world only revolved around me and my stupid mistakes. I DEFINITELY needed a change of heart.

So bible study came and went. I definitely had a hard time leading our group. We watched Rob Bell's Nooma video 'Flame' which focuses on the concept of the complexity of love. UGH! I haven't EVER been a fan of Valentine's Day and having to lead a relationship-based discussion just days before the Hallmark holiday was NOT my cup o' tea. Regardless, the study ended and really the only happy thing I got out of that conversation was talking about God's use of tangible signs to show us His love on Earth. Little did I realize that this was all I needed to hear to pull a 180 within an 18 hour time span.

I got home from school today and there was an envelope for me from a dear friend from camp. The irony of this situation is that I had sent her a letter postmarked THE EXACT same day that she had sent mine; AND we had NEVER communicated through snail mail (with the exception of me sending her a birthday card!!). Needless to say, when we figured out that we mailed each other something on the exact same day, with eerily similar messages on our cards, there was a LOT of excitement. Best of all, she included her favorite Bible verse which was EXACTLY EXACTLY what I needed to hear today.

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." -2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Good stuff. Basically, in the last 24 hours I have felt a vast change in heart. It's not all about me, my mistakes, my misery....no way! There are things way bigger than one test grade. There is something much more important than the silly tangible things that I (we) get caught up in during our everyday lives. Leaning on Him and His word during these times is only strengthening my faith in Him to achieve an ETERNAL glory that FAR OUTWEIGHS any silly thing on Earth. And that is a comforting thought. <3

.challenge day.

I'm so proud of myself as I am making my first post with a picture...maybe technology and I will become friends someday. :)

This just happens to be one of my most favorite pictures from the summer, and I think it summarizes "The Magic of the Woods" for those who haven't been to Bradford Woods. Regardless, this picture was taken on the first Challenge Day of the summer. Basically what that means is that the kids can pick whatever challenges they want and staff helps they accomplish what they want. It's SUCH an awesome awesome day and definitely one of my favorite memories from every camp session! For this challenge, we had a 12 year old girl who doesn't walk at all, and she walked over 400 feet for one of her challenges!!! There was about 5 staff with her and we rotated out who would hold her up and who would move her feet. Such an awesome awesome memory....I get chills just thinking about that walk! Regardless, I saw this picture on my screen saver today and I thought it would make a good post.
In this picture I see my walk with Christ. There I am, unable to walk, function, or do ANYTHING on my own but He has my back....literally. He is the one thing that I hold on to in the craziest of moments and NO MATTER WHAT, He's always holding me up! Then there are the people helping me move forward, step by step, through everything in life. I am blessed to have a wonderful group of people surrounding me that help me make progress through this crazy life! I would not make it without them. Even in the hardest of times, the Lord will carry us through. He guarantees that He will give rest to the weary-hearted.....even we think we can't make it any longer, He will carry us through whatever mess we have gotten ourselves into.

Matthew 11:28-30........"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

.child.

First and foremost, to those "following" my blog, I was SOOOOOO excited that I had 3 comments on a single post. :) That made me smile....almost as much as the following event.

So...first of all, I am one of the youngest people in my OT class. I'm 22, still working towards my B.S. degree, yet everyday I am surrounded by people in their mid-late 20's and even into their early 30's. On top of that, I have a child-like heart and nothing is really going to change that. One of the highlights of my week would be when the oldest person in our class (she's 33, and one of my favorite people in the program) saw me eating my lunch. She seemed to got a huge laugh out of my seemingly normal lunch. I had a peanut butter sandwich, applesauce cup, fruit snacks, and a Capri Sun. She was making fun of me for being 10+ years younger than her and she just thought that I was so funny for having a "little kid" lunch. Then another friend added to the fact that I reminded her of 5 year old children with my absolute silliness and dumb jokes.

After going grocery shopping today and purchasing Toy Story fruit snacks, I kinda realized what a child I am at heart. Honestly, I suppose I could be upset that others view me as a funny, child-like 20-something...but I don't! :) I'm quite happy with the way I am and I wouldn't change anything about it. After randomly thinking about my child-like qualities, I looked up these verses and they make me quite happy. :) The humility and happiness of a child is quite contagious and I think that my personality has influenced my passion for children.

Matthew 18:3-4.........and he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Although I like the reference to children here, the title of the section strikes me most. The Message calls this section "Whoever Becomes Simple Again". Being humble, simple, and joyful is generally easy for me, because it's just the way I am, but I see so often that it is VERY difficult for people in our society today. Our world is very much caught up in the materialistic aspect of "who has the best ____", etc, etc. Simple and humble might not be the most exciting way to live, but if it is what He is calling us to do, I believe He is challenging us ALL to become more like children...to an extent.

So here I am....22 years old...but apparently to some, I may be 5. :)

.rice-a-roni.

I hate to complain or seem like a downer, but I detest Wednesdays. I wonder what was going on in the heads of the School of OT staff when they decided to schedule classes from 8-5 with NO breaks. My "lunch break" of the day (after 4 hours of straight lecture, and before 4 hours of lab) consists of my research class where we're currently working on writing out proposal for our thesis project...aka NOT a break. Needless to say, I walked in the door to my apartment at 4:51 and started getting dinner ready because that was a LOOOOOONG day. I made chicken nuggets and rice-a-roni. I'm sure anyone out there reading this isn't seeing the point. So...Rice-A-Roni is pretty cool stuff....you just add water, seasoning and butter to some rice and then it somehow comes together and is tastes yummy. And I feel like Rice-A-Roni would kinda describe my life in the last year.
While I was sitting in my last lab of the afternoon and petting the therapy dog that was in our class, I came to this realization. What a cool path God has lead me on in the last year. Reflecting on everything that has happened, so many events have been mixed and blended and somehow they all have meshed together and here I am. I have NO clue how everything has mixed together and I made it to this point, but I'd say I'm pretty happy (despite how much I complain about Wednesdays). I have great friends in Indy, Findlay, and all sorts of other places. I love my church and bible studies. I have been blessed with one job that I ABSOLUTELY love and another two that are great (but really..nothing compares to camp!). The coolest of all is that for the first time in college, I actually care about what I'm learning in class. Sitting in class today I was SO excited about my future. It's just SO cool to me to start learning the physical/neurological science behind so many "disabilities" that my friends/campers have! Being able to know what is REALLY going on from different disorders is just SO interesting to me and I LOOOOOOVE being able to relate to different conditions because I have worked with people with a lot of the conditions that we've studied so far. I thank God for making me so passionate about something that I get to spend the rest of my life doing!!! :) I have 31 weeks of class in the next 14 months and I can't wait to see what paths He leads me down in the next chapter of my life!

.retainers.

On a very unrelated pre-post note...I am sitting here on the living room floor, eating applesauce and Easy Mac. Twelve hours ago I sat in this exact same spot for two hours playing the new Mario Brothers Wii game with my roommates. I think that OT school is causing me to regress into child-like behaviors from the past....hmm...just a random thought.

Carrying on, the actual thought for this post came about last night, while I was laying in bed. As previously mentioned, I spent the last week being sick, which turned out being not-so-bad after all. Regardless, when I'm sick I don't wear my retainers. I just don't like putting those germy things in my mouth and getting sick germs all over them, so I guess there is a small bonus in being sick (who REALLY wants to wear their retainers anymore?!). This being said, I normally wear my retainers every night. After starting the orthodontics process at age 6, having oral surgery, and going 6+ years with braces, I feel that wearing my retainers is a good thing to prevent me from ever going back to that disaster. But going 5 nights without wearing my retainers....OUCH! That was no fun, and needless to say I didn't sleep especially well last night.

Here's the connection. This comes partially from the lesson we did on Wednesday night, but it has stuck with me since then. Hebrews 12:7-11 discusses God's discipline for his sons. It's talking about how it is crucial that God does this in order that we may share in his holiness and produce a harvest of righteousness. Verse 11 is probably my favorite in the fact that is bluntly says, "No discipline is pleasant at the time, but painful." HOW AWESOME is it that The Word boldly just says that life following Christ will not be easy and it's MEANT to be hard, but IT IS WORTH IT. School has been heavily weighing down on me/my emotions this semester, and it's been a challenge to keep things in perspective....BUT how good is it to know that He flat out says that for those who are trained by this discipline will receive righteousness. But for those who don't submit to God's discipline are not true sons of His. He knows what is best for us, no matter what stuff He takes us through.
So...wearing my retainer after not wearing it for a week just plain hurts. Wearing it every night is LESS than appealing (or attractive), but ITS WORTH IT. God got me through the years of x-rays, rubber bands, face gear, chains, and surgery and has given me a happy smile....and yes, I do plan on wearing my retainers for a loooooong timee :)