my life lately...

Since my last post:

• My belt is one notch tighter. That's two whole notches since before school started.My dad celebrated 55 years this last Tuesday. Happy birthday Poppa! I love you soooo very much!
• I studied madly for a midterm only to discover that it was being postponed for two weeks.
• I am taking on a new role here at Alaska Christian College. Every weekday at noon someone shares their story or testimony with the group and then we pray for that person. I decided that on the days that no one is signed up I want to share the world's "story," or current events to keep everyone current on what's happening outside our somewhat sheltered community. And what better way for me to feel like I am actively doing something about this world for which I am burdened than to increase awareness and then to pray? I do my first one this Tuesday. Pray for me.
• I was able to share my heart with a couple people who aren't believers this last week. Both are people that had previously told me that they didn't want to hear about my faith or beliefs. And both later came and asked me questions about it.
• I bought a purity ring for a girl here on campus and gathered her closest friends around and actually planned a ceremony for her when I gave it to her. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done in my entire life. Afterwards, we all layed hands on her and prayed for her and for her future husband and family.
• A week ago yesterday, I let someone I had been out with several times kiss me for the first time. On the beach. Under a clear sky full of a trillion stars and a visible Milky Way.
• I told the same man last Tuesday that I couldn't see him anymore. If I wouldn't want my best friend to date him, why would I date him? And he had completely led me to believe that he was someone that he's not. I hate it when they do that. Better now than later when I would have been more emotionally invested.I have doubted my own judgment. I thought I knew him well enough to know his character and then was completely horrified to discover what was underneath the biblical wisdom, the theological and intellectual conversations, and him making me feel like the only girl in the world. He was not at all the person I thought he was, and what does that say about my judgment of character? Were there other signs that should have clued me in? What if my, for lack of a better word, "bullshit detector" (sorry Poppa) is permanently faulty? Will I be able to get my money back?
• On the flip side of that though I have also recognized the growth in my life in this area. Five years ago, being the lost girl that I was, I would have put up with it and justified his actions. To realize that I am not her anymore, and, more importantly, that I am me and who I am is a fantastic and liberating feeling.
• I laughed until I had a headache last night with Aune and Louisa at Veronica's. They are both so very good for my soul. It had been so long since I had laughed that much. And today... my sides hurt.
• I have watched the entire first season of Lost on dvd and have started the second season.
• I have missed, and still miss, my best friend Nida so much that it aches. I haven't seen her since Christmas or talked to her for a month and even that was strained. I miss the relationship that we had when we lived close to each other. She now lives in New Orleans.
• I talked to my sister Lisa and my niece Anevay on the phone the other day. It only made me miss home even more, especially when Anevay told me that she loves me and misses me.
• I took a friend to the airport. He's left for Iraq for 18 months. Pray for Cameron.
• I painted nails and watched and enjoyed a Strawberry Shortcake movie and then a Barbie movie with my little friend Megan on Thursday night. In a way this helped me rediscover the little girl in me. Not only the little girl, but the "girly-girl," the very feminine girl who is begging for the world to notice her and tell her that she's captivating.
• I walked down to the river yesterday with a friend from whom I had been feeling somewhat disconnected. We had real conversation and I discovered some things about her that I hadn't known before. It reinforced for me how much we all need prayer and to feel loved and like we belong.

I could go on and on but these are just a few morsels, only a taste, of my life recently. Most of them are wrapped up in who I am in Christ and speak about where I am on this great big journey.