Change

It's the end of the school year and in six days, I will be moving back home for the summer, so I guess it makes sense that change would be on the brain.  I am a person who loves being where she is when she is, and I love change. I love a change of scenery - I won't stay in the same building for longer than two hours in a day unless I am sleeping. I love a change of pace - mostly, I like going to places with a slow pace because everything at the university is fast-paced to me.  I love a change of decoration - rearranging my room as often as I can, if I can. And if I can't? Then I throw things out and move the remaining stuff around into a new pattern. I think that part of the reason I love change is because I trust God to keep providing me with the things I need. He is this great conductor who orchestrates everyone around one another keeping perfect time.  But another reason is that up until now, even in change there has been certainty. Leaving high school was a "change" but college was the stable next step.  Likewise, in all other changes, there was a sure next step. As I wrap up the end of my second year of college, I am realizing that I have two years to decide my own next step. I already know a number of things that will change between this year and next, and I have a number of things that I am pretty certain will change, and now I don't know what the next step will be. Perhaps a more logical word word for today would have been "trust" but I am going to stick with "change" and see where it leads me!

Girasole

This is my favorite word currently.  It is Italian, and it means, "sunflower." Literally translated, "gira" means "turn" and "sole" means "sun".  So it is like some beautiful advice to "turn to the sun." This word has been on my heart for a while now, and I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it.  This past weekend perfectly encompasses the entirety of what this word means to me.  A bad storm hit my city on Good Friday (an EF4 tornado) and left a lot of people without electricity, roofs, and even homes.  Streets were shut down due to live power lines down across lanes of traffic and other entire subdivisions (like my own) were barricaded by the police for safety reasons.  The damages are still being calculated four days later, but the most certain fact is that no one was hurt.  It is being classified as a miracle, and I have no doubt it was. There is story after story of people who were not home due to random happenstances, or who happened to be in the right room in their home at the right time and just missed being hit.  The storms passed that night, but it rained for the rest of Easter weekend.  However, the rain and cold did not deter the community in the slightest from beginning clean-up.  It was an incredible message of hope, and that to me is the epitome of the whole idea about turning to the sun.  To turn our heads towards the sky and like my friend Von says sometimes, "Spend a little more time looking up." We can look up to know that our God is here with us and trust that He is the one who protected every single person from these storms, just like He is the one who will continue providing for everyone.  We can turn to the sun in hopes that all of these storms will pass, which sounds so cliche, but is also completely true. One of my favorite songs is a Casting Crown with a lyric that totally sums it all up: "I will praise you in this storm."  I think all of us just need something like this to hold onto, and for me, that is girasole.

Awake

Good morning! On this absolutely beautiful Monday morning, the only word that is resounding in my  mind is the word "Awake".  I won't say that lately I have felt like I have been walking through life almost asleep, but I have definitely not been awake as I could have been.  I have been physically sleepy but also just pretty apathetic.  It probably has something to do with homesickness and dreary weather, but whatever the reason, that is how I have been acting. The question most often on my mind has been, "Does God really want me to be happy? Am I supposed to just barely make it through this life to get to Him? And why did He put us away from Him on this Earth just to get back up there with Him when we could have just all stayed there in the first place?"  This past weekend, I took a trip for a change of scenery.  I went home to Von's hometown, but on the way, stopped at my own home and saw my family.  The whole weekend was incredible.  Spring is in full swing now, and everything where Von lives is fresh and new.  The trees were fantastically beautiful, the grass was lush and green, there was a storm and the next day the earth was vibrant with flowers. I was thrilled to have seen my family, if only for a bit, and happy to just spend the weekend doing nothing but enjoying the weather and friendship. I felt totally whole all weekend and I prayed a lot. It was like a retreat just for me where I got to step back and say to myself, "God really does want me to be happy." And I am.  I don't know the answers to my other questions, and I am sure that I will have more, but in this moment,  I am so grateful for the sunshine, for the cool breeze, for all of God's wondrous blessings, and finally being woken up to see all of it.