Monday, December 14, 2009

Finished... Mostly!

So I'm now almost finished with my first semester. I had my don rags today and have a math test Wednesday and then I'm headed home! Believe me, I am very excited to be going home. (Side note: don rags are what we call the Torrey final. It spans all 8 units of my honors classes. It's a thirty minute oral exam where my mentor can quiz me on any of the texts that I've read... it's scary because we have no idea what he's going to ask, making the studying a huge task.)

Anyway, I feel like over the past four months, I've grown in many different ways and really been stretched. Here's my list of a few things that I've learned through this past semester.

1) I am a Virginian. Only through four months away have I learned that my heart belongs in the grand Old Dominion - I'm one of very few kids who boast proudly about their state.

2) It's worth a longer walk down the hall to get a better quality shower... it'll make you feel more clean!

3) Be flexible. Sometimes something more exciting and rewarding than homework comes along, and it should be pursued... studying can often wait.

4) Be organized! Know what you have to do and when you must do it. Beware! This may lead to friends becoming rather dependent on you for information.

5) Reading is hard work. Especially if the goal is to truly understand and engage the ideas within the text.

6) No matter what the culture is, the epic poem will always have relevance. It provides a way of thinking about culture from its beginning. We should perhaps more often employ the method of telling stories within other stories to help us to understand where we come from better.

7) Anticipation is half the fun - I've had a lot of different things to anticipate through the semester - my first trips to In-N-Out and Disneyland, my first thanksgiving away from home, my return home, and the arrival of many other significant dates. Yet, as fun as each of these things was, joy is to be found simply in anticipation.

8) Joy is necessary for survival. I don't know if I would have made it through the semester were it not for the crazy amount of joy that I feel in being content where God has placed me. I also am so grateful for a close-knit group of friends who bring me joy and share in my joy. Yet, it's been important to not find joy in my location or others, but to find it in Christ alone. When I rely on something other than the Rock for my joy, then I end up feeling disappointed. When I take joy from Christ, though, everything I do flows from that.

9) Each day should be cherished. It seems that I've been learning this for the past five years. I honestly don't think I'll ever fully understand how to properly do this, but I'm trying. I'm learning to take joy in every moment - fully seized. I'm learning to love early morning chapels, late night study sessions, heart-breaking pictures of fall, immature inside jokes, and mid-afternoon naps. Each of these moments can be fully seized - it's all a matter of how you choose to live. When I seek out the King, then each moment is for Him. And life becomes a lovely compilation of beautiful moments.

10) Contentedness is a gift. I have been (for the most part) completely content over the past few months. Although I am more than a little excited to be back in Blacksburg where my heart belongs, I have definitely enjoyed and loved this time. I have no doubts that God has many more excellent things planned for the remainder of my time. Because His will is indeed good, pleasing, and perfect. With this recognition, what other cares should I have?

All that said, I feel like this has been quite the productive, growing, stretching, and exhausting semester. I'm so thankful for a break coming up. It'll be a little bittersweet leaving Biola for six weeks. At this point, though, I'm pretty sure it'll be mostly "sweet." Blacksburg, here I come!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Life to the Full

Today would have been Kassidy Foster's 15th birthday. One of my sister's best friends, she competed alongside Katie at Virginia Techniques. Kassidy was full of life, spunky, sass, and spirit. In March of 2007, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which is a form of bone cancer. She passed away that July. For the full story, check out the website.

Even though I'm 2400 miles away from home, my heart is with her family today. I'm dressed in pink (her favorite color) and wearing my Kassidy bracelet. It's not just on important dates, though, that I find it important to keep up her memory. Instead, her life and courage in the face of cancer changed my life.

I'm from Blacksburg, VA - the home of Virginia Tech. In April 2007, the Virginia Tech shootings happened, greatly affecting my hometown. It shook the entire community to its core. Bad things don't happen in Blacksburg. It's too tiny, too quaint. However, something awful did happen there and I don't believe the town will ever be able to forget.

Through the shootings and through the death of Kassidy, I grew. I grew in how I dealt with grief. I grew in my understanding of the world. I grew up - a lot. But mostly, I grew in my understanding of how to live.

As a fifteen year old, I was naive enough to think that I was somewhat invincible - that there was always time to do whatever I chose to put off. Yet through seeing all that could happen in such a short period of time, I came to understand that life is short.

With this knowledge, I was not afraid. Instead, it gave me a zeal for life. Even Kassidy - in her suffering and pain - still lived well, with spunk and pluck. If she was able to that in the most difficult of situations, then what excuse would I have to not do so when things were going well?

Although I sometimes forget what it means to live fully, I think I'm starting to understand that it doesn't always look the same. I tend to think if I'm not being super productive, or engaging in deep and meaningful conversation, then I'm wasting my time.

But perhaps a mid-afternoon nap once in a while is just as full and freeing as an hour long conversation about the meaning of life over coffee. Dr. John Mark Reynolds encouraged my Torrey group when we went to his house for dinner a few months ago. He reminded us that grades aren't everything. That we study in order to learn how to live well.

This has been an important lesson to learn -- that fellowship should sometimes trump study. However, as I've come to understand that that is what will matter in the end. My knowledge of books is only important in that it helps me to engage better with others. My main priority should be living a life filled with Christ's love, spilling out everywhere. I want my life to be full of meaning, because it could end tomorrow. I want to live like Kassidy - with courage, spunk, and faith in the midst of all situations - good and bad.