I'm leaving the country tomorrow! Or today?

It's 3:10 a.m. on the night morning I'm supposed to be leaving for Ecuador. I'm emotionally exhausted from leaving my last day of student teaching in Louisville (sad day!) and preparing everything for my super awesome trip.... and I just found myself munching on strawberry cheesecake ice cream while watching a plant parts video. WHY am I awake at 3 a.m.? Because I decided to put way too much on my plate this semester and I am literally working until the last available second to get everything accomplished.

And you know what?

I think it will be worth it.

Someone take care of my darling husband while I'm gone. And make sure he doesn't starve (or eat Papa John's every night). And maybe you can check back here for the next few weeks to hear about my last student teaching adventure before GRADUATION!!

Scatterbrained. Brain freeze from ice cream. Cramped fingers from typing. It's college, y'all, and pulling all-nighters just isn't for me!

Excited to meet the llamas (tomorrow),

Emily

Simplicity with a side of Joy

You know how I just posted yesterday about power walking? And how slow it was? And how bored I got? Well, today I am sore. Very sore. And so I sit on my bed, sprawled out and sore, working on my online class by researching ESL blogs and listening to podcasts out the wazoo. I couldn't love my academic career more, really. It's tough and very time-consuming, but you know you picked your major right when you love doing the homework.

(don't quote me on that, because I very often do not enjoy the homework.)

I found this video while perusing a blog that provides ideas/activities for teaching ESL through music- and I was so impressed/entertained/dying to be a part of something like that:

http://play.dipdive.com/i/76361

I am daily learning that, if I will only slow down and quiet my heart, the Lord will speak marvelous wonders to me about His grace and provision. He provides joy in the mundane daily tasks. He provides love in the moments of failure. He provides grace for the girl who can't do it all on her own but still tries so very hard to. I'm learning, slowly, and He is speaking, profoundly.

The Best You Can Be

I have almost jumped out of my seat in excitement and amazement at least 4 times while studying today. While studying, guys. This is weird.

This semester has been one of the most challenging, exhausting, potential-for-stress semesters of my entire life. And yet, I am absolutely loving all the content I am learning in each and every class! Maybe it's because last year I dozed through classes on star formation and the 5 themes of geography (let's be honest, that stuff just doesn't pique my interest)... but all I know is I leave every day of class challenged because I don't yet know enough about how to be a great teacher and friend to the "unloveable." I can actually apply the things I learn in class Monday night to a situation I'm in Tuesday evening! If I wasn't sure if teaching/loving-on-overlooked-kids was my passion before, I'm certain of it now. I'm challenged because there is still so much more for me to learn, and the challenge excites me to no end.

It has become very easy for me to fall into the trap of "be the best [fill in the blank] you can be." Be the best student. The best teacher. The best future wife.  The most competent. The greatest friend. The most reliable. The most successful. The least dependent upon Christ? The most prideful? Yep.

I'm thankful that God has planted a desire in my heart for something that matters. He has created me to thrive in a setting where there are ethnically diverse children who need someone to show them a little love. He created me to glorify HIM most in that setting, and I absolutely LOVE discovering this about myself as my life unfolds. But do you see where things go wrong? When I'm trying to be the best in any given situation in order to promote myself, I am defaming the One who gave me the abilities in the first place. This is the dilemma of a "good girl," of a girl who has always been held to higher expectations and has almost always met them. Life gets harder when you're working at it for your own gain.

It's true, you should be the best you can be, in all situations. Slacking off shouldn't be an option. But why are you being the best you can be? Is it to make someone proud? To make yourself proud? To impress others? To please the Lord? He gives grace to the humble to accomplish any task that will glorify Him alone.

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" -Galatians 6:14

The Break in Spring

All I've eaten today is Captain Crunch, colby cheese, and Doritos.
I haven't washed my face or brushed my teeth or changed out of the hoodie & PJ pants I slept in, and it's already 3:00. (sorry if that's a gross visual, but it's really not that bad...?)
I am working on a mid-term due next week, but it's frequently interrupted by Facebook and blog-reading or brain freezes (read: look outside at the beautiful weather and ponder life for 20 minutes at a time).
I don't feel one bit of remorse, because this time next week I'll be right back in the swing of things- hooray for Spring Break!

Let's go Across the Universe

It's amazing to me how God answers my prayers. I mean, really- He answers specific requests in His perfect timing. Lately I have acknowledged a lack in my spiritual walk: I struggle to be amazed by God. Sure, I know that He created everything and that He can do amazing things. I've even seen Him work miracles through sickness, lost souls, and tight money crunches, and I've always been told that our God is a mighty fortress, stronger than any other. I could rattle off to you hundreds of different verses, song lyrics, and emotional stories which testify to God's amazing character. But what does my heart, deep down below the surface, truly believe about God? In my prayers, I found myself forgetting that God was huge. I forget that He really is Lord of all. So I daily prayed a simple prayer- "Lord, teach me to be amazed by You."

This semester I am taking Astronomy of the Solar System. At the end of the first class period, I practically ran out of the classroom, huffy from the snobby professor and smelly freshmen (seriously), and mad that we wouldn't be learning about constellations. Did I mention that I typically hate science classes? They're not my thing. I thought several times that day about dropping the class and adding another science class to get those darn gen-eds out of the way, but I am so glad I didn't!
Two days later, I literally had to drag myself into the building. It happens. My professor began writing formulas on the board and I quickly lost interest until he started talking BIG. As in, huge.

Did you know that, with the naked eye, standing from one point on earth, we can see as many as 6,000 stars at once? There are more than 1.5 x 10²¹ stars in the universe that we know of right now. That's a lot of stars!

Did you know that there are at least 1.5 x 10¹¹ galaxies in the universe? Us human beings are really only familiar with the Milky Way. Sure, maybe some astronomer out there can identify many surrounding galaxies, but let's be real- the only planets I know are My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas (except that poor Pluto got the boot). All the stars we see in the sky, the bright sun, the cool planets- they're all a part of the Milky Way galaxy. That's one galaxy out of 1.5 x 10¹¹ more!

A lightyear is 10¹⁸ cm- that's 18 zeros, folks. So whatever, we learned that in high school. But did you know that the closest star to us is 4.4 lightyears away from earth?! That means it is forever far away, and it would take us way more than our lifetime to get there!

Did you know that the radius of the universe is 10¹⁰ lightyears? Just the radius!! That's 10¹⁸ x 10¹⁰, in case you aren't keeping track. Holy cow- that's a lot of zeros and a BIG UNIVERSE. (And by the way, it's constantly expanding.) Take time to just soak in how big that number actually is- it's mind boggling.


...so now that I've blown your mind, let me share what was running through my mind in that smelly classroom with the snotty professor:

"Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing." -Isaiah 40:26

Every time my professor over-used the words "simply astounding," I couldn't agree more with him. I wanted to kiss his feet for being the vessel God used to smack me in the face and make me realize how huge He really is! God placed all 1.5 x 10²¹ of those stars in the sky, and He knows every single one of them individually by name. And, PS, He created the universe. He didn't just happen upon it- He made it. Talk about a huge arts & crafts session! That means He's bigger than the universe and stronger than anything we could ever encounter in it! I actually found a really funny verse in Jeremiah about this exact thing- he prays "Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you" (32:17). Naturally, this made me wonder why such a huge and smart God would ever care about me- a human being on a tiny planet in the middle of a little galaxy out in the middle a ginormous universe. It's funny, because the Psalms actually asks the same question:

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor." -Ps. 8: 3-5

I am thankful for this mind-blowing experience I had in the middle of class over an awesome God, even if my professor is trying his hardest for us to believe in anything but an all-powerful being. It makes me cringe to think that God created the universe yet He sees into the innermost crevices of my heart. He's so powerful that He could knock me out in a second with His fingernail or something... I don't know, but I'm just saying it would be effortless for Him to take me out. So why does He continue to extravagantly love me and be mindful of me even when I blatantly disobey Him? It's because He wants all the glory for all this stuff He's created! When we see the works of His hands, the moon and the stars, and everything in the heavens, we should be bringing Him glory- that's what He wants, and that's what He deserves. I am so saddened when I realize that many people see these facts and observe these things in the universe and only contribute it to things that happened by chance. More difficult than understanding the vastness of the universe is understanding the people who don't believe that God created it. Maybe I'm just ignorant of it all, but I think Romans 1:20 says it all-

"Since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

So what are we, as Christians, going to do about it? First, be amazed by God and all He has made. Be humbled that He would love you- an insignificant person in the middle of an enormous universe. Next, go tell people about the Creator, so that He will be glorified through their lives as well.
I'm so thankful the Lord answered my prayer- I want to be amazed by Him.