cognizant

Slowly, life is beginning to become more real.Of course life is real, but bit by bit, piece by piece things are beginning to change here in Ames. Soon I am going to find that my life here and all that I knew is gone. Gone from the way it existed for me. Friends no longer living here.

My roommate moved out for good yesterday. That was a surreal moment in itself. This girl who I met four years ago in our small dorm room and who I have continued to live with into an apartment is gone from my life. I realize nothing is actually gone. But as I know it these things will never exist as they have here. We are all moving to something different. And although some will remain, our lives will begin to change. It is just another reminder that this life we are living is not all about us. It continues to move forward turning expectations into memories.

Andrea leaves Saturday for Chicago. Lindsey soon to Minneapolis. I am still unknown. I continue to try for my dreams, I continue to press on and not give up. A lot of my perseverance is due to people in my life encouraging me, giving me confidence that I am able to do something with myself. Life is odd in how it becomes so comparative. That we view some people more worthy than others based on appearance, status, intellect, presence. But is this really how we should live? Jesus did not look at any of those things when He came to this earth. As I am reading the book Searching for God Knows What I see how it may almost be easier to believe in Jesus at this time than when He was actually here. That He was born in a stable, had a poor job as a carpenter, and was not an attractive person. And yet, even when He was a baby, people revered Him as God. That King Herod was afraid of this baby and tried to kill all the new born boys to avoid a better king than him. That's pretty powerful. And yet if someone were to have a low income job, born in the backwoods, and was not great to look at today, would we really want to call this man God? No, because He is not what we expect a god to be. This is what it was like in Jesus' time as well, and look at the impact His life has had on us today in a historical way; and then look at how the truth of His words have saved us from trying to save ourselves through His sacrifice. Sometimes this is so hard for me to understand and yet I know it holds power and depth and impacts all of our lives whether one chooses to believe or not.

I continue to seek answers to questions about God and the Bible. Many things I want to work the way I see fairness. And I can read books that support what I want with persuasive arguments or vice versa. But in the end I need to understand why it is God chose everything to be this way. And that takes time, and it's okay not to have it all figured out right now. It took Peter until after Jesus' death to really understand who Jesus was and believe and love Him. I suppose it may take us our lifetime as well.

the things you learn at twenty-two.

I feel as though my life is on pause right now. That I am not really existing. That I am in one of those movies where the character can freeze what everyone else is doing while he continues a monologue; soon he snaps his fingers and life resumes. I am in the frozen part, waiting for the main character to finish his monologue so that I can continue on my way. It's not that I'm not busy. I've been on the go continuously, I am just waiting for something to change in my life, and as hard as I try nothing is changing as of yet. I am patiently waiting to hear back from a firm in the Netherlands.

The fourth was spent at my grandparents house up North. My aunt and uncle and cousin and his wife were all there, along with my parents and brother. The last time we were all together was almost two years ago. Not only did I get to wakeboard with my dad's new boat, but my biggest achievement was learning how to clean fish. I did everything from chopping off heads to skinning them. I even found a surprise as I was cutting one fish's head off, he spit up another fish half digested. What a treat.



When I arrived home I found a letter in our mailbox. I found it strange that something would be sent to my parents address but I opened it to find my own handwriting. It was a letter we were asked to write to ourselves our senior year or highschool, and upon graduating college it would be sent to us. So here I am explaining who my friends are, what I had done the night before, the bands I listened to (which were Tegan & Sara and Kelly Osbourne) and how I thought I would have a cute boyfriend that I would meet in college by the time I read the letter. The thing that struck me the most was this paragraph

I definitely want to travel. I love Europe so much! I hope when I read this I will have been there many more times! You need to live there! Wouldn't that be great?! Oh Ya!
(I must have been very adamant the way I wrote in all those exclamation marks).

So I have been wanting this dream for a long time. I was telling myself to do it when I was at least 18 in highschool, and here I am trying to make this command to myself happen today at 22. Perhaps that's not that long of a time, but I have changed a lot since that girl in Miss Dumas' class writing this exclamation filled letter, and yet here I am still striving for the same things, and still listening to Tegan & Sara.