classic.

Look what I found:

How cute was I?  Check out the moon boots...

christmas.

I'm from Colorado.  Therefore, by definition, Christmas = cold.  Snow, blankets, hot chocolate, ice, heavy jackets, and sledding are all a central part of my favorite holiday.  Generally, Christmas morning outside my window looks something like this:

This year, however, Christmas was a little bit different.  For one thing, it was about 85 degrees on Christmas day.  For another thing, I spent the day riding wave runners around the Sea of Cortez and laying beside the pool on a giant cruise ship.  Warm, swimming suits, margaritas, sun, salt water, and sand were the defining features of this Christmas.  Christmas morning outside my window this year:

A little bit different from the Christmas's of my childhood.  But wonderful all the same.

When I was younger, Christmas was the most exciting day of the year.  And I still love it now (a whole lot, actually), but it doesn't hold the same weight for me that it once did.  The thing is - I should be unspeakably grateful for the gift of life found in Jesus every day.  Not just on December 25th, squeezed somewhere in between presents and large amounts of food.  So I suppose that Christmas day is special for family and happiness and comfort, but it is the same as every other awesome, marvelous, beautiful, unbelievable day that Jesus gives me all my life.

So, merry belated Christmas.

But here's to making every day like Christmas day, and to remembering that God's gift of love didn't end on that one night with the birth of that beautiful baby.  No...that was just the beginning of His ever unfailing love.

Christmas sunset:

...just a tiny glimpse of the majesty of our dear Heavenly Father and Friend.  May He make His face shine onto us and hold us always in His arms.

end.

Thoughts on the end: I wish I had some.

I feel like I should be feeling more.  Instead I am feeling quite ordinary.  It is just the end of a semester like any other.  Except for that it isn't.  At all.  It is the END.  The end of the best years of my life, thus far.  My years at Westmont have been everything that college should be.  I can't imagine anything getting better than this (although I hope it does...), and now these years are done.  I should be feeling sad.  Or freaked.  Or exhausted.  Or anything, really.  Anything other than this state of complacency and normality in which I find myself.

Someone slap me - make me realize the significance of this day.

Today is an ending.  But, through my rose colored glasses, today is a beginning.  It is the beginning of the next thing, whatever that may be.

And today, the next things is a week long cruise to Mexico with my family.

So farewell, for now.  Worrying can wait for a week.

finals.

I'm closing in on the end.  

Three relatively short tests are all that are standing between me and "the rest of my life."

God give me strength to finish well...

identity.

I feel an identity crisis coming on.

I’m sitting in the library – a place that has become a consistant companion this semester. Studying at home is too difficult – there are fun things and couches and beds and lots of food there. The library is ugly, and has weird tempature spots, which makes me want to get out as soon as possible and therefore is the perfect spot for inspiring production. Anyway, I’m sitting in the library about to finish my last paper of college. And I can’t bring myself to write the last paragraph. Not because I don’t want to be done, because I DO. But because once I finish this paper, I’m finally going to realize that I’m done with college in 2 weeks. 

My whole life I have been a student. School is what I do. I study, I go to class, and then I study some more. The past 21 years have been spent in the same way. Obviously there have been some big differences between say, 2nd grade and senior year of college, but for the most part, 21 years centered in the same basic principle – learn stuff. And now, well, that’s about to be done. No more tests, no more papers, no more studying until I’m so tired that I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. So who am I once that is done?

In August, I wouldn’t have been able to answer that question.

But now, I think I know. I’m more than school, more than my grades, more than even my friends and family and people I love. I am me. And right now, me has no idea what comes next. I am actually surprised that I’m not freaked out by that. But I think that maybe the last three weeks came at the best time possible in my life (if there is such a thing as a good time for a devastating fire…).  I suppose you could say that I've had a bit of perspective shift.  Maybe I don't know what's coming next, but I know that it's going to be amazing, whatever it is.

Hmm...that was nice...

Crisis averted.

painting.

...And this heartbreak world

Of just imagine

With it's tired talk of better days

And this heartbreak world

Where nothing matters

Come on lets make this dream

that's barely half awake come true...

~ Matt Nathanson, "Heartbreak World"

I've been thinking about dreams.  I think Matt is on to something, talking about a world focused on "tired talk of better days" and "barely half awake" dreams.  I don't want to live my life with dreams barely half awake.  I want dreams alive and vibrant.  

I want to be alive and vibrant.

I have a very real fear of living my life in a state of complacency.  It is so easy to let myself dwell in loneliness, in settling, in just good enough.  It's easy to convince myself that everyone feels the same, so this must be the best it can be.  However, I know those are blatant lies that I am telling to myself.  I have been given life and life abundantly.  I have a life, a blank slate, ready to be painted.  There can be brilliant colors of joy and triumph and completely happy moments.  There can be the deep, dark tones of heartache and sorrow.  There can be the pastels of peaceful moments and the muted tones of moments that were not quite enough.  My life is ready to be made beautiful.  So why am I sitting back expecting someone else to paint it for me?

Life is for living.  It isn't about painting perfect lines.  It's about getting my hands dirty and covering the canvas with the colors of every beautiful day I've been given.