10 days from now...

It is sunday night...and although it might seem just like any other sunday night of the year...it was a little different for me. I went to church, came home and went out for supper with Jack. Usual things for an end of the weekend evening...except for one.
I didn't study tonight.
And I don't have to go to school tomorrow...because school is finally done!
I officially finished my last exam on thursday morning...physics. Had to go out with a bang I guess.


Anyways, now I have 10 days to ready myself for a summer away from home. I can't believe how fast this whole trip has approached...I leave so soon and I feel like there is so much to do!

I guess with school and studying and work and all the other stuff that I busy my life with I hadn't given much thought to the whole fact that I actually am going away for three months. Three months. In a foreign country. A country where the language spoken is one which I hardly understand.

You know, you make plans to do things like this and the ball gets rolling and things are put in motion but it doesn't really hit you until it's time to go...and then you start thinking to yourself...what the heck did I get myself into?

I am excited to go. Honestly...I'm actually really pumped. I'm just torn because I don't want to miss a whole summer away from all the people I care about...but I also don't want to miss an opportunity to be challenged in a way that I know is going to be so phenomenal.

Anyways, I'm ranting...and I should go to bed. But if you think of me in the next few months...whoever reads this rambling blog...could you pray for me? I've only really ever had one other time in my life where I felt completely alone...and that was last year when I moved from Rosenort to Winnipeg. Those three months were the closest I've ever been with Jesus... and I guess, as I enter into three months that will probably look a lot similar, I'm praying that the same thing might happen.


(p.s. -- these are just some random pics of some really great people...Tannis and Shannon up top there with me (Jack's sisters)... and there's me and Jackson... posing really nice for the camera... as usual.)

Exams, life, and love.

And thus beginneth the two weeks of my most favorite thing to do ever...

Final exams.

However, I really don't feel like writing about the feelings of impending doom that are at this moment eating away at my insides...ha ha...
So maybe i'll talk about something else.

I feel like lately I've been so busy that I haven't given much thought to life. And I don't mean life in the sense of what I want to do with my life, or where I'm going to be in the next 1o years, or what kind of car I want to drive when I'm 55 and going through a mid-life crisis. I mean life more in the sense of why I am here on this earth, and why God felt it important to make me a part of his plan.

My brother Jon leads worship at the church that he and I go to....SEMA. This past sunday he lead all by himself...just him and the guitar. To be honest, I love the simplicity of worship when it is just one voice and one instrument. For some reason, the worship last sunday in particular really got to me. Jon stood up there and talked about how lots of times it is our nature to just bring our crazy lives to God and ask him to fix everything, or how sometimes, when we get the chance, we sit and listen to God and expect him to lay into our hearts some divine blueprint of His will. And as he was talking I was thinking in my head...really, my time with God lately has been centered around one of two topics: either me freaking out because of my busy schedule and needing some sort of divine intervention so that there is more time in the day to get everything I need to get done done...or my sitting and trying to listen for exactly what God actually wants me to do with my life...or more specifically...next year.

Jon mentioned that sometimes when we're with God, he desires to tell us things and help us out with our lives because he is our father and our friend. But the thing he said next really hit me: Sometimes God wants us to just come to him and hear him say that he loves us. He actually just wants us to sit there and listen to him say "I love you"...over and over again. And the crazy thing is that I think the more he says it to us the less we will understand it because Gods love is incomprehensible, yet at the same time it brings a peace that stewing over the business of life or the uncertainty of the future will never ever bring.

I think lots of times I want to hear God say that he loves me, and I want to just sit there and listen to it over and over again. Sometimes I would give anything to just have 10 minutes where I can shut out the world and be quiet, and listen for a little bit...and not fall asleep because the rest of my life is so busy. But I think I don't do it because I feel lazy...and I'm afraid of that feeling. And maybe I also don't do it because I know that God loves me...so sitting and hearing him repeat it to me is just a big waste of time. If I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything, then it is natural for me to think I'm not making any progress in my relationship with God. I'd rather be bringing "more important" things to his throne...which is really lame now that I actually think about it because I can't think of anything more personal or important than a Father telling his daughter how much he loves her.

Anyways, just some thoughts. See yah in a week or two.

Princess Weather

Alright, seriously.

I know Calgary is known for it's crazy weather, but this?

I feel as though the gloomy Alberta skies are like a moody teenage girl. One day she loves you and feels like being nice so she turns up the heat to +18, brings out the sun and warms all of us Vitamin E deprived souls on earth, and the next day she hates you...decides that what we really need is a surprise blizzard, a fresh foot of snow to cover our cars, and a little bit of frostbite to just prick away at our already frozen faces...

I don't know how much more of these emotional weather swings I can take:

I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you.

Ha ha.

And you thought it was Spring.

Well, in all honesty, it should be. I mean, it is April 3, and it's -10 outside. What the heck is going on here?

Part of me wants to just leave. And I am...but, unfortunately, I have 5 more days of school and 4 final exams to endure first.

Plus, it's supposed to be +19 on Saturday.

Surprise, surprise.

So that, among a few other things (ha ha)... seems like a good reason to kick around the old cow town for a little while longer.