Home. Its good to have one. This is my first morning in the house I'll be staying in for the summer and I already know things are good. Second chances are good. Included washer/dryers are good. One room to myself is good. Freedom is good.

Its strange walking around here, moving in here, living here because I keep picking up on old dorm habbits. Like brushing my teeth and then carrying the toothbrush back into my bedroom. Flipping through chanels and going by shows that I won't have to watch all the time if I don't want to. Being able to walk freely. Being able to close the door and not be afraid of anyone else coming in. Being able to use a dish and wash it in the very same room. Feeling wanted. Feeling relaxed. Knowing when people will be here and when they are not. Knowing when people are going to come back and when they are going to leave. Being able to help a friend match her shoes. Some of these things I will miss about the dorms, but I know that there will be other new, good things to look forward to. Other people to do life with.

I am just so excited for the opportunity to get to know these girls. If there is one thing I have learned through this year in the dorms is that it is so important just to get to know people. To see what is important to them, to just know things about the people that you live with, to really understand who they are and where they are coming from. Learning their quirks and learning to be okay with the things that they do that aren't like me. Learning to live life a little bit differently. Ahhh. Its like a breath of fresh air I've been missing for so long. Freedom from tension and its suffocation! Freedom!!

Last post from Allison Hall. Oh what to write... What to write that I haven't already written? I remember sitting in this same room writing a post on August 18th a little frazzled and discouraged and afraid of how everything would play out. And here I am, sitting here, writing this, with my belongings looking in much the same order, all boxed and bagged and laying all around this tiny room. ANd looking back on the way things went this year, I get the sense that the exact feelings I had about how this year were going to go were true just in terms of this living situation, this experience. Other things, on the other hand, have gone quite contrary to my expectations. Nevertheless, 1SW, you have done me well. What a great year, what a great experience it has been. What a great stretching thing. Hard as it is to learn, what a beautiful feeling to be standing o n the other side to say "I did it! I made it! I lived it!" And now I am done with my dorm life.

A few weeks ago, as so many of us were preparing to get through finals and the last projects of the year, a friend sent out this quote from one of his friends as a bit of encouragement:

People never remember how you begin, but always how you finish...

Only a day and a half left in the dorms, one drawing to turn in and one more final and my freshman year of college will be concluded. It feels like this year has gone by so fast. It feels like it was just yesterday that I moved into this tiny room. Just yesterday I was standing on the West Lawn and RamWelcome next to this girl I hardly knew and yet felt like she cared so much about me, surrounded by a thousand things that I did not understand but was soon to become mundanely familiar with. I remember just 9 short months ago wondering if I would ever have any real friends or if I would find a church that I actually wanted to be a part of and whether or not I would learn to live my life a bit more freely.

And so here I am. May 9, 2006. I survived it. More than survival-- I lived it, lived like never before. Took off on the great adventure with a few fears and reservations and have come out on the other side awake and alive and excited, ready for more. I feel like it has been a hard year of searching, of deciding, of seeking and finding. As I look back at the ways that I sought to reestablish myself in this new place, I see how stretching those times of uncertainty were and how God has been so faithful. How now that I am in a church that I love, in a community that is so important to me, I have a place to live, friends who I know I can count on, there is something so sweet in knowing what beautiful gifts those things are.

As I look back on this year, I know that I have run a good race. That isn't something that I feel I can often say about myself or the time I have spent, but I feel so blessed to have seen God's hand of strength guiding me, teaching me to give all that I have, putting the grain of wheat in the ground and allowing it to die so that it can produce new life.

I think this is such a good ending to the year becuase even though I am going to miss my hall and the experiences that this year brought, I feel like it is time for me to keep traveling. I have this deep peace about allowing this chapter to close and looking forward to new things as well as seeing the things in my life that have begun in this year to continue on to completion. What a good feeling...

...Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well...

loving others so that I can be seen as a person who is loving is not loving at all...

First day of finals week. Up early. body tells me its time to be awake. The day is beginning, so much to do, so much to see, so much to enjoy. Four days. Then its time for a new start. Freedom from this guilt. Its bittersweet.

I've been thinking a lot about what the end of this year means. What it will be like on thursday when all the finals are done and suddenly I find my things and my bed in another place, away from these people, away from this place. This chapter over and something new beginning. Some new things continuing and others fading into memories, sweet memories. At first I wondered how I would be okay with just moving out and all of these relationship opportunities changing. But I sort of came to the realization that it is time for me to let go of this part of my life. To say good-bye and look back and know that it was good, even despite my awful mistakes. Mistakes. I wanted to do everything perfect and right this year and I think I got a little closer to discovering how impossible such an endeavor is. Nevertheless, God proved himself to be good. I learned a little more about that is good. And maybe learned a bit about my own frailties as well. Got a little closer to the discovery of my own powerlessness....

A little more of our friend Richard...

I am a firm believer that only a book is the gift that keeps on giving. I am just starting on the third book that I got for my birthday back in February, the second by Richard Rohr. My mom gave me the book with the question: What's the deal with all the monks? Nevertheless, I found the first book, "Everything Belongs" to be spectacular, and the second, "Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go" no less brilliant, even just 30 pages in. So here is a bit of brilliance to share:

"The Incarnation had nothing to do with theology. It was rather about vulnerability, about letting go, about emptiness, about self-surrender-- and non of that is in the head. It was a woman who said yes, so that Jesus could come into the world. And the more the Church gets out of its head and into its feminine soul, the more, I believe, it will become able to concieve Christ and carry him to term for the world. Not a Christ to fight over as Catholics or Protestants, as liberals or conservatives, but simply a Christ we can meet, a Christ we can stumble on, a Christ who won't let people "know" him, only love him."

Abba knows best...

There is a time to search
And a time to find

A time to wait
And a time to sign!!

What a fantastic day this is! The last few days have been so good that it almost feels wrong. I guess maybe this sin't a time for me to be learning through trial, but rather a time simply for me to enjoy, a time to learn to praise, to thank, to worship, to accept the tremendous blessing Abba is showering upon me. Have you ever had just one day where you are looking out onto your future and wondering how you will take in all the good that you see before you?

I am just so looking forward to the summer, getting to know new people and just relaxing a bit in a more comfortable place. I will have been at my job for a year on the 23rd of May and its strange to look back at the little high school senior I was just a year ago, wondering how I would ever work full-time just out of high school and how I felt a little robbed, like God wasn't making any sense, how he was leading me into this huge learning experience that was by no means on my own terms. It wasn't my idea nad it certainly did not fit into my box, but what a beautiful thing it was! Thank you God, that you are bigger than my boxes. I am seeing so many things come full-circle, seeing all the ways that God has taken me from where I was just a few years ago and he has definately shown me that there really is never an end to this journey-- that there is no finale pinnacle that we reach, especially not for a little 19 year old girl like me. I am a long way off from having it all figured out. I think maybe that is the continual lesson.

Journey. Change. If there is one thing I have learned this year is that the only thing we can depenf on is God. The only thing that we can trust is his hand, his leading. Today I signed a lease for my first apartment, which I will be moving into in the fall. After everything changing, falling apart, and God still being in control. I find myself in a situation that I never would have planned for myself and could never be any better. Do you ever find yourself looking around at what God has provided and realizing that he has heard every one of your requests and has listened to each one of your fears? Something inside me just wants to cry out in joy! In tears! Who am I to deserve such a thing? This has been a long, sort of gut-wrenching process involving more than just physical residence. It has been a test of trust, a test of grace, a test of not just settling for the easy thing and listening to the spirit, allowing God to lead. What a great thing.

So that's the good news for the day. God is so faithful! How he takes such good care of me. He always knows...