Saturday afternoon, early Autumn

it's fall break, and i'm down South in the palmetto state, a little exhausted from an entire day with my family but motivated to update my blog. the last few days back at HPU were oddly cold and shifty...here, even though it's the humid beach, you can feel the winter air moving slowly southward, turning a relatively mild summer into an unseasonably chilly fall. i can't wait to get back to campus and see all the fall foliage that we've been lacking all season.

even though today was my first full day spent with my loved ones in two months, i felt unusually distant. my mind kept wandering to thoughts of the past week, year, days ahead, responsibilities...and then it'd return to thinking about nothing - or better yet what wondrous thoughts must filter through the tiny brain of an average squirrel (e.g. "i'm a squirrel, i'm a squirrel..." ad nauseam).

the first thing i'd like to address is God. and how flipping amazing He is...and that's putting it so mildly but it's late and my brain can't possibly come up with anything more creative or magnanimous for the time being. but seriously, He is. God has been shaping my heart for the past 4 months and I'm a new woman every morning I wake up, it seems...it can be overwhelming trying to juggle all the things He wants to teach me along with my duties for school and all my organizations and friends and discipleship sometimes. Okay, i lied. it IS overwhelming. almost every day i struggle with being overwhelmed, but it isn't always bad. i feel uplifted by all He's done in my life, and through the good and less savory times He has taught me how to be more like Christ, how to be humbled and how to depend on Him moment by moment. it's a glorious learning experience. i just wish i could step away from my daily obligations and delight in all He's done in my heart just a little bit more.

so here's some thoughts. some will be lessons i've learned, others lessons i've yet to learn. some will be wrought with opinion, others less so. there might be a trace or two of wisdom that i've gained from others, but by no means expect to learn anything here. goodness that would require me to actually know something about...well...anything. ;)

one - this has been a truly unexpected year.
two - i am less responsible for the good things that have happened in my life than i realize.
three - i am more responsible for the bad things that have happened in my life than i realize.
four - sometimes i miss how carefree college was my freshmen year - even though i spent nearly all of my time studying. and i still do...where did the carefree go?
five - "always love, hate will get you every time." (Nada Surf, "Always Love")
six - i have never met one person who was happier because they held onto bitterness and unforgiveness. i have met many people, however, who are happier because they let bitterness go and forgave.
seven - i will never be able to repay the grace i have been given.
eight - joy can only come from contentment. contentment can only come from peace. and peace can only come from attempting to live with good regard toward those in your life. (Corinthians)

and seeing as it's 2 am already, i don't think i can write anymore and my bright moment of motivation to blog has passed...who knows, it might come back. hopefully before another month passes.

In Christ,
Alicia

Ooooh, heaven is a place on earth.

Sooo it's 10 on Sunday night, I have things I could be doing but I just don't feel like it. It's a bad place to be. I'd much rather post a blog about my year so far at High Point, talk to my friends online, put encouragement on my walls and listen to Chris Tomlin.

Things back at High Point have been really, really great. But they've also been stressful and full of struggles. But I'm learning to depend on God and let that stress and those struggles up to Him . . . and He absolves them. It's not always the easiest lesson to learn, but everyday brings me closer to Him as I purposefully seek Him. I've seen the fruits of this past summer become even more abundant here on campus . . . like my patience, which hasn't become a staple of my attitude yet, but when I pray for it and allow the Holy Spirit to fill me, I have it when I most need it. Things that I realized on Project have waned and I've forgotten them . . . but I've realized them again thanks to God's grace and persistance, and I love second realizations. It brings you back to the right frame of mind, the one that focuses on God's will, not ours. I am so thankful for His patience and His willingness to teach me things over and over again, even when I forget them or place them on the back burner . . .

I've been struggling a lot lately with materialism. It's so easy nowadays to treasure objects of ours (which are really His), obsess over them and depend on them for happiness. I've seen this in my life but especially in the lives of my friends and others. Even more so for me, I've been frustrated with what I do have, and I've been consumed by what I don't . . . but other times I'll be annoyed with the "stuff" in my room that I rarely ever use and feel compelled to chuck it out the window or smash it all. I mean, I can't be alone on this one! Seriously, so many times this week I've wanted to get rid of everything I own except for my computer and toothbrush, chop all my hair off and live in a makeshift tent out on the Greensward. I think humans were meant to live simply . . . otherwise we become spoiled too easily and begin grasping things that aren't eternal and lose hold of those fruits of the Spirit Paul writes about in Galatians.

By the way, tomorrow is my 20th birthday . . . in about twenty minutes I won't be a teenager any more, which is soooooo sweet, since I've pretty much been acting 20 since I was in high school. Aaaand it's gonna be a busy, busy day tomorrow . . . but an amazing one, depending on Him all the way!

". . . because the Spirit of the Lord is everywhere in this world. His Spirit holds it all together and hears every word."
- Wisdom of Solomon 1:7

DBSP '07

The greatest summer of my life is coming to a close. It has come with a flurry of feelings, some sad ones, some joyful ones, some regretful ones, but mostly excited ones. Summer Project ended this Tuesday, and I got home in the late afternoon, after flying about 5 hours into D.C. from Daytona Beach.

The last days of Project were weird. There wasn't much closure . . . all of a sudden, it was the night before people would be boarding their planes for home, and we were saying our farewells to people hours before they were actually leaving, everyone at different times on Tuesday. Which meant some awkward second goodbyes in the morning . Which made it all the more sad to be leaving, and the more I hugged people goodbye, the third or fourth time for some, the more I realized that I wouldn't be seeing many of them until the end of our lives, in His Kingdom. But that said, I have never been more passionate about the Lord and my desire to see Him glorified this semester has intensified since I've been home. And since we're on the subject . . . I got into a car accident yesterday! Holy cow. I'm fine, but the woman who hit me was pregnant. They took her to the hospital as a precaution, and I'm supposed to be getting a call from her husband or the sheriff to hear where she is or if she's even okay. It's a really unpleasant experience. Other than that, things have been nothing short of great: God has taught me so much over the summer, like how to depend on Him for everything, and how to draw strength and fruits of the Spirit from the Holy Spirit, that is indwelt with us the moment we accept Christ into our hearts. And for the biggest and greatest news of all:


I ACCEPTED CHRIST THIS SUMMER!

I realized that everything I knew about God and Jesus Christ was only a head knowledge; I had thought for 19 years that simply knowing His word or being a good person and obeying His laws made me a Christian. But it didn't. My discipler Katie expressed to me the day after I arrived on project the dire importance and seriousness of letting Christ into your heart, and physically accepting Him as our Lord and Savior . . . having 'heart-knowledge', if you will. And I'd never had that. Of course, for years I noticed and coveted the sincere devotion and passion and satisfaction other Christians had in knowing God, but I never was able to understand why my faith was so dependent on my feelings or why I consistently felt distant from God. Thank Him that He is persisent on His children's hearts, and that I realized my intense need for the Holy Spirit on that afternoon, with the guilt of my past sins heavier on my heart than they had ever been. I let my sins up to God, and opened up my heart to a knocking Christ and for the first time, accepted God's love and forgiveness and began my personal relationship with Him. I've had a 180 change ever since! And what a better environment to accept Christ in than a community of believers, for 10 weeks? I am so thankful that the Lord brought me to Daytona Beach, more than I can possibly say here or ever put into words. Being encouraged and supported by 40 other students my age, serving alongside them and glorifying our Lord until nightfall was beyond amazing, splendid and terrific . . . is there even a word to describe it? Probably not, it was that great. Here's a photo timeline of my experience for the past 10 weeks in Daytona Beach:

These were my roomates for the summer, minus Fran, who came in three weeks in and left only a few short weeks later. From left to right it's Amy, me and Lacey. Both girls were gorgeous and an enormous encouragement after I accepted Christ.


All of the 603 girls with our Discipler and Bible study leader, Katie. She was absolutely amazing . . . the woman who ultimately showed me how to open my heart and eyes to Jesus Christ. Her husband, Mark, came on project too.


Lacey and me, watching the shuttle Atlantis take off from the Kennedy Space Center. We all had a cookout, it was fun and goodtimes.


Lacey, me, Julie and Amy.

Heather, Amy Moore, me and Kelly in the back of our friend Patrick's truck, on our way to Florida's tallest lighthouse.

Kelly and I, being classy, as always . . .

Some project girls and I before the MangoFish concert, a traveling Summer Project band. It was one of our most successful outreaches, and we invited all of the beach community and our co-workers to come.

Dressed as robbers . . . the 708 boys were cops. That's Ben acting like something out of Reno 911.

Wacky Tacky Prom, kids! On the left is our fourth roomate Fran; she came to Project late and left early but she was great and we missed her a lot.

Two more girls with amazing hearts, Jessie and Betsy. They both attend East Carolina, only three hours from High Point.


All four of us on our last Women's Night. We had these meetings every Thursday night . . . for this one we dressed up and filled up the penthouse suite in a neighboring hotel, overlooking the Atlantic. I love this picture.


Staff guys Mark, Katie's husband, Bobby S. and Bobby B. at a Daytona Cubs baseball game.

Five weeks into Project, I got baptized in the ocean!

That's me and Earle, our Project Director, also an ordained minister. Then there's the whole crew, and lastly there's Sarah, Ashley and me. An outward expression of an inward change!

This is my church group - we all went to Christ Community, the most amazing church I've ever been to. The community and fellowship was just stunning. I'm gonna miss that church and its sunday school so much! That's Lacey, me, then the 703 girls (we were in room 603) with Betsy, Amy C., Elly, Amy from our room then their fourth roomate Bitz. The guys were Matt, Ross and Mike. They were the best . . . fantastic even, and I miss all of them already.


Ashley and me . . . I love this girl so much, she has one of the most warm hearts I've ever known.

I've been taught so many things, most of all the significance of obeying Him and following His desires, giving myself completely to Him every second of every day in every situation and just how to draw from the Holy Spirit. It's been such an amazing journey . . . I'm so blessed!

How can you look at this face and not feel jolly?

Here are some of my favorite photos that I've recently come across. Naturally, one of them is of Sufjan Stevens (my future best friend) but some of them are just plain cute (scroll down to baby.jpg). And this one was just funny to me, because ladies, this is what we all look like.



Babies! I can't wait to have my own kids. Okay...I can wait, but still - babies are really cute. You can't deny it.

Friends are pretty dang awesome too.

My summer break is going great so far, basically I'm just chillaxin, raising support for Daytona Summer Project in two weeks. Holy cow, I'm excited.

Ode to sophomore year!

Goodbye, goodbye! I am soooo done with this year. Okay, mostly just this semester (Fall '07 rocked my socks) but still I am definitely mentally exhausted and more ready than ever to leave school behind for a few months and just chillax. I look back at this year and all I see is change. Change and improvement. And that is good.

Ode to: love, and chilling thoughts of the future, and even chillier nights in the library at 4 am; frustration and anxiety over school, jobs, internships, work study, boys, teachers, advisors, presidents, friends; happiness and jubilation over all these things and more; dressing up for formals only to get sweaty and sore dancing the night away; driving to Harris Teeter at 1 am for Twizzlers and munchies; mumbles under the breah to similarly disgruntled and aggravated roomies; long walks on campus with a special someone; bated breath, rushed words, light-headedness, easy conversation, crooked smiles, everlasting friendship.

Did I mention how monumental this year was? Monumental and memorable.

I found these amazing kids, my fellow CRU leaders:

I aced Biology Research and Writing with a killer review paper and oral presentation on "Adaptations to Wintry Trauma in Perennial Softwoods":

I made more friends than I ever have before:

And grown in my relationship with Christ on turbo-speed. Even if it is far from perfect, I'm still more satisfied with and dependent on the Lord than ever.

Delightful, stressful, ever-mindful, scrumptrulescent, savory, tender, juicy, dramatic, comedic, laugh-out-loud, crying-into-shoulders, prasing-God, greensward-hopping, sophomore year.

Roomate issues

Sometimes, I don't understand God.

My roomate and I, we started out as best friends and now we are almost completely the opposite. It's heart-wrenching.

We had a screaming row this morning, and I have never had one of those in my entire life. It was honestly the worst experience... that I am even capable of that much rage, screaming at her things I completely regret and some things I can't even remember. It was that bad.

I guess I stretch the best-friends "no boundaries" thing too much. I mean, of course now I see that, but not when I was in the middle of my semester, thinking everything was peachy keen, besides me knowing that my keyboard typing is incessant and annoying. And all of this rage just builds up, without me knowing, until this morning at 5:30 when I accidentally woke her up. But it wasn't me being inconsiderate, I was in horrible pain and making "pain noises" or whatever, and honestly wasn't thinking about McKenzie or anyone else, just the intense pain going on in my legs! I mean, come on. She completely unloads on me after deliberately trying to piss me off, turning on all the lights at 6 am, banging boxes around, making an all around disturbance until I finally give up and ask her what the heck is going on... and she proceeds to tell me, her face red and positively SCREAMING, that I am completely inconsiderate for having been in pain and moaning, when she had an exam this morning at 8:30, which I had no idea about. I told her that maybe if I had two brains, one could encompass the pain in my legs and the other could be considerate and force me off the bunk bed and out of the room. She seriously said, I don't care, you could have left the room and moaned down the hall. Uhhh...whatev.

Basically she made it clear that I'm a bad roomate, or simply that the both of us don't work together, which I think we both knew from the beginning. But seriously... I just couldn't fathom anyone being that incredibly pissed off (especially at me) ever. It stinks that God allows these emotions... but maybe they're good also.

My friend Denise is amazing, and I have such other amazing friends who can hold me accountable instead of just criticizing me. Which is what everyone needs, especially Christians.

I need to just pray for peace and patience about the whole situation and find some scripture to define it.

I am going to burst

For a varitety of amazing (and not so amazing reasons).

Firstly, this week has been the CRAZIEST (and I emphasize crazy) week of my entire flipping life. This includes that one time my grandpa died and we adopted the neighborhood cat and I got caught dressing up in my sister's clothes and wearing her makeup, all in the same week. I was 6 or 7.

Anyway, yesterday I could barely catch my breath. A variety of obligations plus the fact that I'm no good at not procrastinating (yeah, thank you McKenzie for pointing out that flaw and your blatant dissaproval) kept me up for hours, I think I'd gone about 32 hours without sleep, until this evening at about 5 when I simply threw up my hands in exasperation and refused to do anymore and collapsed on my bed, which was pretty hard, since I'm on the top bunk. But oh, is it possible. I woke up at 2:30 this morning when McKenzie got back to the room, and basically fell out of my bed out of shock, then decided it wasn't so bad, I'd just finish my work all morning, take my time and have it all ready before class at 12:30. By the way, tomorrow is the last day of classes for my sophomore year. I am going to be a college junior in 4 months. I am scared out of my pants. Anyway, here is what I have to get done today:

1. shower, find a pretty dress to wear for my presentation
2. finish my oral presentation for BIO 213 (Adaptations to Wintry Trauma in Perennial Softwoods)
3. finish my review paper for BIO 213 (thank goodness it's just revisions and my abstract!)
4. eat lunch with Melodie
5. give my oral presentation
6. change into more comfortable clothes
7. go to my last Populations lab, and get dirty with some radish and wheat plants (woo hoo!)
8. head on out to Panther Palooza, help hand out free lounge chairs
9. relish in my free time from 7-7:45
10. go to CRU's last meeting of the semester, eat lots of cake
11. dance prolifically on the greensward, because all I have left is finals!

Also, this week has been amazing simply because I have the greatest people for friends in the world. You just can't get better than them, unless you were maybe Mother Theresa (or Jesus, of course!). I've been uplifted by them and I've just been pleasantly surrounded by their encouragement and comfort. Knowing that God has placed them in my life, all I can say is praise the Lord, for He is great! Awesome, amazing and terrific also come to mind.

So Sufjan in all his Christian glory continues to pleasantly surprise me. "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!" is my new fave.

Oh great sights upon this state! Hallelu-
Wonders bright, and rivers, lake. Hallelu-
Trail of Tears and Horseshoe Lake. Hallelu-
Trusting things beyond mistake. Hallelu-

We were in love. We were in love.
Palisades! Palisades!
I can wait. I can wait.
Lamb of God, we sound the horn.
Hallelujah!
To us your ghost is born. Hallelu-

I can't explain the state that I'm in
The state of my heart, he was my best friend
Into the car, from the back seat
Oh admiration in falling asleep
All of my powers, day after day I can tell you, we swaggered and swayed
Deep in the tower, the prairies below I can tell you, the telling gets old
Terrible sting and terrible storm
I can tell you the day we were born
My friend is gone, he ran away I can tell you, I love him each day
Though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
I can tell you I love him each day
Terrible sting, terrible storm, I can tell you.

Anyway I have a review paper to revise, a few more cups of coffee to drink and a shower to take before lunch. My heart is going to burst! Life is amazing. God is awesome. Hallelujah :)