a smile awaits

Only 3 days until Friday...
Until escape...
Until prodigality...
Until Clemson.

water spiders

so i'm sitting outside on my dock right now. it's so nice out here - it's dusk, so it's cooling down outside and a deep blue/gray color seems to be surrounding everything. the crickets are chirping pretty loud, the birds are still singing, and i can hear the frogs croaking too. a raccoon just walked up and stood about 3 feet away from me (a rather frightening experience), my dad just cut the grass a few hours ago, so the smell of fresh cut grass is in the air...wow i love it. i love the outside.

i was just sitting here "studying" and among the vastness of the sky and the water around me i noticed the tiny little water spiders gliding ever so smoothly across the surface of the pond. that's when it hit me...

so often we look beyond the "small" things in life. they are so easy to overlook if we want to -- we can focus our attention on the big picture, on the things that "matter" so much, on the things that are so beautiful and breathtaking, that we forget about the little things that might not be so great to look upon, or might not be so breathtaking, or might seem insignificant...but they are there. they will always be there - and we can choose to notice them or not. They, like the water spiders are easily seen if we just look...look closely at our surroundings. we forget about the homeless man who doesn't have a bed to sleep in tonight, we forget about the kid in africa who was born with AIDS and is seemingly wasting away in an orphanage full of children just like him, we forget about the single mom with 3 kids who is working 2 jobs in order to put food on the table, we overlook the elderly who have so much to offer but in our eyes seem so insignificant. we overlook the things in life we choose to overlook - the things that might not be quite so prominent or that might not be quite so wonderful to look upon. but they are there...they are created in the image of Christ...they are beautiful. Don't forget to notice them...gaze upon them....love them...no matter how small they seem in our eyes.

a heart that is....

I had so many things I wanted to write on here when I thought about it 5 seconds ago, but between then and typing in the web address they somehow left me. I hate when that happens.

But you know what I love? I love having a heart that is content. I know that circumstancially I'm not supposed to be content all of the time - but having a content heart is completely different. Circumstancially today, I couldn't have been more content. I got to spend time with one of the most amazing people in the world. Someone who's shear presence makes my heart more content than it was in the moments before I was with them. Someone who I can share my heart with purely, who I can be real with, who I can be confident that they are going to be real right back. Those circumstances helped to aide in a more content heart - but I'm still not there, and I can't get there by myself. God has allowed my heart to be unsettled right now for a reason - a reason that I'm not sure of but excited to see why. Maybe I won't ever know why...maybe I will. I'm not sure...I just hope that I will learn a lot from it. It's not very fun going through it...and not knowing why there is discontentment - but I can only pray that Christ will be glorified through it....and through me while it lasts.

study...learn

Pull back my skin, expose my skull, open my mind, and pour the information inside.

Drink it. Guzzle it. Down it.

Soak it up so I can squeeze it out.

Pour it out.

Spew it.

Learn.

a little of this, a little of that.

well, I have my first 2 official tests next week. crazy. i feel like i have so much to study for them both. do you ever feel like you have a list a mile long that you will never catch up to? that's kinda how i'm feeling right now. there's just so much material to learn...but i guess that's what i'm here for right? classes are going well thusfar, and i'm still enjoying what i'm learning, so that's a good thing.

I ran on the battery last night at sunset...it was really nice. it was one of the first times i've really felt like charleston is really my home now. it was neat. there was a steady breeze blowing and the water was gorgeous...it was nice to get out and get movin'. i'm going to try and do that a lot more often.

i had my first cadaver lab tonight. for those of you who might not know what that is, it's the disection of humans. i know it sounds kind of gorry, but it's really not that bad...it definitely aides big time in learning. it was a good time - but there was definitely some information overload. we had 15 minutes per body and there were like 6 stations i think. being in there with so many exposed deceased bodies made me think a lot about a lot of different things...of which i might expound upon later, but not now.

for now i will resume my studies....while laying in the bed w/ the lights off...haha - betcha this won't last long.