Monday, October 19, 2009

Fall Break in Ohio!

Well, here I am once again in Ohio with my good friend Laura. Let me tell you what a blessing she has been in my life since meeting her my very first minutes at Toccoa Falls. She has been such a source of joy, inspiration, challenge, comfort, and an adventure-partner. She came to visit my family in Turkey last winter before we went to Israel together.
Anyway, we came up here north to be with her family for our 4-day weekend and it has been filled with fall festivities. The weather has been nice in its chilly-ness and we have adored the variety of colors on all the oak and maple trees. Such rich colors in yellow, orange, brown, green, reds...all reflect the glory of God!! So I have been looking out for different shades of colors like I would be for sea shells and they've been getting flattened by a monstrous encyclopedia :)
So besides taking walks and collecting leaves, I have been sipping hot apple cider, reading, carving out a girly pumpkin, going out with Laura's older sister for coffee and biscotti, thrift shopping, and making Thai food. So good!

James 1:17
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Homecoming at Toccoa Falls College

This weekend is homecoming here at Toccoa Falls College and I love it!
I love seeing people come here with all their memories, sentiments, tears of joy, and the feelings of youthfulness revisited. People who haven't seen each other for decades now reuniting during brunches, luncheons, socials, ducky races, touring campus...It makes me happy that I go to a school where former students come back and share their stories of how they grew here and all that God taught them here.
I wonder when I will come back again for homecoming. I think it will be a great delight to see people that I went to school some 20 years later all grown up, probably most married and with kids, and catch up on all that has been happening in the last years. I pray that I will have that joy when it comes my time.
For now, I am still content and delighted to be a current student at Toccoa Falls College and am so thankful for that God has allowed me to learn here and all the people I have met.

All praise, glory, and honor to the Lord God of hosts.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Fear and Trust

FEAR. TRUST.

These have been two of my dominant mindsets/emotions in the last few weeks. I am graduating in about 70 days. That is so tangible, so close, so scary.
70 days and I will have a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with about 15 hours of coursework in counseling/psychology. But then what? For an international student (and even with "traditional" students) graduation poses a big ? mark. Rather than just being able to be excited about it and celebrate the accomplishment of a college carreer, we have to instead think of what we are going to do next. Going home is not always an option, not every international student has family in the U.S., and then there is the whole homeland security issue with visas and what not. For us, graduation in a way brings us up to a mountain peak and we're expected to make so many life decisions. At high school graduation, we just had to think about college. Now, life stands before us in an uncertain matrix.
The unknown can be scary. It can be a great excuse for adventure and growth, but looking at a "blank" in life is daunting and uncertain. Now days, we also have so many options! I could go any where in the world, doing pretty much anything. That's great, but now there is more we have to leaf and search through.
All of this, and the fear of leaving behind friends, thinking about where I will be in 3 months, how I will find good friends again, how I will do in a full-time, regular job, how I will find a good church, how will I grieve when I leave Toccoa Falls College...all these worry me.
Yet I don't want to. I want to just give it to God and LEAVE it in His able hands. But I keep taking it off His shelf by thinking about it and worry about it.

I'm so glad I found these verses that bring together fear and trust in Isaiah 41:10, 13:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you,
Do not fear; I will help you.