0165-0180: exhaustion.

It has been a long week of firsts, but I am finally in a routine.  I know my favorite (and least favorite) times of the week, and can better prepare.  I have planned almost all my major projects, and I know I’ll survive the semester.

Right now, I just got back from the dishroom.  Yes, I work in a dishroom on campus.  The only cafeteria open on Labor Day.  The tray accumulator broke multiple times.  The conveyor also broke, so I spent most of the evening acting as a human conveyor, running back and forth with heavy stacks of trays and plates.  I cleaned every apparatus in that dishroom at the end of the night.

I returned to my dorm 45 minutes later than usual.  My fingers were swollen from absorbing so much water.  And now I can sympathize some with pregnant women, because my feet were swollen too. 

Tonight, I need to count my blessings.  More desperately than ever.  And so:

0165:  Courage needed for my creative nonfiction class.
0166:  Luther & Calvin.  Just a fun class, with a fun professor, and good friends.
0167:  Honest friends, who speak encouraging truth. 
0168:  American literature.  It’s going to be fun. :)
0169:  Laughter.  I laughed so much this week.
0170:  No 8 AMs!
0171:  Direction in choosing extracurriculars.
0172:  Time & determination to accomplish everything needed.
0173:  60-70 degree weather. Finally.
0174:  Warriors.  Worship in the dark.
0175:  Disney music.
0176:  Hallmates who make a bad night after work better.
0177:  “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?  Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”
0178:  Oh, how He loves us so.
0179:  Now You are sitting on Your heavenly throne/Soon we will be coming home…
0180:  “With no taint of what we should now call self-approval, she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pride…If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself; ‘it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign.’” (C. S. Lewis)

the love of Jesus

O Father of Jesus,
Help me to approach You with deepest reverence,
not with presumption,
not with servile fear, but with holy boldness.
You are beyond the grasp of my understanding,
but not beyond that of my love.
You know that I love You supremely,
for You are supremely adorable, good perfect.

My heart melts at the love of Jesus,
my brother, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh,
married to me, dead for me, risen for me;
He is mine and I am His,
given to me as well as for me;
I am never so much mine as when I am His,
or so much lost to myself until lost in Him;
then I find my true [womanhood].

But my love is frost and cold, ice and snow;
Let His love warm me,
lighten my burden,
be my heaven;
May it be more revealed to me in all its influences
that my love to Him may be more fervent and glowing;
Let the mighty tide of His everlasting love
cover the rocks of my sin and care;
Then let my spirit float above those things
which had else wrecked my life.

Make me fruitful by living to that love,
my character becoming more beautiful every day.
If traces of Christ’s love-artistry be upon me,
may He work on with His divine brush
until the [c o m p l e t e] image be obtained
and I be made a perfect copy of Him,
my Master.

O Lord Jesus, come to me,
O Divine Spirit, rest upon me,
O Holy Father, look on me in mercy
for the sake of the well-beloved. 

[a late-night prayer, read in turmoil, from The Valley of Vision.]

the saturday evening blog post [vol. 2 iss. 7]

September is finally here!  After a week of unseasonably warm weather at school, we are finally down into the 60s and 70s.  Yesterday marked the first rain of the school year.

BUT, September means more than cooler weather and a chance to break out the jacket and rainboots I’ve been stashing.  It’s also time for the Saturday Evening Blog Post!

This week, I selected a short reflection I wrote during a thunderstorm.  I chose it because it reflects where I am in life – learning to see God’s beauty and love in things I wouldn’t normally see as beautiful or lovely. 
If you are so inclined, head on over to Elizabeth Esther’s blog and link up!