Wew, the sights and sounds and experiences over the past several weeks have been almost overwhelming, but exciting and uplifting all the same.  I’m sitting in my new home for now, Miller Hall at Messiah College.  I can’t believe that I am finally here.  Last night I could barely sleep in anticipation for the upcoming semester.  I am a full time student again at last.

I haven’t yet met my new roommate, but he is on his was as I type.  There is also a little orientation dinner tonight I’ll go to.  I’ve already warmed up on the piano in the music center.  The pianos are nice Yamaha uprights.

I arrived yesterday evening at Messiah, but perhaps I should fill in a little bit about the time that I’ve not written.

The Christmas season at the bookstore was really busy, with lines wrapping halfway down the store.  I loved working in the bookstore and being around all the books, but I’m happy that the busy season is over.  I’m also happy to not have to do so much work for now.

Christmas arrived with much anticipation as always.  It was a delightful day to be around family and friends.  I heard an eye opening quote over the Ransomed Heart podcast.  The quote is from a letter of George MacDonald to his wife.  I thought about it during the Christmas season with the great joy of giving and receiving gifts, and not only that but as the speakers brought up, Christmas is a time when deep longings are unearthed.  George MacDonald wrote “The day, my dear, is coming when all we long for in the commonness of daily love and in the wonder and magic of Christmas time will all be rolled up in to one, and we will all walk about as if in a dream but more awake and alive than we have ever on this earth.”

I have to confess here that Christmas day is usually a day when I get depressed in the afternoon after all the presents have been opened.  I think I get depressed usually because I put so much expectation and hope on Christmas opening presents, giving the perfect gift…  Putting hopes on such material things, quite frankly will let you down always, but the point is that the longing that comes with these things, whatever they maybe for you, is genuine and real and is good.  And my dear, thank God that Christmas is a day we celebrate the one who truly came to fulfill those deep longings, not Santa Claus, but Jesus Christ.  The quote from MacDonald helped me to truly get through a Christmas without being depressed, praise God!

Two days after Christmas I was up before sunlight packed and traveling to St. Louis to the Urbana Student Missions Conference.  Over the course of the past three years each of the several times I’ve travelled across country I stopped at the America Convention Center and Edward Jones Dome to remember the previous Urbana and how God touched my heart during that time.  I can hardly believe three years have past, but this Urbana proved to be just as powerful as the last.

It is hard for me to put into words what this Urbana meant to me.  I think that it was to me a refresher and a renewed call to humbly serve Jesus Christ in His mission.  Remember the poor, oppressed, orphaned, and widow.  To take off my blinders and remember that God came to us incarnate, in the flesh, He took on humility to be with us.    That God’s mission goes much deeper than just saving souls, but goes on to the redemption off all things and all that breathes. He moved into our neighborhood.  What an amazing call to love.  I came away with a deeper sense of God’s lavish grace and God also moved my heart tighter to the truth.

I was blessed to spend this Urbana with a few of my future Messiah classmates, several of whom I’ve already bumped into on campus.  I was encouraged in my time at Urbana by them.

I came away from Urbana with four new books, which I think highlight topics that are on my heart.  The first one, True Story by James Choung is about sharing our faith, something that I always have a difficult time doing.  I also bought Listening to God in Times of Choice by Gordon T. Smith, Spiritual Mentoring by Keith R. Anderson, and Prayer by James Emery White.

After Urbana I got in my car and drove to Tennessee where I spent two wonderful days with my grandmother, Ruby and two Aunts, Suzanne and Sharon, and also Sharon’s husband Jack, which means he’s my uncle!  I then drove up to Virginia for the night and then on to Messiah the next day.

My parents saw me off with gifts, hugs, and words of wisdom.  I’m blessed to have parents that care like that.  And I also believe that I have a good semester in front of me.