one night divine

things are wrapping up in Fayetteville tonight, and it has been a fun day to watch unfold.  Because we are leaving for Seattle tomorrow, we celebrated Christmas Eve tonight, and we are doing Christmas day tomorrow morning.  It’s so funny because I always thought that as people got older, they outgrew all of the anticipation of Christmas.  Well, my little brother, who is 17, wanted to sleep by the Christmas Tree tonight in order to insure the safety of the gifts.  He has searching under the tree every day, only to find that nothing under it belongs to him.  Mom was hiding all of his stuff in her room.  Anyhow, we had dinner as a family, which is rare since I don’t live with my parents anymore.  After that, we read The Other Wise Man, Alabaster’s Song, and Great Joy.  We read The Other Wise Man every year.  Tonight, I got to do the honors.  The other two are really cute stories my mom reads to her first-graders.  She is so animated… I would have loved to have her as my teacher  After that we opened stockings and watched The Nativity.  I’ve tried to watch it twice  before, and both times I fell asleep.  Tonight I stayed awake for the whole thing, and it turned out to be pretty good.  Now everyone else is nestled away in their beds.  I am waiting on some clothes to finish drying so I can put them in my suitcase.I am actually really excited to go back to Seattle.  It’s only been 9 months since I moved away, and part of me feels like it has been 2 weeks, and another part feels like it’s been 2 years.  The past semester was actually much harder than I anticipated.  Coming in as a transfer student was quite similar to being a freshman.  I was academically unsure of what to expect.  I didn’t know anyone; I didn’t know where anything was.  At the beginning of the semester, UNC -Chapel Hill felt so huge to me.  I felt like I would never learn my way around.  While I don’t know where every building on campus is now, I can pretty much find my way around in the dark, which is a pretty big accomplishment  It took me a long time to find a church.  When I moved to Seattle my freshman year, NewSong was the first church I tried, and it was the perfect fit.  Everyone was my age and they were all so friendly and passionate about Jesus.  I really grew and was challenged to the very core of my being while I was there.  Here, it took much longer.  I tried out Grace Church because that’s where all my XA friends went to church.  Don’t get me wrong, it is an awesome church.  It just wasn’t for me.  So then I tried True Life. It has been a real adjustment because my church in Fayetteville is pretty much a mega church, and my church in WA at least had several hundred people.  So I was used to a pretty large atmosphere.  TrueLife is entirely different.  It is a church plant, and the first time I went, there were about 12 people, and we met in the pastor’s basement.  It was totally out of my element and out of my comfort zone, which seemed to be Jesus’ theme for my life at the beginning of the semester.  But it has turned out to be an awesome experience.  I still don’t quite feel at home, but I think it will come with time.  Then there was the experience of finding friends…. that was kinda hard.  I jumped in right away, and I started getting to know people.  I showed up at every event because I was desperate for community.  So Chi Alpha is where I found my niche.  It took awhile for me to really start connecting with people.  but Jesus provided Jennifer and the girls in my life group…then there are Raiza and Lerryn…two powerhouses for Christ!  Jesus has just given me so much provision this semester.  He has just extended His hand and shown his great faithfulness and love.  I think now He is starting to teach me about the impossible, but I will go into that another time..So anyhow, I go into all this 1) to recognize and remember the goodness of my God!  and 2) to bring up the point that this semester things were not easy by any stretch of the imagination.  It through me for such a loop just to be living back in NC.  So I think that to a certain extent I romanticized my life in WA.  I remembered everything wonderful and erased everything terrible.  I told  myself that I felt so complete in WA and that everything was perfect there.  But honestly that is also not true by any stretch of the imagination.  While it was fun to live 3500 miles away form my parents, it wasn’t the best thing ever.  My living conditions were somewhat abusive and manipulative, I definitely had times where I felt like I just fell through the cracks or life was surfacy, and my life just didn’t feel complete.  I remember being lonely when I first moved there.  I basically talked to Sarah and Adam on the phone and Shaylon on AIM and that was life.  I remembe friendships feeling fake and all the fristration that came with that.  So basically, I am learning that life isn’t perfect.  and I am a tad afraid that all my romanticizing of my previous life will lead me to disappointment over break.  People have gotten married, guy friends that I was close to now have girlfriends…the whole dynamic will just be different.  I told Jennifer about all this at one of our one-on-one’s, and she said it was part of being a girl.  It’s not ok, but it’s normal…that made me feel a little better.  I think I am learning to do it less, though.  But I really prayed for an open mind this past semester, and I think Jesus gave it to me.  I never really compared WA and NC.  I just remembered stuff in a somewhat distorted way.  I don’t things to be different than when I left And usually I am the first to jump on the bandwagon for change, but this time, I am still timid…  I guess that’s selfish, though.I will be gone for the next 10 days, so blogging will be scarce.