Joy.

These past 3 days have just been awesome. Well, really since coming back to school. I don't think I have felt this refreshed in a very long time.

First off, my classes. They. Are. Awesome. If you aren't majoring in something that you love, then you are missing out. I love being an art major. I love making art, I love learning from wizards about art, and I love my friends who share the same passion about art. The combination makes for a pretty great education I would say. Yes I am paying a ridiculously over priced amount of money to get a degree, but Im positive that its worth it. Because waking up in the morning and actually wanting to go to class is something that rarely happens for me. So when I say i hate school, that is excluding art classes. Because art is my exception.

New friends. Or rather, old acquaintances who have become so much more. It is amazing how friendships grow over time, and i am really starting to understand that. My college friends have become my best friends, and I love them. I love that I can spend countless hours with them and not get annoyed, I love that I can be weary around them and know that they are there to lift me up, and I love that i can count on them to bring me back to reality when i feel lost. which happens more than i like to admit.

Love. And finding joy in little things.

I have fallen in love with Jesus Christ all over again. I have been stuck in a place where I thought I could do things on my own, but i have been broken of that, and it is so evident this week. My young life girls at King George have shown me true beauty in the Lord this week. Beauty in the fact that they are so willing to recklessly talk about life with me. To share things with me that I dont deserve to hear. I love them. i love them because they are beautiful. and because they dont even recognize their beauty at times, because being beautiful in the Lord is something that we dont always see in ourselves. But this week I have seen it.

Because being broken is beautiful.

Feeling like you have been abandoned and lost, and then realizing that there is someone who cares for you. Someone who is willing to lift you out of your brokenness, out of your rut and contentment, out of your loneliness. And into the beauty of life. Out of the chaos and into something real. Into a life that brings you passion. and love and. Joy.

“In my distress I called to the LORD,

and he answered me.

From the depths of the grave I called for help,

and you listened to my cry.

You hurled me into the deep,

into the very heart of the seas,

and the currents swirled about me;

all your waves and breakers

swept over me.

I said, ‘I have been banished

from your sight;

yet I will look again

toward your holy temple.’

The engulfing waters threatened me,

the deep surrounded me;

seaweed was wrapped around my head.

To the roots of the mountains I sank down;

the earth beneath barred me in forever.

But you brought my life up from the pit,

O LORD my God.

“When my life was ebbing away,

I remembered you, LORD,

and my prayer rose to you,

to your holy temple.

“Those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

But I, with a song of thanksgiving,

will sacrifice to you.

What I have vowed I will make good.

Salvation comes from the LORD.”