Friday: my dad came in town to visit my grandparents. It was so good to hang out with him. We walked around the botanical gardens with my grandma and then had a wonderful home cooked dinner with the grandparents. That night, we saw the movie Life As We Know It and it was soooo cute!
Saturday: I had breakfast with the beautiful Caroline Greene. It is always a blessing to be able to visit with the girls I went to China with. We all have this special bond and a common passion and it is great to talk to people who understand my love for China and Orphans. I went home Saturday afternoon and spent Friday night at coffee with my 2 bffs, Kathryn and Katie.
Sunday and Monday: I spent these 2 days reading the final book in the Huger Game series, Mockingjay. One of my camp friends, Hannah, got me hooked on this series and I finally had time read the last book on my break. It is soooo good and I highly recommend it to anyone. When I finished Mockingjay, I started Mary Beth Chapman's book, Choosing to SEE. I bought it in August because there was a week were proceeds of the book would go to Show Hope and I finally got around to reading it.
Tuesday: I woke up early so I could read Choosing to SEE. I kept saying that I would read one more chapter until finally I was almost done with the book and it was hours later. I had to stop reading because I was crying so hard that I could not see through my tears. I decided to save the rest of the book for later and got packed up to go home. I left for my 2 and half hour drive with a lot of questions for God. There is so much in this world that I don't understand.
Every year around Fall Break, I get a little Christmas itch. Like most people, my favorite time of year is Christmas. I love everything thing about it, especially the music. I decided to pop in my favorite Christmas CD for the ride back to school. In my house, we do not do anything related to Christmas until Santa rides through in the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade, so my mother will not be happy to know that I pulled out the Christmas music a little early so let's keep that a secret. Anyway, as I'm listening to my Christmas music, I cling on to this theme of hope that is in all of the songs. There is so much wrong with the world, we humans have screwed up so bad but in the coming of a sweet little baby named Jesus, there is Hope. In the death of him on the cross, there is hope. When I got back to school, I finished up Mary Beth's book. The last chapter is named Spring is Coming after a song that is on her husband's latest cd. It is all about the hope we have for Jesus to bring us out of the dark places in our lives and make beauty from them. As you can tell from the overall theme of my blog, God's faithfulness has been the major thing that I have been learning for most of my Christian walk. God has proven his faithfulness in so many ways over the past years, especially, through my trip to China. Now, He has shifted focus to revealing a key aspect of faithfulness that I hadn't thought enough about, Hope. There is hope for those orphans, there is hope for this world, and there is hope for me. I left for fall break really down but I came back with hope. I am looking forward to all that God has to teach me.
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Romans 5:5
But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.
Psalm 39:7
The Beautiful Caroline Greene!
