Hello blog, it's been a while. I've decided that I need to learn to get better at this so that when I go to Italy, I'll already be used to doing it and will be able to write everything down so I never forget that experience.
Don't worry, I won't be rehashing the past 8 months for you. Rather, I'll just begin with now, and right now I'm avoiding doing my homework. And you know, I've really come to despise and envy the word homework because my "homework" isn't homework, or at least it's not the homework I grew up to know. I miss worksheets, tests over one chapter in a textbook that was only an inch thick, 2 page research pages; that, my friends, is homework. What I have should be called "life interferences, ruins, destroyers" etc. Anything but homework. Next week will probably be one of the worst, as it is the week before finals, and hopefully I succeed, not just "make it through", which is why my entire weekend will be full of model building, sketching, structures math (aka the worst kind of math in the world that takes 2 pages for one problem), and the highlight, lunch with the parents on Sunday. But then! The light at the end of the tunnel! Only 2 finals and then summer, thank goodness! So that's school.

As for life. Honestly, my life is a mess right now. Aside from school spiraling out of control, everything else in my life is...confusing? I don't really know the word for it. I'm in college right? "Soul searching" is completely normal and expected during these years, and believe me when I heard all the "lame, motivational pep talks" about how college is a time to find yourself, I definitely turned my head the other way. Yet somehow, here I am, completely lost and confused. I technically know right from wrong, I was taught how to be respectful, polite, genuine, considerate, and the list goes on. All of which have to do with the way you treat others, the way you carry yourself, the way you want to percieved by others. Yet today, it seems the entire world (or just my little world of College Station) is only concerned with themselves. It's not only accepted, but encouraged to only think about yourself, "do what makes YOU happy". So I fell into the trap, I'm not sure when it happened but I know for sure the past 3 years, mainly when I got to college.
Lately I've been looking back at my life and asking, what have I done? What have I really accomplished that has made the world better, that has made other people better? And the answer, nothing. Well, I've been going to Breakaway this year. It's a college bible study basically that Texas A&M has every Tuesday night. And about mid way through the semester, it broke me, or at least I think that's what happened. There's where confusion comes in. I have drifted so far from my relationship with God in the past 4-5 years and I guess I thought that since I had already made the decision to take comtrol of my own life, there was no going back to him. I dont know if you have ever heard of Marian Jordan, but she spoke at Breakaway one week when it was a girl's only week and she explained that you can't earn God's love. And she explained it in a way that I actually understood. It's hard to put into words everything she showed me. Anyways, I just remember getting back to my car and just crying, and that was the moment. That was when I realized I needed God and I needed to go back to him. I had never been moved to tears before that moment and even now as I'm remembering, it brings tears to my eyes.
So that being said, I've really been enjoying Breakaway alot more now that I'm applying things to my life and not just listening for an hour and going on with my own life. I've been reading my bible more, even listening to new music like Jeff Johnson and Jeremy Camp. But then I go back to trying to do the "right" thing, thinking my actions are what makes me Christian and I have to keep reminding myself I can't earn my way into God's love. Confusion again.
At one Breakaway, Ben (the speaker), introduced a project to us by OneVerse. They are a company that translates bibles into the languages of people who don't have it in their own language. Well they needed 15,000 dollars to translate the bible into this one language of the Laybay people (spelling is definitely not right) and because they didn't have it, it was going to take 5 years. So Ben was like, we can do this. Breakaway made shirts and for every 20 dollars you donated you got a shirt, but of course you could donate more. When he was explaining that to us it was like, something inside of me turned on, I had to donate. So I used my birthday money from Aunt Kathy and Uncle Rick (which I meant to tell you about this Aunt Kathy and Uncle Rick, I just got busy with school, Sorry!) and donated. And then I got to my car, and had another breakdown. Ok God. What is going on, why do I keep crying all the time, what is wrong with me. After my first breakdown, I prayed for God to turn my heart back to him, and to really guide me and show me the right path (I dont know really how to pray, I dont know what to pray, I kinda just talk to him and ask stuff like that). So after the second meltdown I realized why it was happening, helping others. I felt part of something, I felt like I helped people get the word of God. And I kept hearing these stories, Marian told some, Ben tells them all the time, about missions they go on, people they save in other countries, and in our country. I want to do that. But right now I feel like I'm still new, even though I've always been a christian, it's different now somehow. But I have this urge to find a bible study group, find a youth group at a church, find a church here, join young life or breakaway, go on mission trips, whatever I can do. Honestly, I just feel like I want to do anything and everything that has to do with God, and I'm sure that's not the right way to go about things but I don't know what else to do. I can read my bible, and pray as I have been doing, but is that enough? I don't think so.
So then I have all this I want to do but then I look at my life. The friends I have, what we do together, etc. Ok, well I love my friends, there is a reason they are my friends. But we go out to parties, and bars, and drink. I haven't ever really been a huge partier but I still go with them. Ben mentioned one night how "ok god, I'm with you, but I'm just gonna keep my same friends and even though I'm not drinking I'm still going to go to the parties with them". And I dont really remember how he put it, I need to go back and listen to it, but basically, that's not right. That's not what God wants. You need to surround yourself with people "like you?" ah, that doesn't sound right, well I dont know how to put it the way he does. So ok, confusion again. I'm not going to alienate my friends now and just find all new friends who feel as strongly about this as I feel, how is that Christian?

So in a nutshell, I'm a mess right now. But to end on a positive note, I know that there is a reason for this change in my life and dont get me wrong, I'm not sulking around crying all the time, I'm actually much happier since my meltdowns, just stumbling around a little bit and learning, alot.