Blessed

I am so incredibly blessed. It is nearly impossible to fathom how greatly God has blessed me these two short semesters at Providence. Every day I am completely blown away by His great blessings.

I do not have room or time to list all the blessings, and I don't think I ever will. God is constantly doing things in my life that I never would have imagined. I've always known that I was going to go to Providence, that it was going to be my college. But I don't think I would ever have guessed or imagined how it would shape my life.

I still can't put into words how blessed I am. I have amazing, supporting friends, I'm surrounded by God's beautiful and diverse creation, I have learned so much in all of my classes, and have been greatly humbled through them. The list would go on and on. Everyday I discover another reason to praise God for what He's doing in my life.

Even through mid-terms, homesickness, and stress, there is no other place I want to be right now more then Providence. My senior year of high school I knew that this was were God wanted me. I can see that even more clearly now. I belong here. God has greatly blessed me through this college, praise the Lord!

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new mevery morning;

great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Surrounded by His Beauty

 

On the wall in our dorm room there is a large bulletin board that contains close to 100 photos of everything that happened during the first semester here. A daily reminder of everything that has happened in such a short amount of time.

The Bread Winners

Welcome back to sunny California. It might be sunny but sadly its not warm. 38 degrees anyone? brrrrrr.

I was on a run this morning and came across a sidewalk covered in ice, it was rather entertaining. (What surprises you more, the "run this morning" or the ice in California?) Yeah, I got up at 7:30AM to go for a run. It was cold. By the time I made it to choir at 9am I was actually wide awake and was having a great start to the day. I'm not saying I'm getting up that early every morning, but it wasn't a bad way to start the day.

I've been thrown headfirst back into classes, and I'm loving every moment of it. Except for personal finance . . . math is not my thing. Aside from that I am super excited about my classes.

I recently read an article in one of my history books about women as bread winners. Written in 1887 by Edward O'Donnell and entitled "Women as Bread Winners--The Error of the Age." Normally when I read my textbooks I go through and underline important things to remember, key points, and then move on. This article was different, it stuck with me. I was about through the second paragraph before I realized that I was basically underlining the entire article. It was an extremely interesting article about the women in the factories and what it was doing to family, society, and the men who where looking for jobs as well.

The role of women in the factory was at one point described as "an insidious assault upon the home; it is the knife of the assassin, aimed at the family circle." It is strange to see how much societies view point has changed. Women working is not shocking as it was during 1887 or World War II. Throughout the article the author seemed to dislike the idea of women taking over the men's job saying things like "employment of women in the various handicrafts must gradually unsex them, as it most assuredly is demoralizing them." and "The employer in the magnanimity of his generosity will give employment to the daughter, while her two brothers are weary because of their daily tramp in quest of work."

However, women needed the jobs, they needed to help support their families. The author ends with asking the question "Would you have women pursue lives of shame rather than work?" The introduction of women to the work force changed people's attitudes and views towards women, and I feel like that it changed for the better.

Thankful for: Chapel

It's November. Crazy isn't it? November means Daylight Savings Time, leaves changing colors, sweaters and jeans, boots, pumpkin pie, half-price candy corn, and Thanksgiving. I love the Fall!

This year is different. I'm not in Iowa where there are dead, smelly, wet leaves laying under piles of snow. I'm in California where there are palm trees un-willing to loose their leaves (thankfully!) and no snow. That being said, I want to start this month off being thankful for the main thing in my life right now: Providence.

Every day (depending on homework, obviously.) I want to post about one thing that I am thankful for here at college. Accompanied by a picture. You probably guessed that. I don't think I could do something like that with out some photos tossed in. : )

Today I am thankful for Chapels. Singing praise to our God with the students is amazing. There might not be hundreds of students, but listening to all of the students lifting their voices high unto the heavens is an amazing sound. I especially look forward to Tuesday night chapels every week. There is something about ending the first day of the school week praising God in chapel. It helps me to relax at the end of a normally super stressful day.

What are you thankful for today?