Psalm 136

The real Psalm 136 thanks God for all he has done throughout the history of Israel. Back in October at our fall conference we each wrote our own version of that psalm about what God has done during our time in college. I've worked on it since then, and finished it after graduation. Enjoy! 

Home

In 4 weeks I will be moving back to Prescott. As graduation is approaching and my time in Ogden is coming to a close, a couple things are happening:

1. Excitement about no longer being a college student
2. Sheer terror about the thought of being an adult
3. Nostalgia, which leads to an abnormally high level of emotions 
4. Crying (see number 3)

Sometimes I’ll be thinking about all that has happened in Utah, which makes thankfulness leak out of my eyeballs. But a majority of the time memories will come up, which reminds me how much I love the people here and then I cry out of sadness over moving away. I’m afraid to lose friendships, or to drift away from people who have been such a huge part of my life. But if I fell in love over skype, then maintaining a long-distance friendship is surely possible.

There is no doubt Arizona is my home. Utah is a great place, but I can’t live here long-term. Still, I feel torn between two places. I miss my family and Prescott, and I’m ready to start my life with my fiancé. Except when I leave in a month, part of me will always be missing. Ogden is going to leave a huge hole in my heart, and I’m not quite sure what to do with that. 

God has been reminding me that no matter where I live, he is closer to me than anyone I may be missing. While life changes, he is constant. He is a safe refuge who deserves our trust. 

As a community we are all mourning the end of our time together. But as followers of Christ, there is something we can hold on to for hope as we all begin to go down different paths in life. We often forget that our time on earth is short, and this life is temporary. However, if we maintain our focus on eternity throughout our lives, our time apart really won't seem that long. Then we will be able to catch up on everything that has happened in our lives when we all get to heaven. If we thought worship was good now, just wait until we are before the throne of God worshiping in his presence. We have come together, built friendships, and are connected by God’s love. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 5:1

I will hold you, child,

when all is done, when the world is gone

and its songs have been sung

You will be with me through endless years

we will dance and sing when your heart is fulfilled

Don't you close your eyes, don't you lose your way

don't you miss all the gifts that are unforeseen

I'm your anchor and shield, I'm the wind in your sails

I'm the song in your heart, the God who saves

Our homes may be miles apart, but despite distance and the time that passes between visits, we will always have an eternal home. No matter how different our lives may be, we are all journeying towards our only true home. One day our community will reunite there. We’ll be joined by our families and others who have become a part of our lives, and we will all be one massive family again.

All in the city of God sing in their festive dance:

“Within you, Lord, is my true home.”

Psalm 87:7

Chapter Camp Challenge

This week of Chapter Camp was my favorite next to Mark 1 in Glorieta. It was a beautiful way to end my time with this family I’ve become a part of. There's a little more time, because graduation is 40 days away (very biblical). Still, the next generation of students are starting to step up to take the place of those who are graduating. 

My Mark 1 group was told that half of us would not return to camp the next year. There were 18 of us, and 14 returned for Mark 2. Then 12 came back for prayer seminar. For Origins, 10 people from our original Mark 1 group were able to study the Old Testament and be together for camp one last time. One of the best gifts God has given me in Utah was that group of people to experience camp with, but also that we were able to journey through life during the 51 other weeks of the year.

I encourage and challenge all of you who just went to camp to work at keeping your friendships with one another strong. You have experienced powerful things together and if you work hard and stay committed to helping each other follow Jesus, your friendships will last beyond your time in college. Do not forget how you felt at catalina or how you feel right now. Don’t forget the friendships that you made or how you saw and experienced love in tangible ways this past week. Do not let your brothers and sisters fall away from this fellowship. Following Jesus is difficult, so help each other. Follow the Lord with your whole heart, soul, and strength, and don’t forget the secret to the Kingdom.

Remember the impact this week has had on you and use that to motivate you to invite others into IV and to camp. Tell them your story and how Jesus has changed you. Your personal story has more influence than you realize. I hope and pray that next year there will be even more people at camp.

Your time in college and your opportunities to experience life with this incredible group of people will go by faster than you think. Right now may be wishing you could be done with school so you can start “real life,” but your life could not be any more real than it is now. One day you will be wishing you had more time to spend with the people you have come to know and love. Chose joy and be present.

Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God. 
Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin. 
For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Hebrews 3:12-14

Transitions

As I think about moving back to Arizona I'm realizing how quickly and drastically my life is going to change. One day I will be taking finals, and the next I will no longer be a college student. One night I will sleep in Ogden, and the next I will be back in my own bed in Prescott. The thought of it has been freaking me out because there will be no smooth transition into the next part of my life. I hate change as it is, and for it to happen so suddenly is intimidating. 
During the early years of college I felt like I was living two completely different lives; one in Utah and one in Arizona. But in the past year or so my life has all blended together. My family knows my friends in Utah and my friends know my family. Since Zane and I have been long-distance I felt like our relationship was another aspect of my life that not many people were personally involved in. Then this past week Zane visited Ogden, and now my Utah friends know him. This week I was able to see him with the people who have been the biggest influence in my life during college, and they were able to meet the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. Every aspect of my life is overlapping. It’s a beautiful thing really. For graduation my parents, grandparents, Robert, and Zane will be coming. One of the greatest joys in my life comes from seeing my family with my Utah friends. Seriously, I can't even explain how it makes me feel. For the biggest transition of my life so far, I’m looking forward to (I would say I can’t wait, but I can wait) having all of my favorite people in one place for the friesta to end all friestas.
Now that I’ve seen I’m no longer living a compartmentalized life, I feel comforted about moving. My family in Arizona and my friends in Utah are all intertwined, and no matter where I live I know they will always be a part of my life. I know life only gets better as time goes on. So if I thought life was great now, I can’t even imagine how it will be in the next couple years. 

Isaiah 43:19

See, I am doing something new!

Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

God is Love

When I moved to Ogden, I don’t remember all the details of what my expectations were. I pictured myself coming here for school, and that was about it. I’m no social butterfly, so I figured my only friends would be my roommates.

Frist Roadtrip to Ogden

But now that graduation is two months away I am in awe of what has happened in a little under four years. The most important things I will take away from this season in my life have little to do with what I’ve learned in class. Instead, what has had the greatest impact on me during college has been the people I’ve met. 
I believe the reason I ended up going to Weber was to meet the people I now love with all my heart. There are no words to describe everything they’ve done for me. If they weren't a part of my life, I doubt I would even be following Jesus today.
Without small group freshman year, I wouldn’t have had the faith to fight through trials that hit the next summer. If my friends weren’t there to guide me through wrestling with God during my sophomore year, I would’ve walked away from Jesus. The past two years have been full of joy, but they’ve also been incredibly difficult. Still, I knew my friends were always with me. 

Love is crazy, because it is actually God himself. So with every experience I shared with my friends I was actually encountering Jesus. Through my friends God has shown me what his love is like. His love bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. His love has never failed and it never will. 
A part of me will be missing when I leave this place where God has completely transformed me. And it breaks my heart to think that my time with my friends here is going to be ending soon. Yes, there will be visits, but we will never be college students again. We won’t be studying together anymore. We’ll be doing whatever adults do in real life, and I’m not sure what that will look like. 
God’s love brought me to Weber to be with people who would love one another and follow God together. I have hope and am confident that the same Love that brought all these people from Utah, Colorado, Montana, Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming, and Arizona to this place at this time will be the same Love that will keep our relationships strong no matter where life takes us. 

1 John 4:16

We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. 

God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.

Worry Lacks Faith

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Your basic needs may seem to be what you should be most worried about. Shouldn’t you be getting a job so you can provide for you and your family? You need food and clothes in order to function. But I am trying to tell you that those things are not as important as you think they are. 

Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?
Those birds are completely dependent on me, and they trust in my provision. If I don’t feed them with what I’ve created, they will die. I have known you by name since the beginning of time. You are worth infinitely more than you can comprehend. Do you not think your Dad will take care of you?

Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
If anything, worrying is going to shorten your life. You can’t enjoy the present if you are trying to plan the future. You can’t plan out your life. I know where you’re headed. Let me help you get there. What I have for you is better than anything you can dream of. 

If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest?
In the end, the things you are most worried about are small. 

Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. 
Flowers are clothed in my grace. They do not strive to be beautiful, but they are simply because they allow me to provide for them.

If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? 
Why don’t you have faith? Have I not provided for you in the past? Think of everything that has happened to bring you where you are now. I was by your side through all of it. I was constantly loving you and caring for you the whole time. Am I not worthy of your trust?

So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. 
Don’t worry about how you will provide for yourself. That is the mindset of someone who is of the world and who doesn’t follow me. 

Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 
But you follow me, and I know your needs before you do. I will provide what you need at the time you need them.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.
Follow me and love as I’ve commanded you. You will no longer worry about the things you used to think were important, and I will provide for you what you need without you having to do anything. Let my grace take care of you.

Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.
Today is all you have. Your worry reveals your lack of trust in me. Love me and others because of the love I have for you. That should be what you’re focused on.

Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.
My child, don’t worry or be afraid about how your life is going to turn out. I want to give you what you need. All you really need is me. My Spirit within you is more than enough. 

Endings

Last week Robert came to visit for the weekend. It was tons of fun, which is how it normally is when we’re together. Sunday night we went to dinner with a group of friends, and at one point he leaned over and asked, “Is it always like this?” Yes, yes it is. I honestly can’t think of a time when I didn’t enjoy spending time with my friends or feel like it wasn’t life-giving.

I’ve recently discovered that 99% of my thoughts are about the future- what I have to do, what I will do, what I want to do. It’s not bad to have goals, but when all of your energy is focused on them you forget to pay attention to what is going on in the present. However, if you know what is coming up in the future, you can cherish what’s happening in the moment. As of today I, along with a few of my closest friends, graduate in 158 days. That means I move back to Arizona in 160 days. 

The reality of moving and not being in college anymore is finally starting to become real. I’m not scared of the future or of change. What I am scared of is losing what I’m leaving behind... No more worshipping God next to the those who have been some of the most important people I’ve been blessed to know and love. No more hanging out and studying in coffee shops. No more cooking dinner for friends. No more being with people who bring me joy by just being with them. Shoot. I’ve already decided I’m going to have to be alone for the first few hours of my drive back to Prescott so I can ugly cry by myself.

There is something beautiful about endings. They clearly separate one time in your life from another, and I’m a fan of closure. Endings are difficult too. They’re abrupt, and everything you’re used to and have known is over. 

Since I know the end of my time in Ogden is coming, and quickly, I will enjoy the time I have with my friends. I will try not to worry about what is going to happen when we’re no longer together. And I will do as much as I possibly can to show them how much I love them. Because I love them a whole bunch. So much that I may or may not have cried a whole bunch while I wrote this.

We quickly forget there is an ending to every part of our life- the end of childhood, high school, college, times where we live in a certain place. Life is always moving forward. Don’t forget there will come a time when you move on from where you are right now. Cherish the people who you are with and where you are at this moment. Before you know it, the future you’ve been worrying and planning about for so long will be here. Don’t plan on enjoying life more in the future. Live now, because in the end, that is all you have.

2 Corinthians 9:15

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!