Hola

Where to start…

School ended in a rush last semester… the kind where you & everything else have been whisked forward then smoothly braked to a stop and the wind still swirls around you for a second until the skittering leaves and random nonsense are stilled too.  And real silence falls.  Yep I just used the word skittering and think it works quite well.

I experienced something new this Christmas break: a break.  I have had at least 2 jobs since I was old enough to work, and came home to neither of them being available.  I found myself with a full month of absolutely nothing to do but whatever I wanted, besides memorizing a piano concerto for an upcoming Night of Concertos this spring. (Mozart’s, No. 23, 1st movement).  It became a month of learning what it is to live in the life of my family and be completely available to them, especially my 2 younger siblings, with nothing but time to be with them.  This involved lots of sushi eating, movie watching, facebooking, picture-taking, late-night talking, sister shopping and reading.

As usual, got to see family for Christmas…

<– My niece. Hope it’s obvious enough..

I know I have a running theme of talking about lessons God’s teaching me over each break… I’m convinced He has an agenda for each time I spend at school and at home and this semester I returned to school with a new appreciation for the power of combining fasting and prayer.  With all the free time over break, I was able to do some reading and get into serious fasting and prayer for things I wanted to see God work in right away and seriously… and after that 2-week period was up, I began seeing changes literally happen in my family before my eyes – changes that are still unfolding right now – and it is a humbling and empowering experience all at once.  Who are we that the God of the universe responds when we cry out to Him, and uses our prayers to shape reality?  I know with everything in me that if every believer truly believed in and accessed the power their prayers can hold, this world would be unrecognizable.

Until now I’ve been one of those students that takes 18 units every semester, piles on every band, choir and outside worship practice, multiple extracurricular lessons, and work, AND has to maintain grades in order to keep scholarships that are making it possible for me to be here. But this semester that changed, and because of all that previous slave labor, (haha), I am now reaping the benefits in the second half of my junior year and am only taking 15.5 units.  This means NO classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays! (besides a night class on Tues).  I am now discovering what it is like to choose what I would like to do with my “free time,” (practice more music, sleep, extra hours at work, sleep), and have the chance to actually be fully mentally present in the classes I do have, instead of sneaking in homework and writing to-do lists for upcoming responsibilities.

(a bookshelf I built all by myself… who needs a hammer when you have thick high heels?!)>>>>>>>

I can already tell a couple classes are gonna blow my mind: Worship in Contemporary Society is one. Rather than teach me a load of historical material and new information, it is making me challenge what I do know, and what I’ve known all my life.  There is so much more to leading worship than walking up the stage steps to play your instrument and sing.

The other class?  Human Sexuality.  Yep.  Take it at a Christian college/university, kids.

What’s nice in having the free time is I am able to invest in relationships I’ve made on campus… and with SO MANY of the new transfers appearing, it’s crazy!  I know I said last semester that our student body seemed to have doubled, but we got more transfers this last Christmas than I’ve seen since I was a freshman.  Stay tuned for the next update, when I will know how these classes are going and what life is like with new friends and a choir CD recording under our belt!! It’s gonna be insane and awesome!! SO excited!

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