Saturday, August 23, 2014

Aint it Fun Livin' in the Real World?

Well here I am, sitting in my itty bitty dorm room, writing a blog post. The last 2 days have been filled with such mixed emotions from every end of the spectrum but I think the one word that just ties it all together perfectly is "overwhelming".  Absolutely nothing I have had planned in my head for many many months now has actually happened as I had planned it. From the bed loft I thought I would buy not fitting my bed to my dorm being too small to actually fit the bed loft I did end up buying in the way I thought it would be. Adjusting to living in a room a little bit bigger than my bathroom meant for 2 people and sharing a bathroom with 20 other girls has been different. but it has definitely been a good different.

God has definitely been trying to teach me before classes even begin. I have learned that you have GOT to roll with the punches or you will sink. When you graduate high school, the crap that life throws at you gradually becomes more and more uncomfortable. I am super surprised that right off the bat things became more difficult. You have to adjust. I really do enjoy dorm life but it definitely isn't the comfortable life that most high school seniors have in their heads. Things have changed so much in the short time that I have been here and it would really have been easy if I just had given up and decided that I hated college that first day. But I didn't. I sat back and wondered why God would give me this cup. He did it in the name of teaching 

From this point on, I will always look for solutions to problems in a more realistic way than ever before. These are real life problems that I am encountering, things that I have to fix on my own. I am so glad that I was introduced to this right off the bat. It seems like such a simple thing that most people think is common sense, but it's not. You have to be on your own, figuring out your own problems for it to really connect. 

For the rest of our lives, problems will arise. Set backs will come. Everything we have had planned in our heads for years will not go as planned. And that's okay. Our God is with us and he has a plan. And things always go according to his plans. That is enough comfort for the next 4 years of college and a year getting my masters and a career and a husband and some kids. Or you know, whatever God has planned for me. 

Have fun out there fellow college students! The fun has just begun. And adults out there, remember this lesson too. God bless!

Monday, August 4, 2014

When the Stars Fall Down

Resurrection. Rapture. Apocalypse. Armageddon. End of life as we know it. The final show-down.

The coming of christ has many different names, categories, and definitions. There are different beliefs on what is going to happen, when it will happen, how it will happen, and the timing of all the things that are going to happen. People have different interpretations of Revelations and therefore hardly anyone believes the same thing when it comes to the rapture of the church. I mean, no one knows honestly, so I guess it would be more accurate to say that no one's guesses are exactly the same.

The other night as I sat down to eat a dinner with my boyfriend and his family, this exact discussion arose. Some of his family believe one thing, some believe the opposite, and the rest really do not know (I fall into that category). To catch you up:

Belief #1: Rapture First- People who believe in this theory say that the current followers of Christ will be raptured first (aka, taken from this earth to spend eternity with Jesus) and then the Tribulations that is outlined in the book of Revelations will take place. Followed by the tribulation, the people who realized they had missed out the first time and would like to dedicate their lives to Christ would be given a chance to do so. The "second rapture" will occur (this is when many people believe 144,000 Jews will realize Jesus is the Messiah they had been looking for and will also be saved) and then the full-out war between God's people and Satan's people will occur. Obviously Satan is defeated and we spend eternity as God's bride.

Belief #2: Tribulation First- People who believe in this theory believe that everyone on earth, believers and non believers alike, will be suddenly thrust into the tribulation that Revelations outlines. After that, there will be one and only one rapture of the people of God and then the fight between heaven and hell will commence.

Obviously these theories go much deeper and each have valid scriptural evidence to back up the claims. If you've by chance never taken a look at Revelations, its extremely symbolic and hard to interpret. It certainly goes above and beyond human understanding, as I believe God meant for it to go. My point I want to make here today is, are you ready for either option?

It would be easy and comforting to believe that we christians get to be raptured first and skip all the pain and suffering that comes with option 2. I think its safe to say that we all would prefer this to happen. The question is, however, what if it doesn't? What if option 2 is actually most accurate. What if you and I and our babies have to live through the years of tribulation, something that is quite literally hell on earth,? Are you ready to still worship God and still believe that He is good?

Sadly, I think the answer to this question is "no" for a lot of us. If the antichrist himself held a gun to our heads and told us to accept his mark or die in the name of Jesus, many of us would choose the easy way out and take the mark. Even harder, if he held a gun to our children's heads, most parents would most definitely accept the mark. We most definitely would choose satan and sin over Jesus. We absolutely would do what was easiest, what was most just in our own eyes. It would be a no-brainer to continue to conform to this world, a world that Satan controls.

I'm coming with this message today to get you thinking. In this day and age, not very often do we stop to pause and think about this reality. We do not know when Jesus will come to claim his bride. We do not know if we will suffer or if we will be given grace. It could be 10 minutes or days or weeks or years. But are you ready? And are you ready to die for your God? Are you ready to say "Yes, Satan. I follow Jesus and I know that You will be defeated and I will voluntarily let you take my family's life from me right now because I know that we will be in a much, much better place for our faith in Him"? That's a tough statement to spit out. But it's something you have to think about now.

As a near 20-year-old who has her whole life and a college degree ahead of her, this is something really hard to think about. I've been pinning wedding ideas and baby ideas for years now, and I'm finally getting to a point in my life where that very well could be the reality for me in the next 5 years. I could be a new bride with a baby on the way. Thats exciting. Everyone wants to meet Mr. Right and get hitched and pop out some kids and decorate a home together and grow old surrounded by happiness and family. It's literally the American Dream. But honestly, this might not be a reality for me. Jesus could be calling his bride home sooner rather than later. Am I ready to say "take my life and all the dreams and plans I've looked forward to since I could remember. I choose Jesus, not that."..? I think, in all honestly, I am.....

Are You?



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Friday, August 1, 2014

Calling All College Students: The List Has Arrived

Here is the list of things that I have thus far found extremely irritating when it pertains to college. The number is what it is because I just decided to list absolutely everything that has annoyed the dickens out of me in the past few months and then run with whatever number that turns out to be. Also, for your added benefit, I have found all of these things to be annoying and I have yet to attend a single college class or even move into a dorm, which adds on to the fun in my eyes. Without further ado, here is a list of the crap that universities put us through:

THE LIST
(dum dum daaaaaaaaah)

1. The fact that I am given a fee for anything and everything. I have a fee for being a student and for living on campus and for choosing the major that I chose and for parking and for breathing and enjoying sunlight and for any other thing that university can find to nickel and dime me (I lied about that last one). You would think the thousands upon thousands already going towards tuition and housing and meal plans would have it covered.... You would be wrong. 

2. Being an "Overflow Student". Essentially it comes down to this: the university accepts everyone who applies in order to get extra $$$. They don't believe half these idiots will make it past the first month, but they get their grubby little hands on all those thousands that student paid for the first semester anyway. This means that these snots want to live on campus and since the school accepts everyone, there becomes a problem with the amount of dorms available. Which puts actual students who came in with a shot at doing this in a hotel for weeks. Why this is even a thing, I don't know. But it needs to not be. 

3. The Email System from hell.  I will never understand why I have to login 10 times before my account is recognized but I do. I also will never understand why the system can never seem to follow any command you give it. Isn't it ironic that an institution meant to make you more educated can't even handle its own tech problems?

4. Unneeded books. Not sure why the university lists books that they never intend to use on the "what to buy" list in their class. In fact, on the first day of class they will even admit to you that you need not buy this book, which is why I will be holding off. Also don't know why this is a thing, but it is and I'm still not president so not much I can do there. 

5. We're given jail cells in exchange for our souls. We basically are being asked to sign our life away and pay out the wazoo. You would think we would at least be met with top of the line bedrooms for this, but we're not. We are met by warm, inviting cinder block walls and furniture from the 1960s on move-in day. 

6. The "You got so lucky to get all of those scholarships!" summer talks. I'm "lucky?" Um no. Please tell that to the senior girl in high school who spent her free periods (the period all other seniors used for nap time) filling out scholarships and writing essays. I believe I have been to more interviews/banquets/offices to prove that I am worthy of this stuff than anyone on planet earth. I lived and breathed scholarships for a year. I basically lived in my guidance counselors office, some days even visiting my warm and cheery and not socially awkward (heehee) guidance counselor between every single class period, plus 20 minutes of my lunch. So no, I did not get lucky. God blessed me with the maturity to be able to be that disciplined, but I by no means had it "fall in my lap".   

7. My emails being passed around more than the Thanksgiving side dishes. For some reason when you email someone at the university who seems like they could answer your questions (or are even listed as the person who could indeed answer the question), they always have to send it to somebody else. Infact, sometimes i email my school trying to figure out exactly who to email about a certain question and that email gets passed around 4 times. 

Follow on BloglovinFor the time being, this is all the ranting I am capable of. Yes, this stuff gets under my skin. But I am super excited to be in college and start my little journey. However, I will protest this crap till I die.