So long...

I'm going to miss this city.

Watch this time lapse.

 I think you would miss it too.

The old market, full of its scrumptious restaurants, quaint shops, and echoing with live music. Seeing, smelling, and hearing all this while while you feel the old brick streets beneath your feet.

It's beautiful.

The zoo is also quite tremendous. You can go a dozen times and not see everything.

You probably should not go a dozen times though, because your feet will fall off after about five visits. Either that or you will have developed enormous muscles from walking up all the hills.

Personally I go to the zoo for the overheard conversations.

Father speaking to son about the puddle in the middle of the road, "don't step in that water, its poop water".  Because of course the animals are let out of their cages to relieve themselves in the middle of the road.

I'll miss the charm, the sophistication, the coffee, and the sights. I will not miss the Ferris wheel, but I'll miss the people that have stole my heart.

Two wonderful cousins who have brightened my life in a many ways. They have helped me discover passions and dreams I never knew I had. To be the feet and hands for someone, what greater honor is there?

An Aunt that mentors me, who will talk about anything, lets me wear her belt no less than 3 times,and supports me in my ice cream addiction.

An uncle that always eats me cooking and takes us for ice cream and who is always a pleasant person to be around. 

Its been grand folks, but now its time to continue on down the road to who knows what else. 

Farewell lovely city, but I only hope for a short while.

storms

Hope.

4 letters, but its everything.

 I live because I have hope in Christ.

Hope doesn't keep the tragedies away. The negative feelings away. But Hope is always present in the hard times.

I have a tight fellowship of friends from my college days era. We know each other well and we love each other well.

Last summer one of those people I grew to know at that little college abruptly went home to Jesus.

Suddenly, he was gone and we were left in shock. While an entire nation mourned. We mourned a personality that left a hole in our circle of friends.

Things calmed down. We were holding onto hope. And than the little baby of one of my classmates died just couple of months before his due date.

Pain and shock again. I was starting to feel bruised from watching those I loved mourn.

God was with us. He has a plan. He is good.

Than a text, another life gone, suddenly taken in his sleep. The old guy who loved us all and we loved him back hard.

The afternoon I got that text it was starting to storm. I sat under the flimsily shelter of the gazebo and while rain fell fierce around me and the tears came down fast on my face.

Not another one. I thought over and over in my head. Not someone else I was close too

I ached and cried. I sought shelter inside but the storm raged outside and the rawness of pain raged in my heart.

Wanting to ask questions, but already knowing the answers.

The wind slowed, and the rain stopped falling. I looked out my window and there was a bright rainbow in the sky.

It was like a banner proclaiming to my battered heart that God was still faithful even in the midst of unexpected tragedy.

 I already knew the truth, but in that moment it was a beautiful reminder of God's faithfulness.

You don't always see the rainbow. All you feel is the storm, the pain and the uncertainty.

The rainbow is always there. Not an actual rainbow, in the sky but the promise that God will always be faithful. We may not understand the road but we can seek to understand the hope we have.

A slow journey of learning God's faithfulness. Forwards and than backwards, but never alone.

God has given us hope for this journey. Even when I can't see the rainbow I want to always trust in this hope.

Grateful

I'm grateful for the unexpected. I'm grateful for the moments I didn't plan to happen, but they did and I couldn't imagine my life without them.

I'm grateful I had this year. A chance to go to school. To study a subject I was passionate about and to grow in the understanding of God's Word. I'm grateful I had this opportunity.

I'm grateful that God has never left me floundering, but has always made provision for my spiritual and physical  needs.

I'm grateful that God ignores my plans and carries out His plans to perfection.

 I'm grateful that God gave His Word. The right verse at the right time.

I'm grateful God gave the body of Christ, the right encouragement at the right time.

I'm grateful that when I thought there was nothing else I still had God alone.

I'm grateful for each circumstance. The planed and the unplanned.

I'm grateful, that I can turn my head and look back and see a pile of Ebenezer stones.

I'm grateful I can look forward and know that there are still Ebeneezer stones to be found.

"For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. " Ps 33:4

He loved

I have never known somebody who made so many people feel special.

He would get excited when he saw me and usually make some sort clever remark and I always felt loved and special. I have admit I felt like a favorite, but in reality he did not just do that to me, but he did it to many.

He was the old guy on a tiny campus bursting with energy and craziness.

Monday through Friday we had classes and if we had classes we also had coffee break. Not sure where that tradition of my school started, but it was certainly helpful to breakfast skippers.

Jerry would pull up to campus in his red pick up. He would go and sit at his same table and if anyone dared to sit in his seat well they would know the wrath of Jerry. His chair might as well have had his name engraved on it.

A man not afraid to speak his mind, which often made us roll with laughter and sometimes blush.

He poked fun at us and we eagerly poked fun back in return.

He had the audacity to say that my apple pie was better than his wife's, which I couldn't quite believe, but the flattery warmed me anyway. I never minded saving him leftover blueberry muffins from breakfast. He would tease me about finding a man to cook for and I would blush with embarrassment.

He was to me a grandfather. I grew up without really ever knowing any of my grandfathers, so that was really special to me to know Jerry.

But this just isn't my story. I don't know how many countless other people could tell the same story of the care Jerry showed for them.

Over the years Jerry said hello and goodbye to countless students, yet even though getting to know a new crop of students was strange Jerry never stopped coming to coffee.

He never let the exhausting act of pouring out love stop him from getting to know people. He was an active member of his church body, loving people there too.  I can't get over that example.

We were crazy young people and Jerry didn't mind being crazy right along with us.

I think about the way Jerry's face would light up when he saw his friends and I think I want all my friends to feel respected, loved, and cherished just as Jerry did to me.

I write in the past tense because Jerry is now with his Savior. I'm sure Jerry's face is beaming. Jerry loved a good time and while I ache at such a sudden loss I know that because of Christ Jerry has lost nothing in his death, but has gained eternity.

Thankful to have been blessed so deeply by such a man.

God is Good

God is good.

I think this when I see the bright colors of the sunset streaking across the sky and I have caught a few moments by myself.

I think this has a write yet another laborious research paper. God is good to give me this opportunity to study His Word.

I'm reminded that God is good when I talk with friends, and remember just how blessed I am.

I know God is good each day when I open His Word and am blessed by His Words.

God is good when I realize there is yet another area of my life that needs pruning. For God is good to not let continue in my old ways, but He is making me new.

God is good even as I am weary.

God's grace has covered our sins. God's grace has given me the strength to run.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

God is good, three words that are spoken often and often flippantly said. Those words should not be carelessly said. God is good because of the cross. God is good because He gave us His Word to live by.

God had given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. 

Simply overwhelmed by God's goodness tonight.