School started up this past Tuesday, and classes have been going pretty well. I have a really light schedule this semester, with only 12 credits and no job (as of right now)! I really don't know what to do with all my time sometimes! In the middle of February, we'll be starting up our practicums so that will occupy 12 more hours each week, so that will be nice. I really liked my practicum placement last semester, so I'm praying that this semester's will be just as good! I should find out in the next week or so where I'll be and what grade I'll be in. I'm pretty bummed about the no job situation though. The babysitting position fell through and the family ended up picking another person. So, I'm not really sure what to do. Luckily, I still have another Panera paycheck coming next week. So, we'll see!

So, my family got some bad news this week. My stepdad grew up next door to his best friend and his friend's family for most of his life, so he's really close to the whole family. Well, his best friend's sister, Jane, has been battling cancer for some time. It started out as lung cancer I think, and she did treatments and whatnot and it seemed to be going well. But then, the cancer just started spreading and it ended up in her brain, in which at that point there wasn't much they could do. Well, a couple days ago she took a turn for the worst and slipped into somewhat of a coma. She kept getting worse, so my mom and stepdad went to her house (she stayed at home instead of going to a hospital because there wasn't anything the doctors could do) to be with her and her family. My mom ended up being by her side throughout the whole night. Her family would come in to be with her for a while, but I guess as the night went on and she got worse, her family couldn't handle seeing her like that, and my mom ended up being the one holding her hand and comforting her. Anyway, she ended up passing away at like 2 or so in the morning. It's so sad, but it's good at the same time because she isn't suffering anymore. I don't know if she was a believer or if her family are believers, but I just pray that the family would just grow closer to God in some way through this. My stepdad told me that this whole situation really made my mom (and I'm sure him as well) think about life and everything. I think it scared them because Jane was about their age and they are very susceptible to getting cancer because they've been heavy smokers for many years. I'm just praying so much that this motivates my mom and stepdad to make some changes in their lives. My mom became a believer when she met my dad 20-something years ago, but ever since they got divorced in 1998, she hasn't been walking with the Lord at all. And my stepdad and his family aren't believers either, although they sometimes like to make it look like they are. I would just love for this to open up some conversations with my family about spiritual things. It's a very real thing as my family has seen with this situation, and life isn't to be taken for granted. God put us all here for a specific purpose and if that purpose isn't fulfilled in our lifetime, you have to live with the consequences for eternity. It's so easy to think "Oh, well, I'll think about death and spiritual things when I'm old" but God never promises any of us tomorrow. So, we have to make changes now and live for the Lord now because each day is a blessing from God.

Anyway, sorry for my preaching! But if you guys could just keep Jane's family as well as mine in your prayers, that would be greatly appreciated. :)

Random

Of course, on my nights off from Panera, I still manage to stay up LATE! Stupid job always messes with my sleeping schedule! Oh well, it's the price I pay for making good money. Speaking of jobs, I found 3 babysitting jobs that I'm interested in and that sounded like they would work with my schedule and lack of a car. I was getting discouraged before because most jobs wanted either/both 1) a car, 2) full days...neither of which I have. But more job positions were posted on the UW job center website and God answered my prayers with three. Who knows if they will work out, but they sound good and would be a good source of a little extra money during the semester. And who knows, maybe one of them could lead into a full-time summer position!

I was bumming around in my email tonight when I remembered I had a ton of emails from my ex-bf saved. I decided to read through all of them (there were A LOT) and finally delete them all. If you don't know the story of my last ex-bf, ask me and I'll tell you the whole story. But basically, in a nutshell, we dated for a little over a year and the latter half of our relationship (when I was a freshman in college) was pretty emotionally/verbally abusive. It wasn't a healthy relationship at all and we stayed in it for way too long. Anyway, I took a major trip down memory lane tonight reading those emails. Some were good, some were bad...I had forgotten all I went through with him. While reading a lot of those emails, all that came into my mind was "I WAS SO STUPID!!" I was so immature compared to now, just in my faith, the way i reacted to things, my thinking, etc. I invested a lot of time into that relationship and, although it was not a good one for a long time, I learned so much and wouldn't take it back for anything. It's crazy to look back on something in hindsight and see how God used a seemingly bad situation for good. All goes back to my realization from TCX this year...God is good!!!!! Anyway, it felt SO good to finally delete those emails and the folder they were in. Kind of a final closure on everything that I apparently was saving, even though I've moved on in my heart and mind. I have some letters and momentos still from that relationship that I think would be good to get rid of as well. I think it's about time after almost 3 years! I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately. I trust God in His plan and timing, but it's so hard sometimes to wait because I want it so badly! It feels like everyone around me is getting together, engaged, or married and I'm being left in the dust. I've even found myself being almost cynical when I hear about certain people being together...but it all stems down to the fact that I'm jealous. I'm jealous of what other people have and wish I could have it too. I don't mean to feel that way, but it's been sort of a natural reaction lately. I've really been praying about it lately and I know that God will come through for me, comfort me, and reveal His plan to me...because He is GOOD! :D

Anyway, I saw some pictures of another Crusade Christmas Conference in Denver that a ton of project people went to. It made me so sad to see them all together again having fun! I MISS THEM SO MUCH!!!! I got to talk to Bruce and Jeremy on my way home from TCX last week and it just made me so happy. It's crazy how my friendships from project just light a fire in me. If I had a car and money, I would definitely make a road trip across the country to visit everyone! Until then, we'll have to rely on weddings to bring us together (Brad and Tff...wink wink!!).

Well, now that it's 2:00 am and I have church in the morning, I'm going to try to make my way to bed. Thanks for reading! :)

Post-TCX

Well, I got back from TCX yesterday. I ended up having to drive because we were short one driver from Milwaukee, but it ended up working out alright. I had never driven that far by myself, so it seemed like a long drive. Anyway, TCX was so awesome this year! Well, it's awesome every year, but I got a lot out of it this year. When I got there, I (as well as most of the seniors) noticed that we didn't know a good majority of the people from our campus!! We had 50 total people, and there were only about 14 juniors and seniors combined and the rest were underclassmen! I'm not going to lie, I thought it was going to be kind of awkward and a little divided with there being so many underclassmen, but it was just the opposite! The theme of the week was "I AM", but most of the speakers didn't focus on specific names of God in their talks, like I had expected. But they were still really good. One of the main things I took away from the week was just a greater understanding and realization of how good God is. Of course, I had always heard "God is good" and whatnot, but a couple of the talks just really made me realize the extent of his goodness. One of our speakers talked about God's goodness and sovereignty, and mentioned that God is good, even when things don't go the way we want them to. He doesn't always promise things to go well, but His overall plan is good all the time. He doesn't promise things to prosper and be great all the time, but we can rest assure in the fact that He will use everything for His good plan. I think this is a really good point that most people don't realize. God doesn't plan good things to happen, but only allow bad things to happen. He plans everything and uses everything to help us grow and as part of his plan. An analogy that this speaker used really stood out to me. He said that God's plan is like a cross-stitch. From below, it looks like a mess of threads that don't look like anything or seem to connect. But from above, it looks like threads forming a beautiful picture. How true!! From here on Earth, God's plan doesn't ever seem to make sense and nothing seems to connect. But from above, all God sees is a beautiful picture being woven together by the things that happen in our lives. It was just very reassuring to realize and helps me to see things in my life from a different light. Rather than moping about things that don't seem to be going well (like my finances right now), I can be confident that God will take care of me, comfort me, and use this for the greater, perfect plan He has for me.

Another highlight of the week was the cheer competition. I'm not going to go too much into it because it's a long story, but they have a school cheer competition and we went into it this year holding the championship title from last year. We found it hard to top our cheer from last year! This year's wasn't quite on the same level as last year's, but it was still pretty good! But only because some of us seniors spent many a late nights thinking and talking about how we could make it better. Our biggest rivals, the University of Minnesota, were our biggest competition, with about twice as many people at TCX than us. Their cheer was decent, some parts were better than others, but they still walked away with first, and we got second. The cheers were judged based on applause/cheering as well as people standing up. Clearly, with the most students there than all the other schools, they were able to make a lot of noise. However, we had a ton of other people cheering and voting for us in addition to our own school. We all think it was unfairly rigged, because they probably didn't want to let the same school win twice in a row. It's not our fault we're that good!! :P All in all, it was a ton of fun and we know deep down inside that we had a pretty dang good cheer!

Lastly, I got to see some friends from project this week!! It was great to see them and spend a little bit of time with them! I even got to see my discipler from the summer and we got to chat and spend some time together, which was great. Speaking of friends, like I said before, us seniors didn't know many of the underclassmen that came. But, what made this year different, was that we walked away with a really good bond!! Adam, one of our staff guys and the emcee for the week at TCX, had to give the last talk of the week, which is usually the most intense, but was feeling really inadequate and like he couldn't do it. If you don't know Adam, you have to know that he is the type of guy that can just get up there, speak from his heart, and deliver a funny as well as really meaningful talk. So it wasn't like him to be experiencing so much doubt. Anyway, it was decided that we should have a prayer for him all through the night before his talk, as well as during lunchtime the day of. Just the act of prayer together really bonded us. But it was so cool to see Adam's talk that night because it was SO good, his personality just shined though, and everything we all prayed for happened. Adam later told us that he still felt so much doubt until right before he spoke, but when he got up there, he said that he felt instantly like he was being carried through it all. So cool how God came through!! Anyway, like I said, prayer together bonded our group, as well as the time the women spent together in prayer after women's time and the times we all just hung out.

Well, I'd love to tell more TCX stories, but I need to take a nap before work. Only a couple more weeks of this job...I can't wait to get back to Madison!!!