not even death

A friend of mine wrote that her grandma passed away this week. I wrote to tell her that I would be praying for her as I know what it's like to lose someone so special. There is not a day that I don't think of my Gummor. Even moving two continents away could not keep us apart. She was ever present in my life, through weekly emails with news from home, and the lengthy emails I would write back. And so her death has left an unbridgeable gap. I am constantly thinking of things I wish I could share with her and I feel so helpless that there is no plane ticket or phone call that can let me hear her voice. I feel seperated from her love.

Yet through this longing I feel that I am learning something about God's love. "Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Nothing will be able to separate me from the One who loves me so much. Not even death.

In Jesus' own words, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." By trusting in Jesus, who conquered death, I can trust that just as he was raised to life, so will I be raised to eternal life with him. No more separation anxiety! And I can once again be with my Gummor.

post-week post

Yes, as you can tell from the title I'm in word heaven right now taking linguistics. I love that I get to sit and make jokes about words all day (uh, at least I think that's what linguistics is about...). However, as the title suggests, I don't want to write about linguistics, rather I want to give a brief post-week summary, and then I'll move onto my concluding remarks.

I love that phrase "my concluding remarks". I picked it up at an academic ceremony recently which went for 2 and a half hours. (Don't worry, I don't plan on writing for that long.) Anyway, as I was saying, my post-week summary....

It was great.

And now for my concluding remarks, I would like to add that it was great because I have a great God who strengthens me. I really want to give him the praise for the way my week went. Let me explain, and then I'll move onto my final concluding remarks. For the past six weeks or so, since starting at Cal, I have found it immensely difficult to be disciplined with my time. It has been a big problem because it has meant I will end up staying up super late to do my homework, instead of just getting it done in the hours I have free in between classes.

This week was different, however, and surprisingly, I was able to use my time much more productively than in previous weeks. I spent most of my time between classes actually studying in the library, rather than napping (and drooling) on top of my books or checking (and re-checking) facebook. I was able to start my linguistics homework early and I only had one night going to bed a little late rather than the three or four 2am nights I had become used to having each week. Each of these are huge accomplishments for me. I know this has something to do with God giving me strength because, at the beginning of this week I realized how much I was sick of failing at this. How week after week would be the same, no matter how much I wanted it to be different. So I asked him to help me, and he did.

So now, for my final concluding remarks... erhem...

I'll end with this verse in James which has encouraged me. It says, "You do not have because you do not ask God." It's so good to know that in our struggles and weaknesses we don't have to go it alone. We just need to ask.

the ring thing

I don't know about all you married folks but since I got married I've found myself taking more notice of whether or not someone wears a ring. Very deep, I know. It's probably a girl-bonding thing, or maybe I'm just nosey, but if they have a ring I have to ask. It can get a bit tricky sometimes. My GSI has a band on her ring finger and so I spend half the lesson wondering it if would be appropriate to ask if she's engaged. It's a big problem.

Anyway, the other day when I noticed a girl in my class had something on her ring finger I had to ask if she was engaged. She said, "Oh no, it's a relationship ring." A relationship ring? So it's not even a "promise ring" now? She clarified and said that since she is on campus they wanted to make sure other guys wouldn't hit on her, so of course, he got her a relationship ring. I guess I can see that... You don't have money to get a nice engagement ring, so while you're in college you just get something temporary.

But a relationship ring?

I say if he wants to make sure you don't get away, he needs to put an engagement ring on it. Uh, I have a strange feeling I'm starting to sound like Beyonce... Seriously though, I think it's sad when girls will settle for less. I know it's hard, but you're worth more than that. I got some sage advice from a friend once, who said, "don't wash his dirty socks until you're married!"

That would at least clear things up for us on the ring radar. Thank you for your co-operation.

conversations

One of the things I love about being on a campus with so many students is getting to stop and chat. I love to find out about the folks around me. And where I can I try to get a feel for whether they're interested in Jesus.
One girl, Maya, was a religious studies minor. I asked her what got her interested in that. It turned out someone very close to her had been diagnosed with cancer and she wanted to model for her friend an openness toward the idea of God, which led her to study different religions.
I met a guy yesterday who was blind. He walked right up to me as I was sitting by the fountain in Sproul. I had asked the Lord to help me find people who He is working in, or to help them find me, so I couldn't ignore this person standing right in front of me! We chatted for a bit and I asked him if he goes to church around here, or if he had a church background. After some thought, he replied, "I like food." You win some you lose some, I guess :)

30,000

Did I mention that there are 30,000 students at this university?

That's the population of where I'm from in Albany, Western Australia. And at least a thousand times bigger than the population of the village of Boston, South Africa, where I grew up.

Let me just say that's a lot of strangers to smile at. Yes, I'm still a country girl at heart, even after 6 years in the city. It took me a while, but I have broken the habit of raising the forefinger from the steering wheel at every oncoming car while driving. That's quite an accomplishment. But some things never change. I can't wait to meet every single one of those thirty thousand students. I'm sure we can find something in common.

"10 green bottles..."

Last night Neil and I were the happy recipients of some free food donated to the students at the seminary. The goodies were donated by a woman who does this each year with the money she collects for recyclable cans. We got a nice stack, with some cake mix, cereal and canned olives thrown in and I was impressed that something as common as the old soda can is able to do so much. So, after slurping the last of my Hansen's, I decided that this would be the first of my collection. There was an awkward moment when we stepped into the elevator with my hand full of cans and one of the women said, "oh you collect those too?" Just have to convince Neil I'm not turning into a bottle lady :)

full weeks

My first few weeks at Cal have been full ones. I love that each day can see me studying anything from ancient Greek, to human physiology, to the science of language study, to calculus. Add to that a weekly training session in ministry and theology, and you have a pretty wide array of things that keep my mind zipping. Last night I woke up twice gasping for breath as I usually do when I dream that the end of the world is here (yep -- it was getting so common at one point that Neil would not wake up startled, but simply roll over and mumble, "it's okay, it's okay"). This time however, my life depended on coming up with the right declension of a Greek noun. Now, that should say something about the epic proportions of what I spend my time studying, but somehow I don't think Greek grammar is typically so life-or-death, or end-of-the-world. Maybe I'm wrong? Startling revelations in the middle of the night aside, I really am loving it. Just trying to remember what it was like to have spare time!