Hi, Mom!

My mom misses the blog.

So I'm writing.  Except this time I'm just writing for my mom.  So, if you're not my mom and you're here, that's great, but just keep in my mind that this content might be a little bit off for you, because, well, you're not my mom.

College is good.  This semester especially - I'm pretty excited about it.  I have a couple of pretty cool opportunities coming up in the near future.  One of them involves working with the GVSU version of Humans of New York, which I'm so excited about.  The outline for what I'll be doing as a part of that is still very, very vague, but, man, I'm just so pumped anyway!

I've also recently (as in, earlier this afternoon) been offered an interview to become an RA at my school.  Interviews happen in two weeks, and whenever I get nervous I just drown that out with images of myself baking endless batches of cookies for my adoring residents.  It's pretty competitive here - there are about 200 of us going for 50 positions.  I feel like my camp counselor skills are going to come in handy, but we'll see.  Sometimes no amount of skill can white out the innate awkwardness in me that tends to rear its head in high-pressure, interview situations. 

Most of all, though, I'm excited to see what God does in my life.  I have a great community of Christian people to support me here at GV - our on-campus ministry is incredible, and I love my small group and my church.  Really, though, those things are usually the highlights of my week.  I'm blessed to have small group leaders and friends who not only teach the Bible but set an example of a life devoted to Jesus, and I am constantly thankful for that. 

God's been working around me in some very God ways, doing things that I know can only be of him.  He's calling me to live boldly, embracing the uniqueness of who I am as a child of God and proclaiming his name loudly and often.  I don't really like that last sentence, because that makes it sound like living for God like that looks like this perfect, heroic thing.  In real life, "embracing uniqueness" means being weird.  I'm still learning how that works (I always will be), and so it's almost always awkward and uncomfortable for at least one party involved (me) (let's be honest, probably both of us).  "Proclaiming his name loudly and often" equals saying "Jesus loves me" and strange times or staking out the doors of a church in order to pray for a barely-not-stranger whose name I can't remember (true story.)  Today, it ended up being sitting on the couch of my dorm room and struggling through the really tough questions with my roommate while a DIY project from earlier today crashed down over my head (literally - a shelf fell off the wall; the only casualty was the baby Christmas tree that I'm pretty sure was never going to grow anyway.)

Anyway: God's been doing stuff.  The idea that he's going to keep working and that I get to keep joining him makes me excited to get up in the morning.  The knowledge that he's already beaten any little thing that Satan wants to use to hold me back keeps me joyful beyond what makes sense based on the circumstances.  And I can rest easy knowing that he's plenty good enough to work something amazing through my awkward, muddled attempts at describing Him. 

So, that's what I'd tell my mom right now.  That, and also that I met a girl who went to the same college as my cousin the other day.  And how much I love the new skincare class opening that she texted me.  And that I love her. 

Allie