home.

Home is growing brighter and cozier and more winsome as Christmas break slowly slips by.  When I first got back, I was at an utter loss.  Instantly the social aspect, stress, and constant to-do lists in my life disappeared.  I put down my suitcase, hugged my family, looked at myself, and thought, "Self, what are you going to do for the next month?!"  Mom, in her efficient ingenuity, came up with a boat-load of ideas: sew a dress, crochet a blanket, clean out the garage, read...

Slowly, I am making a new routine, and I think it shall be splendid.  I am working my way through the Lord of the Rings trilogy - I am hooked.  I also want to read two John Piper books, two by C.S. Lewis, and a scattering of other books.  I think I will clean out the garage - my first semester of college drained my wallet while my back was turned.  I'm going to hang out with old friends, read even more, and play lots of games with my family.

Tonight was exquisite.  Mom spent four hours in the kitchen this afternoon, preparing a first-rate meal and baking special cookies.  All of the sisters came home.  We sat around the table laughing over old memories and telling new stories.  After supper, Mom, Rachel and I played a delightful game of Settlers of Catan.  Rachel and I vied for longest road. Rachel and Mom fought neck and neck building cities.  At present, we are all in the living room, and there are two platters centrally located on the ottoman: one full of biscotti and the other piled with Mom's special cookies.  They have names like "chocolate-mint dreams" and "cat kisses."  Audrey is curled up in the big leather chair, submerged in an Agatha Christie.  Occasionally, a laugh or an "Oh I just love Hecule Poirot!" emanates from her direction.  Merrill and Dad are discussing information Merrill has gleaned from a book she found lying around: The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cults, Sects and World Religions.  Rachel is working on something on her computer.  Mom is checking Merrill's math assignments in the corner.  George Winston's December is floating around the living room, making us all feel serene and full of thanks.  The embers are glowing hot in the fireplace - in a few minutes Dad will put more wood on the fire.

I make everything sound so perfect and ideal...because it is.  My house is so full of peace, and love, and we are all so thankful for each other, and life, and Jesus.

I love my family so, so much.

learning

College has changed my world completely.  I am learning about the Greeks, and redox reactions, exponential functions.  I am also learning how to relate to people completely unlike myself, and how to function on less than five hours of sleep.  Today I realized that I am learning to square my shoulders, swallow hard, and go through situations I find much less than pleasurable.

Take, for example, going to meet a professor to talk about all of the reasons why I got a poor grade on an english paper.  I did not want to go.  I know what a loser I am; I don't really care to discuss it in full detail with my professor.  But I had to, so I did.  It wasn't pleasant, but it was profitable.

Or...apologizing to someone I don't know well. I would really rather not - really rather not.  But it is good, in its own ugly, uncomfortable way.

I think I am growing up, at least a little.

"Well I've never been much for the baring of soul
In the presence of any man
I'd rather keep to myself all safe and secure
In the arms of a sinner I am
Could it be that my worth should depend
By the crimson stained grace on a hand
And like a lamp on a hill Lord I pray in Your will
to reveal all of You that I can."

Jennifer Knapp, Martyrs and Thieves

a lovely break

What a lovely fall break this has been!  I am on a farm in Boscobel, Wisconsin, surrounded by rolling hills and trees with orange leaves and cattle and barns.  Here, I have found a little piece of home. The scenery is different, and the people are different.  But in little corners I have found aspects of where I live:  cattle calling across the pasture for their calves, a brilliant sunset, worship music coming from the piano, and most of all, peace.

This morning, I met one of my best friends (and her sister!) for coffee and a spontaneous thrift store run.  I love it when you don't think you will see someone for months, and then suddenly it happens that you will see them right away!  It was lovely.

Tomorrow, we go back to Hillsdale.  Back to class, and homework, and people, and stress.  I am very much thankful for these few days to take a deep breath, relax and remember how good God is.

desperate.

Desperation is a midterm at 8am tomorrow, over material I am not familiar with, in my worst class.  It is also the inability to focus on studying for said midterm.

Desperation is math homework due Wednesday, an english midterm the Monday after fall break, and a chemistry quiz the next Wednesday.

Desperation is a disagreeable roommate situation and not knowing how to fix it.

Desperation is being stuck in Michigan when all the people you love are in Nebraska.

Desperation is undesirable situations and feeling powerless to change them.

Tonight, desperation is...

Hillsdale College.

(oh how I wish the next two weeks of my life were over!)

this is good.

Reading over old blog posts yesterday, I realized that at the beginning of 2010, I was planning to move to Omaha in the fall.  I had made the decision to go to college there, in the city where my older sister lived, only two hours from my family.

Funny how God works, huh?  At present, I am in Michigan, thirteen hours from home.  Every person I know here I have only known for a month.  It seems odd to me that nine months ago, I was so sure where I would be at the beginning of the school year: I wrote, "[Grace University is] where I will be a full time freshman next fall."  When the idea of Hillsdale came up, I applied, and was miraculously accepted.  I didn't know what to do--Hillsdale sounded like a great school, but at the same time, I didn't want to leave the state. Omaha would have been the perfect location.  Finally, I figuratively shrugged my shoulders and did a bit of an engine-engine-number-nine move.

May I just say: God is alive and involved.  Hillsdale is...perfect.  I am in the hardest place I have ever been, dealing with the toughest issues I have ever faced, but it is rewarding.  The struggle brings triumph.  The bad grade brings determination.  The feeling of being constantly overwhelmed brings loss of power and gain of trust.  Slowly, I am making friends, learning a routine, and finding a niche.  Quickly, I am changing.  And I'm happy.

autumn.

Autumn in Hillsdale is not like autumn in my little home town.  This morning I woke up, put on a black dress and teal jewelry, and drove to church through an army of trees, lining each side of the road and peacefully but forcefully proclaiming their agenda of beauty.  The colors here are brilliant: a merry green changes to a vibrant orange, which fades to an amiable yellow.  It is everywhere: above my head, below my feet, and slowly drifting in between.  Outside of my dorm room, there is a wide, grassy area surrounded by trees bursting with this vitality.  It's the kind of place where you want to walk to the very middle, spread your arms, look up high with your eyes squinted shut, and spin and spin.  And then when you are done spinning, you want to sit down on the grass, cross-legged, and simply bask in the warmth of the October sun.  Autumn in Hillsdale is gorgeous.

Autumn at home is completely different.  There are a scant amount these beautiful trees, at least right were I live.  Instead, autumn is field upon beige-colored field of dried corn, waiting for a John Deere-green machine to methodically make its way up and down, back and forth, capturing the ears of yellow corn that are hidden in all of the expired verdure.  Autumn is a tow-colored puppy barking gleefully at a deep blue tractor and bright red grain cart rolling into the yard.  The beauty isn't just peripheral: inside that green combine is a dad who works until 1am to get the field finished before the thunderstorm comes.  When the puppy finishes barking, she races off to find her jolly ball, in the hopes that Mom will take a moment out of harvesting in her garden to play a little fetch.  The girl getting out of the blue tractor is my sister--helping Dad here and there by moving the tractor and grain cart from a finished field to an expectant field.

I wish I were home to drink it all in; to watch the beauty of a summer of hard work rewarded unfold before me; to give the puppy some love; to sit and laugh with my sister about anything.  Instead, I look up at brilliantly-colored leaves floating down, and am reminded that wherever I am, God is good, and He is beautiful.

(picture by Mom.)

oh, happiness!

There are some days when I simply can't contain my excitement over how good God is and I want to run and shout and spin and throw my hands up and laugh and prance and grin all at once.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Romans 6:23

Knocks my socks off.

Hard or frail
Rich or poor
All in need
Need fear no more

Such a thing to give away

Oh, happiness
There's grace enough for us
And the whole human race

-DC*B

more little things

It's Tuesday.  Tuesdays are my worst day of the week, but God can most certainly redeem even a Tuesday.

• I am wearing my brand new rainboots; I love them. (Aren't these cute?)
• I adore my math class.  If I am getting burned out and sick of english or history homework, I do some math homework and everything becomes happy again.  
• I eat in a sizable cafeteria teeming with people three times a day. It gets old, but it is the best place to run into people you know.
• I have learned that pop tarts and peanut butter are essentials.  
• SO IS CAFFEINE.

These are my friends:  

someone bigger

I have been at college for one month.  In this one month I have been frustrated, stretched, annoyed, and challenged more than I have in the past year.  I haven't been blissfully happy more than twice, and I have been lonelier than ever before.  I have also been obnoxious, rude, loud, and insensitive.  Consequently, I have 2 Timothy 2:13 written everywhere:

If we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot disown Himself.   

Being in this place has revealed all the wads of faithlessness I've always had but never before encountered.  All of the people here who have spent more than an hour with me have discovered many flaws - I'm not very good at hiding them.  Tonight, my inconsistencies and discrepancies were screaming at me.  I was sitting in a classroom attempting to read The Odyssey, but I kept getting distracted by what a loser I was and how much I wished I were home where everything is easy.  Finally I jumped up, grabbed some chalk, and scrawled across the chalk board: "The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Jesus Christ" (1 Timothy 1:14).  Every time my mind began to wander from cannibalistic cyclops' and nymphs with braided hair back to my bad day, I glanced up at the chalk board, and slowly, almost as slowly as one learns to appreciate The Odyssey, my mood shifted.  I'm not sure how, but simply looking at the words "The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly" adjusted my eyes from looking inward to looking upward.  I jumped up, walked into the neighboring classroom where two of my friends were studying, and said, "Have you guys read 2 Timothy 2:13?!"  One of them looked at me quizzically and the other asked me what was wrong this time.  I emphatically replied that nothing was wrong; in fact, everything was all right because the ugly mess called Erica was of no consequence!  There was no need to focus on any of my failings, because no matter how many times I am faithless, He remains faithful! Over, and over, and over again I drop the ball, and yet none of that bears any weight on how I am loved by God!

What a thought!  It makes me want to jump up and shout!  There is someone bigger than I--someone who does not base His love for me on my love for Him.  What liberation!

Tonight, I am happy.  I am intensely human, but God is interested in me regardless.  He is drawing me closer to Him, and slowly, I hope, I will change.  All I want now is to know God--to know the One who looks beyond my fallibility and sees potential.  A lot of the time I am cynical and don't see that potential, but it must be there, for the simply reason that I am loved by God.

(Contrary to how I may sound, there are some great things about being in college, and I am so glad to be here.  I want to tell you about them sometime!)

observations from this monday

• Accountability is good. It smarts and stings, but once everything has been dealt with, you are glad for it.
• The student union is a loud place.  I walked into the deathly (deadly?) silent library to talk to Catherine, and when I told her I was going to the Union to study, she asked if my sisters and I all studied together in high school.  I said yes, and she told me that at her high school, everything was silent, owing to this the fact that I like to study in the union and she likes to study in the library. What she doesn't know is that I'm not exactly studying...
• People at my school read C.S. Lewis. (!!!)
• People at my school also sit and have philosophical discussions about the purpose of man. 
• I love the school I go to.  (To which I go.)

This is the "Fearsome Threesome." Of which I am one.