I am writing from a tuesday morning on a sort of cloudy day. There is classical music playing on the radio and my sister painting the trim up the dining room stairs and other family members around. Today is one of the days I have with no obligations: the sort of day that made me miserable just a month ago and now make me very thankful. I have learned so much about work this summer. How my idea of work was pretty narrow before, and that God's work is much bigger (and usually more invisible) than I had thought. This summer has been a lesson and hands-on application of this truth, and now, in the middle of it all, I find myself processing it. I think I have learned a lot this summer, friends. This is humbling to admit ("but what if I mess up and forget what God has taught me? what if nobody notices that I've grown up more? how will I communicate this to people and be a wise-older-RA-type-person? can I really pull that off?")- BUT I think the Lord really has used this summer to show me some things, and I'm super thankful. He is so faithful!
I've found myself very thankful these past weeks, actually. Thankful for:
-God's provision of work for me, and fun work too! like burrito-ing and babysitting and cleaning
-I am not feeling depressed
-My lovely family surrounding me, and all the surprising quality times with friends I'd longed to reconnect with
-My city. Lancaster has been so good to me this summer.
-The 3 cafes I've been going to. Often.
-The Cornerstone experience: getting closer with people, mainly, and playing music together
-You three: that we are all returning to the Great North and can continue the fellowship.
-The pianos around the city
-Summer weather. You never have to worry about taking a coat or sweater along with you! It's so easy. (I love sweaters, but... Summer just has this brilliant ease to it that I can't get over. It's so magical to me.)
-His Word. Wisdom in the New Testament letters & the Psalms.
-NO HOMEWORK. (can I get an amen?)
Sometimes I think about the last year of my life, and I am dumbfounded. That God has been with me this whole time. That I got through not just one, but two semesters of a college I was so freaked out about before I came. That I made friends, and good ones at that. Just...everything. Life is so huge and too much sometimes, and when I think about the path I've been on in the past few years it's crazy to think that it IS a path. I'm not just scrambling through hedges, however much it feels that way.
Girls, do you remember when Prof. Herman spoke at the LEAD conference? He said something in his talk about being in exile from our homeland- we are all expatriates from the Good Place where God is. And, this explains a lot. How there are feelings and musics and experiences and memories and ideas and poems that make our souls so miserable with the thought of them: we just can't contain how much it all is. I think it's because our souls were made for more. And it also explains the verses in Ephesians that say things like
"...I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
I mean, what a crazy passage! Unless you take it seriously. And then it's like "Oh my word, having Christ in me is quite a big deal..." And all this about the fullness of God is so real and ready and waiting for us. It's great! And God is so giving. And I can start to understand why music, and stories, and my friends' faces, and an evening breeze, and TS Eliot, wring my heart so much. I think it's because they reminds me of my real Home.
So... I think the Lord has been very good to me lately. I'm thinking now about what it will look like to go back up to Gordon. I will be sad to leave. Moving is so rough for me, friends, as it is for everyone. But, God is going with me. Praise the Lord!
I just realized that I haven't even updated you guys on what I've been doing. It's been a lot of hanging out with Eliza and Caleb, running alone and with my friend Lezlee, watching a few movies (like the Godfather series!!), getting coffee and reading or writing letters, sleeping soundly in my cozy basement room, cooking, and planning things for my year as an RA. (I thought of a fun event I want to do, where we read children's books, watch a disney film, eat animal crackers and and juice, and basically just pretend to be little kids. What do you think?) And last night we had a splendid party at my house. Our good friends the Bustards are taking a vacation to Scotland for a few weeks so my dad and mom threw together a drop-in at our house to celebrate them and wish them a good voyage. I came a bit late, and was blown away at how many people showed up! Our whole first floor, the back yard and the front porch were full of people, neighbors, friends, family... it was such a cool surprise that it went so well. And a student of my dad's came and played the bagpipes, which was just so Scottish and heart-warming. Later, when most of the people left, 5 of us went on a nighttime city bike ride.
Thank you for your prayers and friendships,
I love you three so much.
See you soon,
Hannah
xoxo
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