I.Am.Weak.

This week in chapel we have had Rev. Kevin Smith speaking to us about The Lord's Prayer. I have heard the Lord's Prayer read several times, I've recited it myself, but I have to admit I have never intentionally dug into the Lord's Prayer and studied it.

Rev. Smith has been unpacking it in chapel and I have been both enormously encouraged and convicted by what he has been sharing. I thought I'd highlight a few of the major points that have been encouraging or convicting to me. 

1). Our Father. Simple phrase, but a phrase packed with meaning. Our Father. Those of us who are saved through Jesus Christ are God's children – adopted into His family! He is our Dad. I have an amazing Dad. One who loves me, cares for me, provides for me, and much more, but, as Rev. Smith said, no matter how great our earthly dad is our heavenly Dad is SO much more. He is the King of the universe! He loves us with an unfailing love. He cares for the sparrows, how much more does He care for us?! He provides in unimaginable ways. He is our Father! Rev. Smith pointed out how appropriate it is to begin a prayer like that. It shows us our relationship with God. He is our Father; we are His children. We are totally dependent on Him. Wow! Praise the Lord for His redeeming grace! 

2). Hallowed be Thy name. Hallowed literally means holy. Holy. God's name is holy, it is set apart. Rev. Smith pointed out that this is the only attribute of God listed three times in a row. You never hear, "God is love, love, love." or "God is true, true, true." And yet He is all those. Isaiah and Revelation both say God is holy, holy, holy. His very nature is holy! His love is holy, His power is holy, everything about Him is holy. 

And then came the convicting part. "Hallowed be Thy name." God's name is holy. His name is set apart. Yet, how many times do people, sometimes even Christians, use God's name – a holy, set apart name – in vain? I sat in my seat thinking, "Well, that's not me." And then Rev. Smith said, "We all have taken the Lord's name in vain at some point. We call ourselves Christians and yet, how often do we not live like it?" We bear the Lord's name and yet sometimes we are not living a holy life... not glorifying His holy name, taking His holy name in vain.  ... Ouch. 

3). The last thing was today at a luncheon with Rev. Smith. He was telling us about how the major prayer warriors in his church are the ones who realize they are weak. They are the ones who realize how dependent they are on Christ. He looked at us and told us that we are at the point in our lives where we think we can conquer anything, all we need to do is study more, or be active, or this and that. But he told us, "YOU. ARE. WEAK!" Our lives need to be consumed in prayer. We need to be so dependent on Christ so prayerful in everything that everything we do is done through prayer. It was a good reminder.

I am weak. He is strong. I am dependent on Him. Please God, help me to believe this. 

Pause and Hear the Melody

"How often do we read our Bibles with all of our senses alert? With the conviction that these words have come to us from the very throne room of God? That they are shot through with a radiant glory beyond all our imagining? I confess I do not do this often. The words are often so familiar to me, I read them or hear them read in such familiar settings, I’m distracted by a thousand other thoughts and worries…
I’m not captivated as I should be by the truth that is singing from the pages if I would only pause and hear the melody."

-Dr. Gwen Macallister

'Twas the Week before Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving is coming up in six days. I'm looking forward to being away for a few days, relaxing with the family, and seeing extended family who I haven't seen in about five years (which tends to happen when you've lived across the world for a few years ;) ). It'll be a good time to rest and to specifically set aside a day to give thanks to God.

I decided that in this week before Thanksgiving, I'll try, and hopefully will, post once a day about something I am thankful for. It may be something from that day, or just something that popped into my mind.

Today, I am thankful for:

• The hat and scarf set that my amazing suitemate from last year, Kathleen, crocheted for me. It has been keeping me toasty warm on this slightly cold day.
  
  
• Tissues, hot tea, and cough drops. Yep, I've caught the cold yet again. I'm thankful for an endless supply of hot water, for tea bags of many flavours, and for soft tissues for my chapped nose.
  
  
• Chapel today. It was wonderful and refreshing. Dr. Eric Mason shared from 2 Peter 1:1-9. He was a great speaker and really preached the Word to us.
  
  
• The weekend. I'm thankful for time to rest and hopefully get rid of this cold. I'm also thankful for time to work on projects that are due when I get back from Thanksgiving Break.
  
  
• Janessa Chupp. God has blessed me with such an amazing friend! I love her. We always seem to be going through the same trials or joys, or thinking the same about a lot of stuff going on. I'm thankful for her godly perspective on a lot of life. She not only is encouraging, but also points out things in my life that should change. She listens to me, laughs with me, and challenges me in my walk with the Lord. She has been a huge blessing and I am SO thankful for her friendship.
  
  
• Fingers :) Yes. I'm thankful for fingers! I'm thankful that I have the ability to type out this blog post, write with a pencil, and hold many things. Thank you God for fingers!

Well, that is all for now....

What are you thankful for today?

Thoughts on a Foggy, Rainy Day.

*written yesterday, posted today*

Fog is covering Covenant College's campus right now, wrapping us up in a giant blanket of grey fluffiness. The fog isn't alone, it's come with chilling temperatures and rain. Ah, the slow changing of seasons, going from cool to cold.

I'm done with my homework (for now) and am sitting on the Chapel Department's couch. The heater is on warming up the chilly room. My cup, which did have tea in it, is now sitting next to me, empty. And I am sitting here with thoughts floating around in my head waiting to be typed out into a blog post.

So, here it goes–thoughts from the Traveling Banana on a foggy Wednesday afternoon.

The first thought, is actually a quote. On Monday, we had some people from Wycliffe share in my English Syntax class. They shared about the importance of language and syntax and talked about translating the Bible. While talking they shared this quote with us:

"There is no such thing as a word in one language that has a perfect equivalent in another language."

Ah! So true. I remember trying to communicate things in Portuguese to my friend in Mozambique and thinking, "There just isn't a word that communicates the same thing as (for example) lickity split." So, yes, that quote, I thought, was true.

Another thing I've been thinking about lately is thankfulness. Thanksgiving is coming up this month and as I've been thinking about that I've realized just how much I have to be thankful for. So for the rest of this post I'll highlight a few things that I've been thankful for in just this month (yes, I know, this month just started :) ).

• My job. I honestly have no idea how I got blessed with such an amazing job except that God gave it to me! I was signed up to be cleaning the library again, and I was excited about it :) Then, a week before school began, I was told I would be working in the Chapel Department. It has been great! I've gotten to learn new things, I've enjoyed working with everyone in the Chapel Department, and I love getting together every Wednesday to pray with everyone who works in the Chapel Department. It's been an encouraging job, and one that fits in perfectly with my hectic class schedule. I'm so thankful to God for it!
  
  
• Textfree. :) It's an app ( there's an app for that ;) ) , and although I don't text much, it is helpful/nice :) Like the other morning when I was up getting ready for the day, Dad and I texted the whole time :) It was a great start to my morning.
  
  
• My family. I love them! I love hearing from them whether it's through text, Facebook, or phone calls :) They're great! I got to talk to Mom and Andrew last night for a few hours... it was great!
  
  
• My advisor. She is amazing! I met with her last week to talk about my schedule for next semester. She has everything planned out for me. It is wonderful, and made my life a whole lot easier when I went to register for classes this morning.
  
  
• Getting to be here at Covenant College. I'm so thankful that God has allowed me to be here studying. I love it here. I love learning, I love the professors, I love my friends, and I love all the opportunities there are everyday to talk with fellow believers about Christ! It's wonderful! And I'm SO thankful!

There you have it, my definitely-not-exhaustive list of things I'm thankful for in this month :) There are many more, but it is time to scidaddle off to another class.

Until next time, toodle loo.

Chalk, Thoughts, & Life.

It has been quite the week to say the least. So much can happen in a week it just blows me away. Monday and Tuesday seem to go at a normal pace. Wednesday seems to drag on forever. But once the week hits Thursday and Friday, zoom! The week is over and the weekend has begun. Crazy! So, what all has happened this week to make it quite the week?

First about the chalk, and yes, this does have something to do with my week ;) Tuesday morning I woke up too early for my liking. I got ready to go to breakfast and then class. Lydia, Stacey, Janessa and I all walked out of Andreas together ready to make the trek up to the Great Hall for breakfast. As we walked out of Andreas we were greeted by the sun not yet peeking up from behind the mountains, but subtly making the clouds glow. The air was chilly and honestly I was not happy to be out in it. All that I wanted to do was crawl straight back into bed and sleep for another four hours. Well, I knew that wasn't going to happen, so on I trekked. I got up to the first sidewalk when I saw something written in chalk on the sidewalk. I figured someone had either written a joke, lyrics, or drawn a crazy picture. I was wrong. Someone had written out a verse. I can't even remember what verse was written out, but it was just what I needed to read that morning. It was so encouraging. The rest of the sidewalk up to the Great Hall was covered in Scripture. One verse every ten feet. Talk about encouraging! Oh! What a great way to start the morning. I'm not sure who spent all that time writing out verses, but I'm thankful. :)

As the week progressed I heard about a program that a church in downtown Chattanooga does. This program is called GLAD and is an afterschool program designed to help "tutor" kids and befriend them. I began praying about being a part of this and felt like it was a really great opportunity for me to be with kids and also do something related with my major (middle grades education for those of you who don't know). So, come Wednesday I'll be helping out with this program. If you think of it please pray for me. I'm sure it will be really great, but I'm still anxious about going into a new situation.

Friday, today, or maybe tomorrow by the time I finish this post up, was a great, no, marvelous! The way this week ended just could not have been more wonderful! Woke up to go to work like usual, and went to work... like usual. Then got a cup of coffee and went to Intro to Literary Studies class. Had a great class time and then went to chapel. Our chapel speaker for the week couldn't make it this week so the chapel department had to find someone to fill in for today. The fill in- Dr. Ward! :D Oh! I love Dr. Ward! I had him for Old Testament last semester and he was my favourite teacher. Always encouraging, down to earth, loving, and an amazing Bible teacher. Well, his chapel message was SO encouraging. Just what I needed to hear. He talked from Lamentations 3 and spoke on God's faithfulness. It was amazing.

When chapel ended Chaplain Messner got up to make an announcement. The announcement: The whole campus is closing down in fifteen minutes due to bad winter weather. Ha! Bad winter weather in Georgia. I thought it was a joke. When we got outside of the chapel I did laugh. The sky was a little grey, the weather a little cold, but really? Bad winter weather. Some of us chuckled, but were happy about it nonetheless. Well, within the hour I figured out what bad winter weather we had. Within two hours we had 3 inches of snow on the ground... in GEORGIA! Craziness! But beautiful! Right now the whole campus is covered in a soft white blanket of snow. It is stunning. :)

And that is my week in a nutshell. A very very tiny nutshell. Basically, just to wrap it all up, God is faithful in all things and this week is proof of that.