Waiting

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the hearts of children to their parents, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
-Malachi 4:5-6, the last two verses of the Old Testament.

"And for four hundred years - four hundred years - the people of God waited."

This was how we began our worship service this morning, on the first day of Advent. Pastor Dan let us sit in silence for quite a long time after his opening lines. The first feeling I experienced was a twinge of pain. I closed my eyes and pictured generation after generation waiting and wondering when the Messiah would arrive. I cannot even begin to fathom what it must have been like to wait and wonder year after year. Then I began to think about the people who were alive and going about their daily routines the year that Christ was born. They had no idea what that year was going to bring, that the Messiah was going to be born during their lifetime!

And now, in this season of Advent, we are waiting. Not only are we waiting and preparing to celebrate Christ's birth, but we are waiting for Christ to return. In many ways, we are like the Jews who waited four hundred years for the Messiah to be born.

I think that this year, I am going to try to be very intentional about really experiencing this season of Advent.

Waiting.
Longing.
Abiding.
Expecting.
Hungering.
Yearning.
Desiring.

Praying.

Christ is coming.
Christ will come again.
Alleluia!

Divine Provision

God is so good at reminding me that I don't need to worry about things. Lately I've been somewhat stressing about next year - where to live and the fact that the furniture I own consists of a couch, a small table, a desk chair, and a few lamps. Well, God is good. Let me reiterate that one more time: God is so very good. Yesterday Lisa (a mom whose kids I nanny) was unpacking stuff in their new house and came across things she doesn't need - a food processor, some pans, and a really nice set of cream colored brocade curtains! I have nice curtains that I wouldn't normally be able to afford! And today I met with Pastor Lynne for our Space for God study and she randomly said, "So, you don't happen to need a queen size bed, do you?" The bed is all mine, as soon as I find a place to store it. I have a bed! A FREE bed! One less big piece of furniture to buy!

Another bonus for today - I taught a math lesson on story problems and my kids got it even more than I thought they would. I do believe that they are THE most amazing kindergartners EVER. :)

How is it the middle of November already?!

I love that because I'm an elementary ed major, I am automatically entitled to use fun fonts, pictures, and borders throughout homework assignments. In fact, I'm pretty much expected to.

Right now I'm listening to Yo-Yo Ma's cd "The Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon." It's amazing and transports you to life along the old Silk Road. This (music) is one of the reasons why I think I would much rather be blind than deaf. I don't think I could ever go through life without hearing another Bach fugue, Mahler symphony, or Yo-Yo Ma performance.

I scored free dinner at Panera tonight! I was at the mall getting a b-day present for my little Gracie when I noticed a really long line in front of the new Panera. I decided to grab dinner there, since it's the first Panera in Seattle and I've missed it a lot since moving out here. So I stood in line for awhile and then noticed that everyone around me had these special invitations to be there....hmm. Then this lady who worked there explained that the restaurant isn't actually open yet, but that they were doing a practice run-through with invited guests, but that she'd let me in anyhow. Then she gave me play money that added up to twelve dollars and said that dinner was free. So I spent twelve monopoly dollars on dinner, dessert, and a bagel for my breakfast tomorrow! I seriously think that my mother's good luck is starting to rub off on me. I always seems to be in the right place at the right time to score free stuff, and I'm not complaining!

My cell phone now plays the Harry Potter theme and I have gotten some interesting reactions from friends when my phone rings. Everyone loves it and some people get really excited. The best reaction, however, was from Bella, who is two and a half. My phone was in my purse when it rang the other night while I was watching Bella and Lauren. The opening theme started to play and Bella's blue eyes got as big as saucers and she whispered in awe, "Is your purse magic?!"

Oh I love kids :)

Miscellaneous

(yes, I know how to spell miscellaneous) :)

Lots of stuff has been going on out here. I found out my student teaching placement this past week. I'm going to be in a second grade classroom at Whittier Elementary over in Ballard, about ten minutes away from SPU. It's actually kind of a team teaching scenario. There are four second grade teachers, who all have their own classes. All the second grades get together frequently thoughout the year to do projects together and stuff. I have three friends who have been placed in the other three classrooms, so we'll kind of be student teaching together! We're all really excited about it and get to meet our teachers and the principal during an informal interview after Thanksgiving.

It's gotten really cold and wet out here. Well, the really cold part is what's new these days. We're kind of used to rain in Seattle...
Anyhow, it's FREEZING outside and we've had to pull out our winter coats two months early! It definately makes walking to class less and less appealing.

Church is really good. We've been going through a sermon series on the Apostle's Creed. Today Pastor Lynne preached on the line "the forgiveness of sins." It was awesome. An older man was baptized at the end of the service, which was so beautiful to be a part of, and it fit so well with Lynne's sermon.

I've had a relaxing Sunday. There was a Gilmore Girls marathon on today, so I watched part of that while doing homework. I do love the Gilmore Girls. Obsessed with the Gilmore Girls is probably more like it :) Seriously, though, of all the things on TV these days, I could have chosen a much worse show to be obsessed with!

My friend Kristen is flying out to Seattle during the first part of Christmas break! I can't wait to see her and show her everything I've been telling her about for the past 3.5 years. We'll go to the market, the waterfront, Mt. St. Helens, Vancouver, Whistler, hang out on the beach, she can come to church with me, we'll hit all the best coffee shops in Seattle....yeah, I can't wait :)

I Love Foxtrot

It's Friday, it's Friday!

It's 1:02 am on FRIDAY! Yeah!

Today is going tobe such a good day. I'm meeting my friend Priscilla Pacquette from my Women in Christianity class last fall. We're doing coffee and catching up. Then I'm teaching another knitting lesson to Dr. McKinney. I'm watching Oliver from 2-5:30. I'm really looking forward to watching him again this week. You know, 2-yr olds can be so predictable at times. For instance, I know that without-a-doubt, Oliver will ask about the following two things tomorrow: my water bottle and my nose ring. "What's that??" always comes out of his mouth whenever he sees either of the two. He especially doesn't understand my nose ring. I always start out by saying "it's my nose ring," but it doesn't work. So then I say, "it's like an earring, Oliver," and show him my earrings, then point to my noise ring. If he still looks confused, I say "it's a sparkle," which he says "Ohhhhh",deems it a decent response, and then doesn't ask about it for the rest of the day. I love kids :)

I'm also hanging out with Ellen tomorrow night, from the U-W. Yay for new friends! She's from my small group, and I feel like we've clicked. She also loves Harry Potter and John Steinbeck (I gotta get her to read Poisonwood Bible); we believe the same things regarding women in ministry; and she knows both euchre and Dutch Blitz! She's also interested in coming to Bethany Pres with me this weekend, since she still hasn't found a church.

Off to bed!