I Heard the Bells...

And away it goes. This long, trying, desperate, joyful, amazing semester is finished. In a matter of hours I will hop into my bed, sleep one more sleep at Cranely, and point the nose toward home to spend quality time with my family. It seems strange to think about the sweltering August night when I first came to Cranley unsure of if I could make it at a new school, and etc. I was terrified and overwhelmed. I can hardly recognize that girl who sat eating her cheetos and biting her nails in fear. I'm finishing up with delight. If you had told me that life could be so amazing, I could have hardly imagined it. I am almost afraid to write about it because I fear that it is a dream which will fade. But I don't think that it will. I am delighted because God is transforming me. I am happy because I realize that this is just a stop along the way. This little chapter, my life, is like the prologue to heaven. I live too much in the here and now, forgetting that I have what Mongane Wally Serote calls the imperishable quality of hope. I have hope that life amounts to more than what score I got on my Shakespeare final. Life amounts to the sum of the lessons that I learned about my Savior this semester. And those lessons wow me, take my breath away, and delight me. Life amounts to the joy that these lessons aren't the end and that each new day represents the hope that I will learn newer and deeper lessons. I am delighted by being alive. Thinking about this semester and anticipating Christmas (ten days!) the theme which has been playing through my head today is Bing Crosby singing about the bells on Christmas day. This is our imperishable hope. This is why we study, this is the beauty of the tears which fall, and this is the belief that it all is moving somewhere beautiful:

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

I'm posting a few more pictures of life at the Cranley Casa. The first few are of my smallgroup bible study girls at our Christmas dinner. The paper is my version of the Mona Lisa... haha. The last are some special surprise flowers I received this morning. Happy Christmas!