La Bella Vita

Andrews University has their motto that can be found plastered on almost any surface around campus. "Seek. Affirm. Change." As a freshman, sophomore, and junior this phrase was only wasted space in my mind. Now that I'm a Senior, it seems like each part of my experience here needs closure. This saying falls naturally into that same category. Seek. I sought. I sought out four different majors in college. I sought out how it was I wanted to help people. How? By traveling the world and visiting several different countires trying to find how I wanted to fit in during the time that God has given me on this circular globe. Affirm. Affirming what I've discovered? Okay, I guess that makes sense. I have to affirm my beliefs, my efforts, my goals. This makes achieving them a bit more real, a bit less surface. I can do that. Change. Whoa. I like change, it's fun. It keeps you on your toes, you get less bored. However, is there really something in this world of intellec...

Things have changed, drastically. I was gone for almost 6 months and I came back to realize that not only I had changed, but so had the group of people that previously surrounded me. Is it weird to say that I feel like we've all grown up a little bit? We've all seen life in a different way and it seems to beat to a new drum. We have all brought in new perspectives. Friends returned from Europe, Africa, Islands, etc., and we are all back together to take another year of college by the reigns. It feels right. I hadn't realized how unhappy I was until about a week before I left my job in California. I don't know how it happened, but it seemed to get the best of me. I suppose living on a mountain, not really having a 'Sabbath,' no beach for all of Spring/Summer, and other things may have had an impact. But the reality is I missed my home. I missed my freedom. I don't know that I missed 'Michigan,' but I missed going on random adventures with my f...

Who is this person? Who is this character that thinks they can inhabit my body when I'm not paying attention? When did this lack of control become okay? God is tricky. Just when you think you have a grip on exactly who he is, he reminds you that he is more vast than anything you can ever imagine. He is sure to reiterate the fact that his works go far beyond the realms of the cranial cavity we were given. Sometimes it almost feels as if I'm back on track with him again, and then out of nowhere I fall short again. Maybe he's reminding me that I need to keep striving, never settling on what's comfortable. I've lost myself recently. I'm not sure if blogging about it is in my best interest, but at this point it seems to provide a pivot, a pivot for change. There comes a time in life when everything grows dull, it becomes gray. The colors lose their accent and the sharpness behind every image simply becomes a blur. I don't have all the solutions. At this point, I ...

I read an article in a magazine recently that made me question my own ideas on the topic. I suppose this is what writer’s try to do. They want to make the reader think beyond the typical realm of thought. They want to push them to a new place. I fell for it. Here I am, expressing my thoughts once again in the form of inked words on paper. I’m a sucker for analyzing the diagnostic aspects of life. Why I run… I’m not sure why I hadn’t processed these thoughts before. It seems as if when an individual I meet asks me the question in an almost painful tone, (“why do you run?”) my response is almost mechanical. To save the time and possibly sanity of the listening source, I usually respond with something along the lines of “I want to stay fit, it feels good, I love it.” But in my recent runs, I have really put a lot of thought into why I do this activity everyday. Why do I use this form of physical motion to keep my body in its proper gear? Once the list began to formulate in my h...

As a Lutheran living in a Seventh-Day Adventist world, I learn something new about this 'culture' everyday. I was blessed to meet two new people from Loma Linda this weekend. One of them immediately stood out to me due to her nose ring and earrings. My initial reaction was 'I wonder if she's my type?' I don't want to point fingers and say that one belief is better than the other. Never do I mean to intend that in any form in this blog. But I do want to address the concept of reality. Before becoming more serious about my faith and actually exploring Seventh-Day Adventism as an option, I never would have picked out the girl with the earrings and asked her if she was like me. In fact, in most cases (and this still remains), I am the girl with the 5 piercings and bracelets that could almost serve as a sleeve on a cold day. But when did this happen? When did I start to judge people based on their appearance? This is reality. I've started putting people in catego...

I'm reading a new book. Actually I'm reading several new books. But the one I am going to reflect on now is not only insightful, it's thought provoking, penetrating. I set it down every few moments and just pause. I pause to reflect. The author of the book has everything he's ever wanted. The perfect wife, the perfect job, the perfect house, etc. On a day just like any other, he receives news that his wife is suffering from renal failure. In two years, she will have to receive regular dialysis treatments. In a few more years, her kidney will need a replacement. Six weeks after the diagnosis, his wife learns that the prognosis originally stated was incorrect. Her dialysis would start that day. Her life was going to change. The author describes himself as a fighter. He tells of the endless hours of research he devoted himself too. His efforts to find any way he could to guarantee her quality of life were boundless. He did everything he could. It still wasn't enough. Y...