Embracing the Day... a Different Kind of Summer

           On the last day of school I was sitting on the computer in one of my classes when I began to look through my student files from the year. I found a document from a class I took first semester, Advanced Comp. That teacher made us free write during the first five minutes of class every day (That is, until we all became rebels and spent every day shopping online and looking up youtube videos.) He always told us that the best free-writing was unfiltered and unedited. Our hands should just move and we should simply write, or type, the first things that popped into our head. And let me tell you, that is exactly what we did. I found some pretty ridiculous free-writes when I looked through that document. Some were hilarious, and some were just dumb, but the one that stuck out to me the most was the one I wrote on the very first day of school:

Wednesday, Aug 25^th, 2010

            I don’t really know where to begin. This school year so far just seems like a dream, like it shouldn’t be starting yet but at the same time I feel like this is at least the 3^rd day of school. I confuse myself like crazy. I don’t knowwhat to do. I don’t know where to start… I’m dreading this year but at the same time, I’m somewhat excited and I  have a feeling that this year is going to be much different… actually, I’m scared that it won’t be. I want it to be different. I want it to be a year that I remember. A year that I actually put effort and all that I am into what I’m doing. Into absolutely everything that I’m involved in. it seems impossible, but deep down I know that He can geive me the strength to do that, to accomplish things that I never thought I could, to change lives, starting with Him changing mine. I’ve said it over and over and over again, and I know that I’ve meant it before, but I think that I mean I t even more now. I don’t know where to go from here, and I hope that I will know soon. I almost feel like I can’t go anywhere from here, like I’m trapped, but I know that there is a way for me to get out very very soon… i want to be crazy.

          There it is. The unedited cry of my heart on the first day of school (or maybe it was the second day?). I had completely forgot about it until that last day of school. And in a way, it kind of makes me feel like a prophet of some sort (a very amateur one) because this was exactly how my school year went down. But more than anything, it shows me that God heard that cry. And He answered it, big time, and blew all of my expectations out of the water. I witnessed countless lives continuously be transformed, including my own, and God showed me how and where to move. It amazes me to the core. But the purpose of this blog wasn't to summarize this past school year, because that work has already been done through my own journal, and I would probably end up with a post the size of a full novel if I tried to write about everything.  Instead, I'm going to pour out a new cry. Even though I'm already entering my second full week of summer, I hope and pray that rest of this summer...

1. Would be different than any summer I've had before.
2. I would embrace the day, meaning that even though I have a lot to look forward to, I would be present in the present, enjoying the time that I have been given, and that I wouldn't take any moment for granted.   
3. Would be a summer of growth, so that I can go back to school senior year stronger and closer to God than ever, renewed and ready.

          And my hope and prayer for this blog? That like my journal, it would be an authentic picture of God's movement in my life this summer, and like my Advanced Comp free-writes, it would be unfiltered (although slightly edited)....as if my fingers were ferociously attacking the keyboard.