Not your typical Monday

Sorry Victoria, I've been remembering on and off to update this, but I usually forget by the time I actually sit down to do it. Thanks for reminding me. :P

Anyways, here's a nice little tale: 

As probably not everyone in Houston knows, the weather here in San Antonio has been a little crazy lately. A couple of weekends ago, we had a HUGE thunderstorm with hail and everything (of course I went out and played in it along with half my hall, but that's irrelevant except for the fact that I'm now sick). Lately it's been really really cold, but then a few days ago it was perfect - about 75 degrees, sunny, and breezy. Now it's raining, and I awoke this morning to a power outage. My first thought was "how am I going to print my Writing Workshop paper?"

Lo and behold, I get on Facebook because for some reason I think that's going to help my situation, and I discover status updates from several Trinity students informing everyone that classes are CANCELLED this morning. Ha-lle-lu-jah. Not only do I not have to worry about how to print out the paper I finished at midnight which is due this morning at 10:30, but I also do not have to worry about taking the American Politics exam which I didn't know was today until last night. I considered writing "God is good" right there but somehow that didn't feel right under the circumstances, given that I probably should have known about the exam (because it's on my syllabus) and I probably should have finished and printed out my paper earlier this weekend.

Oh well. Regardless of ME and everything related to me, God is good. I feel justified in saying this because it's true. If I'd had to go to all three of my classes, if I'd had to tell my professor I procrastinated and as such didn't have my paper printed out for him, if I'd gone into my exam completely unprepared and completely bombed it, God would still be good. This is something I'm still learning. God's goodness doesn't depend on how I'm feeling. It doesn't depend on my situation or circumstances. Unpleasant circumstances come because this is life - nothing is perfect, and no one is perfect. I feel angry, sad, upset, or weary sometimes because I'm not perfect. But the one thing that keeps the world from falling apart is God's goodness. Sometimes I forget this because my emotions get in the way and make me feel like the world IS falling apart. But every morning, I wake up and there is a brand new day lying before me. A brand new day full of second chances. Maybe one door closed the day before - each new day I have endless new doors to choose from.

I don't know why I just thought of this, but one of my new favorite Bible verses is Micah 6:8 -
"He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?"
This passage fascinates me. It resonates with me. It humbles me. God knows we're flawed. He doesn't require perfection from us. He doesn't require a list of X-Y-Z that we need to fulfill or else eternal damnation awaits us. He requires that we act in justice, mercy, and reverence for Him. The way I see it is this: love others, love God. We don't need to agonize over each movement in our lives - we don't need to frantically scour the scriptures for instruction in every aspect of our lives - we don't need to bind our consciences so tightly that we are prisoners to our own conceptions of black and white. We need to love the Lord. All else we do flows from that. We need to know His commandments and live among others the way He lived among us. We do need to seek Him daily; don't hear me say that reading the Bible and praying for guidance isn't necessary. But God is not a set of rules. The Bible is not a tightrope. We have freedom in Christ's mercy, and should therefore love mercy ourselves. We have freedom in Christ's grace, and should therefore act justly to one another. We have freedom in the knowledge that Christ redeemed us, and should therefore walk with Him in confidence that we are saved, but also humility because we didn't do the saving.

Wow. I didn't mean to turn this into a sermon. I started out talking about how great it is that classes are cancelled this morning, and I ended up talking about our walk with God.
Hmm, more news. Well, choir tour is coming up next month. I'm rooming with my suitemate Amanda and I'm really excited about that. Valentine's Day is coming up tomorrow. The store on campus, the POD, has a shelf full of valentine cupcakes and chocolates and other random valentine-y gifts, but all I can think of that is how awful would it be to get a Valentine gift from the POD. It would be something every single person on campus would have seen, and know where it's from.

Anyways. I have no class, so it's back to bed I go.