Summer Closes

Right now, I miss Awana headquarters so much. I miss Bryce and Ariane, who basically became like brother and sister to me. I miss Dale and Luann. I miss Kevin. I miss Olive, and I miss Faith Baptist Church. I miss living in headquarters. I miss the fountain with the fish on the bottom floor, the grass behind headquarters, Kevin's bookcase, and drinking a bunch of cups of tea every day. I miss Art Rorheim, and I miss getting to hug him and give him a kiss. I miss hearing his stories from the early days of Awana, and listening to him recite entire chapters of Scripture at a time.

I am not really all that excited about going back to Baylor. Baylor is not yet home. I love Baylor, don't get me wrong. I love the campus and the people...but it's not home. I'm not sure it will ever be. Despite having spent more time in one month at Baylor then I have spent at Awana headquarters over my entire lifetime, if I could choose I would rather fly back to Chicago then go back to Baylor. Maybe that's just because my memories of Illinois are more recent. Maybe it's because I felt closer to the "real world" up at my internship than I do at college. Maybe it's because I belong in Chicago.

I am super excited about a couple things go. First and most obvious, I am excited about seeing friends like Jordan, Stephen, Taylor, Sarah, Mindy, Erika, Erica, Emma, Shane, Carroll, Landon, Katie, Tracey, etc., etc., etc., again. I am also excited because I found out that one of the pastors at my church is leaving Grace to teach at Baylor-and he teaches in Morrisson Hall, right next to the business school.

But what I am really excited about is starting classes for my new major. I am excited about learning all about business. And I am really excited to start learning things I can actually apply to life and to my future job.

I am excited because I think that this summer God handed me everything I ever really wanted. And I'm excited to see how my time at Baylor will prepare me to step out into the "real world" and take on the assignments that God is handing to me.

Baylor is not home. But it is a stepping stone to where I'm going. And for that, it will be a place I love and cherish always.

My New Address!

So for anybody who would at all be interested in sending me a letter/postcard/package/etc. while I'm at college this year, this is my apartment address!

2201 S. University Parks Drive #10203C
Waco, TX 76706

:)

What is Maturity?

The American Heritage dictionary defines "maturity" as The state or quality of being fully grown or developed. Lately I have been thinking about what it truly means to be emotionally and mentally mature. We are constantly learning new things and adding to our knowledge and range of emotional experiences. At what point are the mind and emotions "fully developed"?

I was talking with a friend of mine who is in her early teens recently, and as we talked I was impressed by the range of topics that she was able to talk about. I thought she was really mature. But as we continued to talk, I started actually listening to what she was saying, and I realized that she hadn't really thought through what she was saying. More than likely, she was just repeating what she had just heard other people say. I realized that she wasn't really as mature for her age as I though she was.

Then I started wondering-at what point is someone truly mature? Physical maturity is obvious. Mental and emotional maturity-not so much. As my experience illustrates, someone can seem mature without actually being mature. This is prevalent in our society. We have twelve and thirteen year olds dating when they're not even close to being ready for marriage.

As I started thinking about it, I started to reach the conclusion that emotional and mental maturity means being able to think for oneself, and then being able to to live out one's life in a productive and (especially for a Christian) God-honoring way. In other words, a mature person's opinions are their opinions because they have thought through the issues for themselves, taking into account facts, wisdom from elders, opinions of other people, and thinking critically through the issue to come to their own conclusions. And once they form their opinions or convictions, they are able to live them out in their daily life.

I searched for the word "mature" on biblegateway.com, and the following verse came up:

But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.-Hebrews 5:14

So, I think I was on the right track. A mature person is one who is able to know was is good and distinguish it from what is evil (requiring the ability to think for oneself-the mature have "trained themselves", they don't rely on others to distinguish good from evil for them), and applies it-"who by constant use".

I realized after thinking about all this that I am not as mature as I once thought I was. A lot of my opinions are mine only because I have heard other people talk about them, not because I have taken time to think through the issues for myself. And just because I "know" good from evil doesn't mean I always utilize this knowledge.

Maturity is a lot more than just being able to talk about a range of "grown-up" subjects. Unless one is thinking for oneself and acting upon their knowledge, one is only feigning maturity.

Obviously, a big part of maturity is listening to the wisdom and counsel of others-"thinking for oneself" does not mean completely shutting out other's input (a very immature thing to do, actually). But it does mean having the ability to compare other's counsel against the Bible and sometimes, quite frankly, logic, to determine what truly is good counsel and what is not.

I definitely need to work on becoming more mature.

Mr. and Mrs. Bryan Davis

This past week I had the honor and privilege of helping with the preparation of, attending the ceremony of, and running the reception for, the union of Mr. Bryan and Mrs. Samantha Davis (formerly Seagren). Despite a few curveballs thrown, both the wedding ceremony and the reception went beautifully.

When I drove to Prescott, AZ with Mr. and Mrs. Seagren, I knew that I would be helping out with the wedding, but I had absolutely no clue just how much I would end up doing. From accompanying Bryan and Sam to their engagement photo shoot, to calling every nail salon in Prescott to set up an appointment for Sam and her bridesmaids, to visiting the country club to talk with the brand new event coordinator (the head chef and the event coordinator for the country club left two weeks before the wedding), I ended up being a lot more involved with the wedding than I realized I woud be. A couple people even dubbed me an "honorary member" or the wedding party, even though I didn't stand up with them at the wedding. Which I didn't mind at all, it was a lot of fun and I was glad I could help.

What I definitely didn't realize would happen was that, along with Bryan's longtime best friend Jody, I would basically be running the reception. Which, when the ceremony is at 4:30 and the country club has things scheduled until 3:30, is definite running-around-like-a-chicken-with-your-head-cut-off material. But, everything was in place by the time the bride and groom arrived, so everything worked out well. :)

The weather was perfect that day. Throughout the week that had been scattered thunderstorms throughout the Prescott area, but the sun shone strong all day on Saturday the 4th. :)

My favorite part of the week, though, was breakfast at a local bed and breakfast the morning of the wedding. The setting was amazing-eating on the front porch of a gorgeous house with beautiful, cool weather. The food was extremely delicious, and the dishes were beautiful. The best part, though, was when all the female members gave same a gift bag with several items inside. Each item symbolized a lesson they wanted to pass on to Samantha about marriage. They would have a couple verses to go with each item, and then explain the significance of the verses to marriage and what the item symbolized. Afterwards, there was a time of prayer for Samantha as she stepped into this new chapter of her life.
Bryan and Samantha Davis, I pray that God blesses the two of you immensely as you live in this new chapter of your life. May God be glorified through the two of you as a couple even more than He was glorified by the both of you as individuals!

Camp Nikos!

Later I will post a more thorough post about how Camp Nikos 2009 went. Suffice it to say that it went extremely well, and that God did many things. I love my girls so much and I was sad to see them go. Through the week God taught me so much. Now that I’m back I feel like I need to rethink my whole life-everything from which major I want to pursue (I had crossed out nonprofit studies because it’s a marketing track and I didn’t want to do marketing, but now I’m feeling a tug toward that major…I guess God at least wants me to check it out) to which friendships I should be investing the most time into, to how I should be spending my time and money…at the beginning of the week my prayer was “Lord, I am emotionally and spiritually apathetic…rekindle my passion and fire this week.” Well, emotionally, it didn’t happen. I don’t feel any burning in my spirit. What I do feel is like I’m being pushed…like someone is saying “Come on now, Shaney, we need to start heading over here.” Perhaps this is better than having that “mountaintop experience”. Hopefully it will be longer lasting.

My girls rewrote the “I Love College” song on the last night of camp. I’ll post the lyrics for your entertainment. 

I love Jesus-Hey!
And I love the Bible-Hey!
And I love praying-Hey!
Yeah I love Jesus-Hey!

That Bible story last night was awfully interesting
I wish I remembered it
(Something I can’t make out on the video)
It was so awesome

Read my Bible and drink my juice
Love my Jesus, He’s all I need

And I love Jesus-Hey!
And I love the Bible-Hey!
And I love praying-Hey!
And I love Jesus-Hey!

Do something crazy for Jesus!
Do something crazy for Jesus!

I'm such a nerd

I'm taking business computer applications 1305 (the equivalent of management information system 1305) distance learning right now, and I'm sincerely excited by how efficient excel is.

I'm such a nerd.

Indulgence

A bath.
A glass of blueberry tea with a spoonful of sugar.
A candle.
Flower-scented body products.
Pandora playing Iron, Wine, and Diana Krall in the background.

How relaxing. I do think that regularly indulging in this pleasure could do wonders for my ability to sleep, my stress level, and my overall health in general.