Leaving it Behind

So what happened to that writing every day or nearly? I'm definitely skirting the edge of "nearly" right now. Ah well, this is definitely more frequent than the previous while. I've had a pretty good last couple of days. A little up and down, but what else is new? A bit more toward level though which has been nice. Spent Superbowl Sunday alone which was a little tough but not too bad. I ate entirely too much. Probably comfort eating, oh well. But I got to talk to my parents for the first time in a week since I've been home which was nice.

Monday was filled with class. Pretty good times in class though. Then I got out of my last one early which is always extremely helpful. Tuesday is one of my favorite days of the week because I have my Russia meetings on Tuesday. And to make things even better I got to spend some one-on-one time with my team leader early that afternoon. We talked Sydney and Nor Cal and a bit about plans and music. I'd kinda forgotten until a couple of days ago that my leader doesn't know me and therefore doesn't know that I play guitar or how big a part of my life it is. So I talked to her a little about that and she's put me in charge of that aspect of things so that's really awesome. Learning Russian songs. Oh boy. I've heard Russian is extremely difficult. Thank goodness these will be children's songs, we couldn't handle much more.

Had a great time at our meeting that night. Sat next to someone new and had a great time making little comments with her and getting to see her personality. She is definitely someone I want to hang out with. Good times. Our leader really stressed the importance of being in the Word daily and said that as our time to leave gets nearer that Satan is going to be attacking us more and more. Just the night before I'd told one of my friends to ask me how I'm going with God like all the time. I'm really trying to be disciplined in the time that I spend with God. Even though I don't "feel" much right now it's still really important for me to spend that time and to be rooted in the truth of God. And she asked me today how things were with God, and it was cool to be able to say "good" because the past couple days have been good. I've been reading Nehemiah. Israel has a fatty revival in Nehemiah, it's really awesome. And I really like saying Nehemiah. It's not as fun to type.

I really like some of my classes. Or maybe just my church history class, I don't know. But today we were talking about some of the theological differences between Luther and Zwingli (Swiss reformation leader), namely, communion. Zwingli thought of communion as symbolic whereas Luther holds that the body and blood are present with the bread and wine. That was so important to him that he couldn't call his Swiss reformers brothers in Christ. Crazy. I admire how much Luther wants to take Christ at his word, but seriously I don't think we can take every word of Jesus literally. I really don't think he was holding his body in his hand at the last supper when he said "This is my body." Kinda the same thing as when he says you must hate your mother and father etc. if you want to be his follower. You don't have to hate them. You're not supposed to hate anyone. He was making a deeper point. Speaking figuratively. I think that's what he was talking about at the last supper as well. I could go deeper but I don't really want to start a deep theological discussion. But if you disagree with me, know that I have deeper thoughts on it than that, I'm just not putting them here.

Today's Ash Wednesday and I'm thinking I'll probably end up going to the service we're having on campus tonight. I've been debating since it starts late and I have a test tomorrow, but I'm feeling semi okay about the test and I have time to study in the afternoon. I really want to have that time of reflection, especially since I want to take the season of lent more seriously this year. I figure if I need discipline and a time to seek God then lent is definitely a great avenue toward that. Several years ago during lent I decided that I would memorize a verse of Scripture every day. Let me tell you, it was a-ma-zing. I've decided I want to do that again this year. I'm almost good on today's. Only have a few hours left on that, I should probably get it down stronger. So I'm excited for that. That's good for now.