I had no idea it was going to be this difficult. God, I just want to know that you have a plan for me! PLEASE, just tell me you have something and that I'm not in this for nothing. Please wrap me up in your embrace and let me know that you love me! I NEED you, Father, I CAN'T do this. Who am I without you, God? Restriction, restriction, I see it being set into motion even now. God, my heart is grieving. I am alone here, but I don't say that to complain, but to shock it into my own system. You are all I have here. Oh, God, You are all I have here. The soup in my mouth tastes vile and I can hardly make my throat work enough to swallow it; I'm choking and my eyes are stinging and my face is wet. I want to be where you are, God. God? Please. I love you and I have to get out of the boat. I have to follow you. I have to accept this burden. I have to understand that I'll never understand— You are God, and I am not. But don't leave me, Father, don't forsake me. I want to rip out my heart and throw it at your feet because I can't stand how it's hurting me, how it's aching in me. Father I hate time. I HATE TIME. I don't want to wait I don't want to wait I don't want to wait. Please, God, give me patience! Please! Soothe me, Father, speak tenderly to me, help me to raise up my hands and rejoice in every season. You are STILL God. I am weak, Father, weak, but you are strong. Please, please, I beg for peace. Your true and unfailing peace, that transcends all understanding. Even in the tempest, I ask for your peace. When I am in turmoil and I cannot see or feel and I feel numb and on fire, I ask for your peace. Guide me through this maze. I will follow you. I have nothing else here. I love you. But help me to love you more and more and more. Please.

Being a Tarheel :)

Okay, so my first class today was Spanish 204— let me tell you, I was a little nervous, considering everyone I had talked to had Spanish 203 or lower! I was afraid I was getting myself into something way over my head, considering taking Spanish in high school was cake and last year we didn't even have a qualified teacher. At first I walked into the wrong classroom with another girl, because our schedules had said our room number was "2", and usually they start in the 100's and work their way up. So we followed a bunch of other people who said they also had Spanish 204, and it turned out there were two spanish classes and we were in the wrong one. Ours was in the basement, haha, the only classroom down there. I thought that was sort of funny. The teacher seems nice; I'm not sure where she's from, but she's of hispanic origin. Luckily, I understood everything she said, because the entire class is taught in spanish (obviously), but she speaks slowly enough for us to not be entirely lost, and it seems like she's willing to repeat herself or at least clarify if we need it. It's only a 50 minute class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and it's small, which is nice. We did a couple exercises asking questions to a partner, and then we had to introduce our partner to the class based on what we learned. My partner was a guy named Sam, and he seemed pretty nice. We both agreed that we probably should have taken Spanish 203 instead. I've found that I'm much more at ease speaking Spanish in a classroom setting because we're all learning and everyone is apt to make mistakes, no matter how proficient they appear to be. All you have to say is "lo siento" and "como se dice...?" and you're good to go.

Since it was an 8:00 class, I was done by nine. I didn't want to go back to the dorm, so I walked around a little and ran into a friend from school, a girl named Caitlin. It was so good to see her because I'd had AP English 4 with her and we got along really well. We had actually talked about rooming together at one point but she was still deciding between Wake Forest and UNC, so I paired up with Danielle instead (which I'm very happy with). But Caitlin is so funny— I think we laughed on the bench for a good half hour before she had to go to a job interview in the library (lucky!). I think it's so interesting because she's a Mormon, and she was asking me if I had found a church yet, and I was like not quite, have you? And she said yes, and that Mormon churches all follow the same exact sermon, every Sunday, all over the world. So if you went to church in Raleigh and then went to, say, Singapore, you would hear the exact message that was being preached at your home church, because they all follow the same "schedule" or whatever you want to call it. Everything is connected, and she already knows people in the church by campus!

After she left, I went and got a cup of coffee (Milky Way mocha) and sat out on the patio near the Pit to listen to music and read for my class, and it was great. I really felt like a college kid, as dorky as that sounds. There was such a nice breeze, and since it was early it wasn't too hot, and there were people walking around talking and laughing and I loved it. I stopped reading and listened absentmindedly to Relient K, just watching and drinking coffee and letting the sun spill over my face. Good thing I decided to wear a dress, or it would have been a little warm.

I got back to the dorm right before Danielle and Delsie. My next classes are back-to-back— Astronomy and Intro to the Hebrew Bible. I'm excited for Astronomy! I just hope it's not all equations; I didn't take a math class this semester on purpose, haha.

"Isn't it nice to know,

That the lining

Is silver?

Isn't it nice to know,

That we're golden?" --Relient K

Romans 4:13-25

"For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring— not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, 'I have made you the father of many nations'— in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, 'So shall your offspring be.' He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words 'it was counted to him' were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification."

—Wherever I go, whatever I do, I wonder where I am in my relationship to you...— John Mayer