Unceasing hope.

I'm excited about things not because of what I've done or what I could do but instead about what God's done and what He will do.

All I can think of to describe Basileia is Praise God. Praise God for His goodness, for the struggles, for the ways He's been transforming my life.

It's like God's been saying, "You're not finished yet, but just look at what I've done with you already. Look how far I've brought you. You are not the same young lady you were when you first entered college. You have so much to be thankful for. Come sit in my presence and bask in the glory that belongs to me."

I don't know what next year's going to look like, or even what the rest of this summer will look like. Things this year hadn't gone the way I had planned or hoped. But God has opened my eyes time and time again to His work in my life and through my life, whether or not I've fully obeyed Him. And how much more wonderful were the times I did obey!

I've never felt more alive or more real than the times that my heart aligned with His, when I've wanted what He's wanted. Never.

I think for most of my life I used to view my own identity in Christ like a caterpillar with wings.

But ever since college, I've begun to see myself as someone turning into a real butterfly, as cheesy as that may sound.

I feel like I'm ready for senior year because God's been preparing me all three of these years for everything that is to come after.

I titled this post, "Unceasing hope" because I was thinking today about how I don't like how people look down on me because I have this excitement or hope in the future. I fear that as I get older I'll become more and more cynical, falling into some kind of routine and not being open to change. I want my life to be rhythmic and exciting, with fullness and joy as if every day were my last. It's discouraging when people say things like, "Oh, you're still young. Reality will come when you get older," as though my hope were pointless or just a phase of life.

It's part of the reason why I'm always amazed by InterVarsity and their staff. People of InterVarsity commit so much of their lives to students just like me. They encourage us to have hope and to dream big because our hope lies in God and our big dreams lie in a big God. They organize and plan down from big picture to nitty-gritty details to make things run as smoothly as possible, preparing an environment for God's glory to be fully experienced and reflected.

I think of this sense of lost hope like the "Sophomore Slump" that every always seems to talk about at the end of freshman year. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It'll only exist/happen if you let it.

There's a quote that my Dad hung up in our kitchen that says, "Whether you think you can or that you can't, you're usually right." --Henry Ford