It's Beginning to Look Alot Like...

It's beginning to look alot like...Christmas, yes...but here on the CTS campus, here are some other words that might fit:

Finals

Schoolwork

Papers

Projects

End-of-year (a mouthful, I know)

Homestretch

and lastly, maybe this one:

It's beginning to look alot like chaos. 

That's how I feel.

In addition to end of term things such as schoolwork and meetings and the likes, for me it is also wrapping up my business here on the campus and getting things in order for studying abroad next term.  Wrapping up business here means everything from making sure my paperwork is in order to packing suitcases to cleaning my bathroom and making sure there are clean sheets on my bed (if you have met my mother, you get this...).

  I will be gone from the CTS campus for EIGHT months!  I might have a weekend here in April, but that's about it!  

I'll be at Westminster College in Cambridge, UK for ten weeks beginning January 6 (prayers are appreciated!), then spend a few weeks worshipping and living at the Taize community (if all goes well!), and hopefully get to Iona, Scotland as well for some worshipping experience.  

Then it's TEXAS for the summer (God willing!) for my Clinical Pastoral Education at a North Texas hospital!

While all these things are VERY EXCITING and GOOD, I can't help but feel overwhelmed with it all.  

And to be completely honest, this week I came back to campus and Advent and Christmas about 90% in a not so happy-go-lucky-Christmas-spirit-share-cheer-everywhere kind of mood.  Part of that might be because the Friday before returning to campus we said our final goodbyes to my grandmother, part might be just dealing with loss from earlier this year, and part might be due to my lack of sleep. 

Regardless, on Monday, I felt like this:

And it's the week of the CTS Christmas Banquet.  That I'm co-chairing. 

(And this, my friends, is where God provides...)

My co-chair has worn AMAZING Christmas sweaters every day this week. And they truly are breath taking.  She has been so full of Christmas cheer and joy and happy thoughts that it has been enough for the both of us, and contagious to boot!

I have inadvertently had time made to talk about things near and dear to my heart and to hearts of others on our campus.  Not all these conversations have been easy, but all have been productive.  We've voiced opinions and feelings that are different and sometimes difficult to hear, and have been heard with this spirit of grace.  

These conversations have been in classes, on living room floors, meetings, cars (it was turned off!) and even just in passing. 

Maybe in this rush to finish things I find myself lingering and holding to the comforts that come in impromptu conversations with the roommate where we confess that in the midst of the disappointments and frustrations of the church, we are so excited and hopeful for the church to come. 

And all of a sudden, it's not so much about the school work and the rushing to get things done, because they will get done.  

Tonight, in this season of Advent, a time where I find myself struggling with darkness and light, it is enough to hope. 

The people who walked in darkness

    have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness—

    on them light has shined.

- Isaiah 9:2