Faithful

And just like that, the semester is over! The photo above is one I took of my friends, Danielle and Fair, in Chinatown this past weekend, but it also pretty much represents how I feel right now.

I took my last final a few days ago, and quite honestly, my brain is still kind of fried from the hoursof studying and thousands of words typed… so forgive me if this blog isn’t the most eloquent. 

As I wrap up this semester, I wanted to cut out some space here on the blog in order to reflect and let these words act as sort of an ebenezer declaring how faithful God has been in this past season in my life. 

Wow! God is SOOO faithful! I came into this semester not knowing that I would get to work as a blogger, or that I would get to shoot the cover of a magazine, or that I would get to shoot my first wedding, or that I would end up becoming best friends with someone that I went on an SMU summer mission trip with, or that my dad would be getting re-married, or that I would get to travel to China this winter break, or that this would be the hardest semester yet. But, as life would have it, all these things did happen. And yeah, it was a really hard semester –– academically, spiritually, relationally, family-ly. (Come to Biola, and we can talk about it over chai tea lattes at Heritage Cafe.) But I’ve found that difficult is usually paired with good, and God tends to show up in the midst of difficult times. Through it all, God was there, reminding me in every way that He is so good and blessing me along the way. I’ve found that when I just take a moment to simply slow down and really focus on the little, seemingly insignificant interactions and occurrences throughout my day, I see God’s hand at work all over the place!

For example, my friend, Olivia, surprisingly (but SO thoughtfully) gifted me with a Starbucks gift card just because (!), so I took Danielle to Starbucks to buy her something with the gift card. As we were going to pick our drinks from the drivethru, the barista at the window told us that the car in front of us had paid for us –– just to be nice! What?! I thought that only happened in movies and cutesy Tumblr posts. So I ended up using my gift card to pay for the people in the car behind us. 

I tell you this story not to say that you all should go out and get Caramel Brulee Lattes in cute red Starbucks Christmas cups (which you should), but to demonstrate (in a really small way) that God is so faithful. In orchestrating big life events and being there in hard seasons, He meets us in those things that might very well seem like the trivial or insignificant details of our lives. 

And it doesn’t have to be such a blatant blessing like a paid-for coffee. I’ve found that there are blessings all over the place, reminders of God’s faithfulness. Finding lost things (because I lose everything!), cotton candy sky sunsets on the way home from class, coming home to a pile of fortune cookies on my desk from my roommate, random Caf’ encounters with some of my favorite people, finding $10 in the library that would end up being the perfect amount I needed to cover parking at an art museum later that day (true story), people cancelling meetings when I actually needed that time to finish a paper. These are the kind of things that often go unnoticed yet remind me that God knows! He has not forgotten you. He has not forsaken you. He delights in you. He delights in delighting you. He is faithful.

So in this season, my prayer for you all is that you would find rest! Hopefully it will be a great time of rejuvenation and slowing down to reflect back and notice presently the ways in which your Heavenly Father has it all figured out and is working out everything for your good.