my Bible is a coloring book

So I'm not an artist, but I would classify myself as a wanna-be doodler. And today I took my doodling to a new level--adding colors to the Word of God. Now you have to understand, when I am sitting at the table (waiting for the super slow internet to load one e-mail) and there is a pack of colored pencils right beside me, naturally I want to color. But all there is in paper form within reaching distance is my most beloved Bible. (And of course it is just too hot to exert the energy to get up and find some paper). So I found some of my favorite books and passages and colorified the pages! The rest of the world has color, so why shouldn't there be rainbows inside my most precious book?

I feel like my life is full of color right now. (Yes, I did just start thinking about "Double rainbow!" but that wasn't my original inspiration for this comparison). Colors are so varietous, so amazing, so...spazzy! They are what make life exciting! And life is exciting. Sure it isn't perfect (given duh) but I am just so utterly blessed.

After reading back over my last post, I thought that I should share some wonderful news with my millions of avid readers and fans. My news is: my Father is very rich. He holds the wealth of the world in His hands. And this year He has given me so much of that wealth. Literally, I have received financial blessing after financial blessing in less than six months! First was the settle money from the insurance company from my car accident a previous year. That check happened to pay for my entire trip here to Gabon. And then, just a week ago, I got an e-mail.

The e-mail was from my grandma, short and sweet (my grandma and the e-mail!) telling me that she told one of her old, dear friends about me and my desire to work in ministry. Grandma printed off some of my Africa blog posts for this woman to read so she could see a little bit about what I am doing here. And this woman...well, she is giving me a very large financial gift to help pay for college. She doesn't want me to have to worry about paying off student loans when I am done with school so I can go to the field if the door is opened. Needless to say, I sobbed when I got this news. Because of this amazing woman's generosity, the financial burden of paying for school has been eased greatly.

And then yesterday my counselor sent me a Facebook message with even more amazing news--the school (which is Nyack College, btw) is going to give me more than half of a yearly cost in grants and scholarships. This added with the gift from that amazing woman covers my entire first year of college (which is a private Christian college, so not cheap in the least).

Wow, and I was able to write all of that with no exclamation marks! !!!!! Why is God blessing me so much? Why does He love me so much? PORQUOI God???

I don't know. Je ne sais pas. But I do know...He is amazing.

dans les mains de Dieu

So I am starting to freak out a little bit about this year and everything that it will bring. I'm already living one of the major things--being in Africa for 3 months (it's been great, learning so much, check out the Africa blog!) But I've started to really think about what it's going to be like to leave home and go to college, most likely all the way across the country. I realize how much I miss my family right now, and the thought of leaving home probably for good is heartbreaking. I won't lie, a couple of times I have thought, "I can skip college, right? And a career? I'll just live at home the rest of my life!" But life isn't that easy, and I know that there are lots of fun things waiting for me in my future. Lots of hard experiences, too. I've learned that even in the most ideal of places (like Africa) there is hardship, unrest, worry, frustration...you can't escape life no matter where you go.

Anyways, all that to say...I am confused about college stuff, scared to leave home, worried in general about the future. But I think that God is stripping away my comfort layers and helping me to establish faith in Him. It's hard, so hard, to have peace in my heart and trust Him with the future. But He's proven again and again that His plans are better than ours.