Today I end one chapter and begin a new one.  You would never think that a part time job would mean so much to a person, but I have found myself very attached to these corridors and these people.  Its not often when you feel like the people you work with are your family. 

I am so blessed. 

Oh, I love the Lord!  He is so GREAT!  (And I don't mean great as in my fav. tv show, but mighty and awesome and stronger than anything that could come against him, for he is the creator of all things.) 

And he loves me in my weakness, and when I fail him the most!  Last semester I learned that to fear him was not to be afraid and guilty all the time, but to walk knowing that to live well is to live in his presence and leading, and to desire to glorify him.  (All that church and I'm just now figuring that out.)

My mom told me a story.  She heard a sermon where the pastor held a cup full of water in his hand, and had a member of the congregation come up and bump him so water spilled.  And the pastor asked the congregation "Why did water spill out of the cup?"  And the congregation came up with all kinds of answers to the physiology of the cup, etc., etc.  And he said, "Water came out of the cup because water was in the cup."  If there had been coffee in the cup, coffee would have come out, and stained the rug.  If there had been nothing in the cup, the carpet would have been left dry.  How great a thought!  When we have the spirit in us, when we are bumped, or chided, or cut off in traffic, or looked over, or bothered, or disrupted, or simply left in the dust, the spirit will come out of us.  If the spirit is not in us, even in the smallest of things, when we are bumped ugliness comes out of us.  We splash bitterness or anger or rudeness all over people.  Or we leave people who need the spirit with nothing, we leave them dry when they need everlasting water. 

Last sunday my pastor talked of the things we love, the things we cherish.  And he said something that really hit me.  He asked us what people would remember if we were to die.  Would they remember our love of our favorite sports team?   The time we spent building our careers?  Or all the cool things that we did?  The way we loved our spouse?  Or would people remember that we were always pointing to the Father.  Thats what I want more than anything.  I guess God is teaching me that I can do a lot of good things, but if my whole life does not point to him, what is the point?