Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Just a heads-up: for the next two (or three) years, I will be incommunicado. Why, you ask so naïvely? Because I got accepted to grad school, that's why, my friend. And it's going to be nuts.

About four years ago, I sent a text message to two of my friends: "I want to teach deaf kids." Granted, this is not the most eloquent of all text messages, and looking back on it, I wish it would have been more beautifully worded. But this is what I got. It was the spring of 2009, and it was the beginning of a great passion.

In the fall of 2009, I started teaching myself sign language through youtube videos (praise God for youtube) and started inquiring about the Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) program at the U. Since then I have taken ASL classes, I have observed an Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) DHH classroom and a middle school DHH classroom, and I have been accepted to grad school.

Nearly four years of passion has been channeled to this moment. I could explode with happiness. I'm a happy crier (just ask my sister-in-law), and I will cry with happiness soon I'm sure. Yes, I do love my job, and no, I don't want to stop teaching English. But this is what God made me for. I feel a distinct calling to this position, this job.

I don't know what it will look like honestly. I don't know where I will end up teaching. I don't know how long it will take me to get through the program (though I have a projection). I don't know if God will say go to Ireland or India or China (with Hope Station??). I don't know a lot of things, but I know that I am excited and passionate and overwhelmed.

So for the next few years, as I go to school and teach English full-time, I probably won't be doing much blogging or texting or facebooking or tweeting. Maybe it won't change, but it probably will.

I don't like changes, but this is a change that I'm so excited about I can't breathe.

Brief-ish Thoughts, not Lectures or Rants

So today I have a couple thoughts for you. Thoughts, not lectures. I'm good at lectures or monologues or rants, but today, I have thoughts for you.

Thought #1: I am being baptized tonight, Lord willing. It's kinda nerve-wracking. I have to give my testimony in a brief minute to two minutes. Brief is not something I do well. I almost wanted to back out. I'm such a wuss. But God brought me to 1 Peter for a reason this morning:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought to safety through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. (1 Peter 3:18-22)

Thought #2: On Facebook, I was looking at a friend's little sister's pictures from her UK trip. I was almost brought to tears. Not only are Livi's pictures beautiful (all of them), but the desire that God has given me to go there was overwhelming. I just need to keep waiting. Waiting. The sign that looks like grass growing in front of you. Wait.

Thought #3: These are less like thoughts and more like subjects I'm just not elaborating on like I would like. Like I said, I'm not good at brief.

Thought #4: I love the Bible. It's intoxicating.

A Crazy Week with Overwhelming Hope

This week has been crazy. Yes, most people would say that every week in a college student's life is nuts, but this week was especially insane.

Monday: Paper (writing all day; due by midnight)

Tuesday: ASL Presentation (YAY!)

Wednesday: Attempt to gain sanity before Gear Up Get Ready

Thursday: Wrangle 20 seventh graders with a team of 9 for 4ish hours. Plans changed.

Friday: Get a hair cut; try on a bridesmaid dress; drive 130+ miles

Okay. So from this angle, it doesn't look all that bad, but right now (when I should be sleeping), it felt like an insane week.

All this to say that I have been emotional a lot in the past two days. Worn out from working with a group of seventh graders that we had to entertain, I freaked out a few times. I let things get to me. I exploded. Twice.

But not all my emotions were bad. I talked to my brother today and told him about the field trip. He asked if the students were deaf or hearing. I don't know why, but that made my heart happy. Maybe it was a small reminder of what God has planned for me. A reminder of the passion He put there. And then Caleb told me he was proud of me. I'm not sure how intentionally he said it, but it made me cry. To have my brother proud of me is amazing. It made my morning.

And later in the day, I was driving home from Montrose, MN, where I was being fitted for a bridesmaid dress for my friend Alicia's wedding. I signed the entire way home. I know that isn't the safest thing in the world when driving, but I just couldn't stop. I got home and read Taryn Wobbema's blog, "a campaign for light," and the word "new" at the end of her most recent post jumped out at me. My head immediately signed it. And I almost cried again.

God is good and merciful and gracious and my hope. His plan for me is so much more glorious than I could even imagine. Though this week was crazy, His light was in it over and over. He granted freedom from stress and self-consciousness the day of Gear Up Get Ready. I was able to just have fun. There was very little anxiety. He granted me happiness in my brother's small comment. He granted me a sense of hope in signing.

Today was the culmination of a week of wonders.

Hope is Christ. Christ is hope. All for His glory.