i fought the law and the law won

Isn't that BEAUTIFUL? That's the view from the deck of the Young Life camp I'll be working at for a month this summer out in Colorado. I'm freaking pumped, in case you couldn't tell. Sad day though, because I don't get to leave for that until June 20th! I'm not a good waiter.

So it's officially summertime in Virginia and I don't know what to do with myself. I've only been "home" for less than a week; I spent a few days after commencement at Wofford down in Myrtle Beach with some of the girls from my hall (Marsh 2! Whoop whoop!) and it was soooo ridiculous but suuuch a joy. The beach is actually one of the many many places where I feel close to God...I just sat out out the shore, and it made me think about the beauty and complexity of Creation, how God made something as powerful and mighty as the ocean, but then also knew where exactly to make it stop, so that I can sit a foot in front of the tide coming in. So cool. But then, after getting a nice sunburn (which is now a tan, no worries) and a fabulous 7-hour drive on roads in a really pretty part of NC I've never driven through before, it was time to come back to Southwest Virginia for a while. And I don't want to waste my time here; I have three months of respite, one of which is already going to be dedicated to serving and growing spiritually out in Colorado. So today I made a plan! Well not really, but I figured out things I want to accomplish.

Read more Bible than ever before!. My Biblical knowledge is not stellar, granted I only figured out about a year ago that being in the word on a daily basis was a pretty important thing, but it's been a hang-up in my personal and life-on-life ministry. So I really want to commit to diving deep into the word and wrestling with God on what it really means, applying that to my life, and then telling people about it. I'm going through Jeremiah, and I just love the first chapter, because it's a really beautiful picture of one of God's promises. Basically, I like Jeremiah's modesty--he's so taken aback at the fact that he should be a prophet to the nations! And he's feeling all unqualified, but then it goes on to assure us that even if we do not know God's work, God does, and He will graciously stand by us and carry us and equip us and provide for us! Neat. Jeremiah is up there on my list of favorite books of the Bible, and going through it is sort of a long process, but it helps me to go back and look through a commentary as I go (I like Matthew Henry's...or the Coffman Commentaries).

Run and run and run. Yeah, I'm a workout nerd. I'm missing Richardson more than I thought was possible. And all the gyms in Abingdon are pretty lame (no spinning classes, Allison) so I'm committing to becoming a better runner. My neighborhood is about a mile around, mostly uphill if you run in the right (but paaainful) direction, so I try to run it a few times every night (granted, this is day 2 of that plan and my quads are dying). My favorite running song is "I Fought the Law" by Green Day, haha. My goal is to work on a nice 5K time and find some races when I get back from CO. But I'm having a hard time with this, because I've been doing my ab regimen before my running, and my abs will totally cramp up about a mile into my workout and it's killer! And I can't give up abs, so I think I'm just going to have to separate the two. Pre-cardio ab workouts just don't work out. I'm such a workout nerd. I cut out white carbs and high fructose corn syrup from my diet. Doesn't that sound like something an old person would do? Yes, it does.

Go to the OR.Not to have surgery, but to watch it! My dad works at a hospital with a pretty ballin' OR setup, and I know a bunch of the surgeons, so I figure that I should use my good networking skills to continue to discern if God is calling me to go into surgery. I really think He might be; my dad and I were putting together this bookcase I went out and bought, and I did all the drilling, and we got into a conversation about burr holes (that's when someone's gone unconscious from a head trauma, usually because of a subdural hematoma, and so they'll take this sweet drill and just put some holes in your skull to relieve the pressure. The best part is the drill knows to stop right after the skull has been drilled through, so none of the soft matter of the brain gets messed up) and I want to dooooo that. I want to drill holes in peoples' brains. That sounds so messed up. But when God gives someone a passion, He gives someone a passion. And a lot of people never want to drill holes in skulls. That's all I'm saying. Actually, I want to specialize in whatever will be best for doing pro-bono work overseas, but I figure neuro or ortho or cardio will be what I go with. Annnyway, I'll probably be watching some sweet operations and talking to some surgeons about the intricacies of what they do. There's one guy that I've never even met, but he knows about me through Dad, and he's from near Spartanburg and wanted to know where I went to church and knew about Young Life, so I'm excited to meet him. I want to be serious about science (and skull drilling, that's so neat) AND serious about Jesus and I really think that God will give me the strength to do both and do both well.

Okay, I'm done rambling about running and abs and carbs and brains. For today. Oh, summer...