passport!

My passport arrived today.  You may think I'm strange but I decided to break the mold in choosing to smile in my passport picture.  I made sure and I asked the kind lady at the post office whether or not it was okay for me to smile and she said that I should just go for it, so I did.  And now I have the happiest passport I've ever seen.

I think in this entire process of preparing for my trip I've really found joy in the most simple of things.  Being able to enjoy myself in going to the post office to take my passport picture or to buy stamps, or writing little notes on my letters, or asking family and friends for their addresses on facebook.  I feel that these could easily just become bland tasks to get over with as I'm looking at the big picture of going to the Philippines this summer, but I think process is just something that many people have forgotten about and left God out of.  We look to big pictures and asking God to get us to these places, but along the process we forget all about God and we leave him out of it.  

I'm currently taking an English course taught by the chair of the English department and it's really uplifting to hear his views for the college student.  I think often times the college discouraged students from learning, and makes them do what they want or "just enough"  to pass.  My professor gave us the opportunity to do an essay where we're able to learn amidst the process.  He didn't want a finished product, but he wanted us to write, amidst the process of researching and discovering new things about the themes of the essay.  It's great to know that we still have professors that care about how we learn, and not just what we learn.  I actually ended up getting an A- on my paper because I decided to step outside the box, and make my own prompt that wasn't on his list of prompts, while trying something new and creative.  

So moving on.

The cool thing is, God wants to be a part of the process.  He loves it when He gets to be a part of these things in our lives, big and small, and bring us joy throughout it.  I think I've enjoyed allowing God into these tasks in my life and he's brought me a lot of joy from the most simplest things.  Being able to reconnect with people I haven't really talked to in awhile, or unify past divisions in my family by sending out letters to my loved ones.

So, may the God of hope, peace, patience, love and kindness bless each of you.  May we live in a world that isn't stuck on the idea of having a final solution or answer to everything, but may we live amidst the process of allowing God into our lives as we seek out the answers we look for.  God, will you continue to work deeply in our lives as we look to you and invite you into every aspect of who we are.  May our smiles be a sign of the joy You grant to us in our lives.  Let it be done.