I've been having kind of a hard time lately.  I've been really homesick, stressed out by classes, and really just kind of lonely.  I've told myself it's because I'm far from home, because I'm having trouble making friends, because I haven't had time to really talk to people about important things.  And maybe some of that's true, but ultimately those things have nothing to do with my discontentment.

Today in chapel we sang a song called "Nothing but the Blood," which is one of my favorite songs.  The words go, "What can wash away my sins? What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood, nothing but the blood of Jesus."

That is an incredibly revolutionary statement.  I've sung it a thousand times without thinking about. 

"What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus."  "All I need is your love."  "This world has nothing for me."  I've even sung millions of variants of this statement, and somehow it's never sunk in.

Jesus is the only thing that can make me whole.  No amount of time with my family, no number of friends, no boyfriend, no grade, no Ph.D. program can make me into a whole person.  Only Jesus can.

If I truly understood that concept, how different would my life be?

A) I remembered today that a few weeks before leaving for Ireland I had decided to write in this blog more regularly while in said country, but never did so.

B) I am putting off doing more homework, because I am still brain-dead from studying for my Politics test.

C) I'm applying to write a blog for Taylor next year, which makes me think I should maybe start writing a blog on my own?

D) I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately anyway.

It wasn't until after I had already begun applying for colleges that I even considered coming to Taylor.  I was certain I was going to go to Samford University (in the end, I didn't even end up writing my application for Samford.)  However, at my mom's insistence, I re-started looking at colleges my senior year and found Taylor.  

To be honest, I don't think I was really that excited about Taylor, because it was this small and, in all honesty, kind of ugly campus in the middle of Indiana (corn stretching out as far as the eye can see...), but something inside me knew that I needed it.  And when I heard about the Irish Studies Program, I thought about applying... and then decided not to, because who would want to spend their first semester of college away from campus, anyway?

But somehow, even after the application deadline for the program had passed, they still had a spot for me when I changed my mind.  So I went, sort of on a whim, I suppose. 

About a month before I left for campus, I was thinking, "What on earth am I doing? Did I seriously sign up to spend an entire three months with people I've never met, in a country I've never been to (or even wanted to visit), ACROSS the OCEAN?" and I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with me on a psychological level.  But of course, by that point there was no way out, and I had to go.  So after assuring myself that it was, after all, only three months out of my life, and I didn't really want to be friends with these people anyway, I went.

Fast forward to the last week in Ireland.  I'm sitting in the classroom, getting ready to start on this final paper I have to write.  It's supposed to be at least 15 pages, but it's about our experience in Ireland, so it won't be difficult at all to write (well, that was a little bit of a misassumption on my part, but that's another story.)

This classroom, in and of itself, is kind of a miracle.  See, I've just spent the past three months sharing this adorable, but incredibly small 200-year-old house with 30 other college students.  My bedroom alone is quite a lot smaller than my room at home, and I'm sharing it with two other girls.  Not to mention that thanks to the fact that central heating is not a very common convenience in Irish society, I've been constantly freezing for about a month now.  But somehow, I've got this enormous classroom to myself, and Jonathan forgot to turn the heaters off from last night, so I'm wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt for the first time since August. 

I'm looking out these big windows, across the yard where sometimes we play rugby and sometimes we dance in the Irish rain.  Past there is the pub where Damien Rice plays some nights, because he lives pretty nearby.  Past that is the harbor, where I've taken countless walks, and a mountain called Bray Head, which I've climbed four times (once to watch the sunrise.)  Past that is the Irish Sea, which is cold and a little bit stormy right then, but which I have seen green, grey, blue, and once even a kind of pinkish, across which you can sometimes see Wales (but never whales), and which I am absolutely, uncontrollably captivated by.

And all the sudden this thought pops into my head: How in the world did I end up here? Because in all honesty, eight months before I had no desire whatsoever to even visit Ireland.  And somehow I ended up living here for three months, in the most beautiful place in the world, with 30 of the most fascinating, infuriating, wise, obnoxiously loud, and unconditionally loving people I've ever met.  Somehow, without me really doing anything, God was working out this incredible semester for me.  I was thinking, "After all, I only get one first semester of college, I want to spend it on campus," God was thinking, "After all, she only gets one first semester of college.  I want her to spend it in her favorite place in the world."

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that sometimes it seems like you're headed the greatest place ever, and then it doesn't work out.  And sometimes it seems like you're headed the worst place ever, and there's no way out.  And sometimes you have no idea what's going to happen or even if anything ever will happen.  But in every case, no matter what happens, God's got a plan for you that you just can't see yet.  Yeah, things suck sometimes, of course, and that's part of his plan too.  But when things suck, it's only because they have to suck for a little bit so that you can appreciate your Ireland a little more.

PS This is the harbor I was looking at from the classroom:

So I like this new layout pretty much, except that there used to be this little box where you could put in a date, and it would show you the entry you wrote closest to that date, and now there's not.  I liked it because I could see what I was doing on that day one or two years ago (I think I'm closing in on three years, actually.) Anyway, every now and then I would read those entries and think things like, "Man, I'm so glad I got through that.  It sucked." or "Those were good times.  I miss that kid." or "Wow, I am a really clever, witty person."

Okay, not the last one so much.  But anyway, it was a good deal.