To My Graduating Brother

To My Graduating Brother,

First, I want to say thank you.  Thank you for changing the oil in my car, mowing the lawn so I didn't have to, attending all of my basketball games, and hugging me when I cried.  Thank you for annoying me, asking me questions about English, for telling me all about your Physics project, and calling me on the phone just to say hello.  Thank you for buying me the first two seasons of Boy Meets World, for going on bike rides, taking me on movie dates, and going with me to Big Stuf for now five years in a row.


Next, I want to give you some advice as you head into your first year of college - believe it or not, I've actually thought about what I want to say in this letter for at least 24 hours.  I reflected on my own high school graduation a lot as I was looking back through old pictures and setting up cake at your party.  I hope you appreciate this advice from someone whose "been there, done that!"

Know that just like there was life after the awful, awkward years of middle school, high school will not be the best years of your life.  Even as I head into my last year of college, I know that while college has been a blast, these won't be the best years of my life.  The best is always yet to come.

Your freshman year will be hard.  You will probably fail a test.  You will probably be homesick at times.  You will probably have some annoying guys on your floor.  You will probably sleep through a class.  You might forget to do your laundry and maybe will run on out of clean socks.  You will probably make a bad first impression to people, and you will probably have bad first impressions of other people and wonder if you will ever make friends!  You will probably forget to clean out your refrigerator.   

But your freshman year will also be on the most extraordinary years of your life.  You will pass your classes.  You will make a new home at your campus.  You will get along with the majority of guys on your floor - there will still be some who play their music too loud late at night and fart in public way too much, but that's expected.  You will learn a lot in class.  You will learn to do your own laundry and not bring it home to mom every time you come home (if you're like me though, you won't start to fold your laundry until you're a junior in college!).  You will make plenty of new, hilarious, and weird friends.  If you're lucky you might learn how to make something more gourmet than Easy Mac. 

Study more than I did - it will pay off in the end.  Also, try to stay up as late as I did - it's where you will make some of your best memories (I didn't go to bed before midnight my freshman year of college except for two nights when I was sick, probably from all of the lack of sleep!). 

Make sure you call home more than I did - mom wants to make sure you have enough to eat, dad will want to know if you're working hard, your baby sisters will miss their big brother, and I will want to listen to all your stories and offer advice if you ask for it.

Most importantly, though, love God, love the people He created, and influence the world.

You are going to have a great first year and I couldn't be more proud to be your older sister!




Sincerely,

Your big sister






-Courage, dear heart. C.S. Lewis
Lexi

My 10 Paintings of the Semester

My crafty semester in ten different paintings - just call me Picasso!

 

-Courage, dear heart. C.S. Lewis
Lexi

God has a sense of humor.

I firmly believe that God has a sense of humor.

For starters, I think everyone should think about the weirdest person they know - typically in this situation I think of myself (weird, I know) or someone in my family.  Think about all of their quirky habits.  Some of mine would include eating Oreo’s with peanut butter, wearing my hair in weird bun things like Princess Leia while Facetiming my boyfriend, and this obsession I have with wanting Michigan State to lose in basketball.

One of my sisters has shots of sugar packets when we go to restaurants, and my other sister sends the ugliest throwback pictures of our family in our GroupMe.  My cousins have a sick sense of humor that only worsens when they are in public.  My roommates like to stand on our furniture and play their ukuleles and recorders at 11 o’clock at night.

And God made all of these people. He has to just watch over all of his people some days and cry with laughter, knowing that he made no mistakes when making us, and he loves us all the same.

I love reading the Gospels because I can just imagine Jesus (who is obviously a funny guy as well since, ya know, God is his Father!), doing everything in his power to not laugh in people’s faces for some of the dumb things they say! 

Peter has potential to be one of my favorite people in the Bible.  Gosh, he’s just an idiot!  I think one of the reasons I like him, and that I call him an idiot, is because I see so much of myself in Peter.  For example, if you look at Matthew 16:13 – 20, Peter sounds like the coolest guy in the room.  He just realized that Jesus was the Messiah!!! If you continue reading though into verses 21 – 28, you will read that Jesus calls Peter Satan! 

I’m going to be completely honest, I laugh every time I read that! I just think it’s so funny how Peter goes from standing on top of a mountain to probably wanting to hide behind a rock.  I see this in my own life as one week I’m praying for focus, energy, and strength to remain Christ-centered, and then the next week I’m basically calling myself Superwoman as I accomplish everything on my to-do list.  I can just picture God rubbing his head and saying, “Yeah, maybe she’ll get it someday!”

Matthew 20:29 – 34 is one of my favorite stories.  Paraphrased by me, it goes something like this:

"So, Jesus is walking with this crowd of people (aka me and whoever else wants to admit their stupidity) behind him and he’s telling all these stories.  Now, these people are listening but not really listening because they have their whole lives put together.

And sitting on the side of the road are these two blind men and they hear Jesus, like really hear Jesus and they get it, so they start yelling for Jesus! People like me, though, need to uphold our good image, so naturally, we forget who we are hanging out with and we start yelling at these blind men to shut up – for crying out loud, I need to pretend I am listening to Jesus. But these two guys just keep yelling louder! 

Wouldn’t you know, Jesus turns around giving me this eye roll (imitating the one that I give to my roommates when they’re being weird) and he tells me to shut up. This is also the part where I just picture Jesus chuckling to himself as he deals with mere humans!  Then, he starts talking to these two guys, LOVING these two guys, and because of their faith, Jesus heals their beautiful eyes.  These guys are so incredibly thankful that they just get up and starting following Jesus around without a second thought."

All of this to say, 1) I’m so thankful God has a sense of humor and created humans with the ability to laugh as well, 2) I need to lighten up and remember to laugh more because God loves it when we are joyful, and 3) I’m working on being more consistent in my faith, but I’m thankful for the grace that God has on sinners like me.






-Courage, dear heart. C.S. Lewis
Lexi