this summer at a glance, under the influence of pain killers.

Oh boy. Where do I begin?

I'm currently sitting in my new apartment in pain. 90% of the pain is coming from my ribs (I'll explain later), but the other 10% is coming from my heart. Yesterday I said goodbye to CK5. As cheesey as those last two sentences sounded, I will say that is a good kind of pain. Maybe I shouldn't call it pain...I'll call it "physical evidence that I loved a whole lot this summer." :)

I'm a little bit overwhelmed on how to being to explain how incredible this summer was. I tried to blog as much as possible on some of the specific things that happened, but there are plenty more things I can write and share. But right now I'm just stepping back and taking a look at my life since June 6th. I can say with all confidence that I have changed.

Here's what I learned:

-I find my identity in Christ. Not in boys, school, friends, MSU, chi omega, band, or anything else. I am a child of God. And in spite of my past mistakes and failures, God STILL loves me and can use me in incredible ways.

-I love the person that God made me to be. But before I could find out what she looks like, I needed to surrender everything to Him. And now I see how I can be used by God; tangible, living, breathing proof that God is real, He loves me, and He wants me to be happy.

-I want to adopt a child. Obviously after I get married and all that jazz.

-I. Love. Kids.

-Sign language is one of the most powerful forms of worship.

-I have a clearly painted picture of what true love looks like. True love is unconditional, powerful, beautiful, comforting, and majestic. True love doesn't care how sweaty and gross you are. True love doesn't mind staying up till 3am doing laundry. True love stops everything they're doing and prays for you. True love is contageous laughter, inside jokes, hugs, joy, and tears. True love is staying at the emergency room for 3 hours when they didn't have to. True love is encouraging post-it notes on the bathroom mirror every morning. Seeing children become Christians for the first time is true love. Seeing children want to become better Christians is true love. Seeing children want their friends to become Christians is true love. Leading a sweet blind boy around the stage and having him play the drums is true love.

I could go on and on.

So I ended this summer with a bang. I managed to get deep muscle contusion and some bruised ribs from a combination of playing murder in the dark (it was totally worth it; best. game. ever.) and coughing really hard. So I spent the last night as part of CK5 in the emergency room with Bekah and Kimberly. And even thought it was the ER, we still managed to have a good time. Go big or go home, right? Am I right, am I right? I'm taking some pain killers and muscle relaxers, so if my grammar isn't correct, back off.

My heart is full.

-MC