Hear that? Praise the Lord!

I greet you in the name of our Savior who continues to bless us all each and every day.  Well, I am officially bald!  I had my head shaved for the St. Baldrick's program.  They shave heads as a fundraiser to help pay for research trying to find new cures and medicines for kids with cancer.  I now have an account with their program for the next year, so if anyone would like to donate towards their cause you can let me know.  However, we had twenty guys including two admissions counselors, one cancer survivor, and even President Meyer.  The admissions counselor who set the whole thing not only shaved his head, but even did his eyebrows.  We have officially broken our goal of five thousand dollars and hope to keep raising it.  The cancer survivor is a dear friend to the counselor who set it all up, and is now twenty-seven.  He has only had his hair grown back for six months and still decided to give it up to help kids who are currently struggling with cancer.  He gave a really touching speech to all of us, and the whole event was a neat thing to be a part of.  I did leave the beard, but everything else is skin.  See....

The first few days of classes have been amazing so far.  The weather has been absolutely beautiful.  As much as I love winter and snow, I am ready for these sunny days to stay around.  I love getting up in the morning, opening the blinds, and seeing the sun shining, the grass turning green, the trees budding, and the birds flying.  General Lee said that there is no time in the whole day quite like dawn.  He was talking about just as the dark of night began to show the very beginning signs of the sun rising over the horizon.  Which I will admit, the times I have been up for sun rise and seen the whole process, I did thoroughly enjoy it.  It just seems like the whole world around you is waking up, as the light slowly gets brighter and brighter, the colors of everything around you become more and more lustrous, and everything that seemed so still begins to move around you.  However, I rarely get to see this as I am not much of a morning person.  But the past few mornings have gotten me very excited for spring and remind me each day is a new gift from our Lord.  

I hope the weather stays nice for this weekend.  I plan to play racquetball Saturday morning, tennis Saturday afternoon, and the driving range Sunday after church.  I need to get some serious tennis in, because I talked to the tennis coach and he told me I could hit with the team if I wanted to.  I think it would help me more than it would help the team, but I might be able to help them somehow too.  I just want to get the rust shaken off so I do not embarrass myself the first time I go hit with them.  

I am so far keeping up with the homework and reading.  I am even working ahead in some of my classes.  I am going to try to stay on top of the ball this quarter so I do not get way behind like last quarter.  My classes for the most part are so exciting and fun, the work has not been much of a chore yet.  Synoptic Gospels was so much fun in class, I was excited to do the readings and keep going from where we left off.  I have not had a Homiletics class yet, where the hour and twenty-five minutes seemed any longer than ten minutes.  Sitting there listening to Dr. Schmitt, I am in such awe the entire time; it’s over before I know it.  If that class continues to be as amazing as it has been so far, it may just be my favorite class here, but we will see.  My one history class I am only has two papers and they are both relatively short.  Our entire grade is based on two papers!  So while I am excited to have very little work for that class besides reading, I am also going to have to write two very good papers to make sure my grade is good in that class.  However, it will be a fun class, even though I am the only first year in it with a bunch of second and fourth year guys.  

I had my first sign language class tonight and loved it.  We will meet twice a week and I think that will help me learn it better.  We moved pretty quickly tonight but I felt like I was keeping up very well.  Normally I am so slow at language classes, so it felt good to know what I was doing for once.  The teacher was asking a question just as an example and I answered it signing just for practice.  However, she saw me do it, and made me stand up and do it in front of the whole class again.  Then she taught us how deaf people clap which I think is awesome.  They wave both hands with fingers spread above their head since they cannot hear clapping.  The actual teacher seems like a really awesome lady.  She was born deaf because her mother had the German measles when she was born.  She is third youngest of fourteen kids.  She puts so many facial and body expressions in her conversation she had us laughing several times tonight.  I did find out part of our requirement for the class is to attend the deaf church once.  I think this will be awesome to see and cannot wait for that.

My thought for the day comes from our teacher Ella.  Here is a lady who has been deaf her entire life, never once hearing a single sound, and yet is a happy lady with a great sense of humor.  She is happy to be teaching us her language and culture.  That is something I did not think of, but she is teaching us how to recognize if someone is deaf and how they have their own certain customs and traditions when speaking with each other.  Then I started thinking about the idea of deaf ministry.  The fact that these people who have never heard their own name being said or their children’s laughter, still come to hear the Gospel message. They gather on Sunday mornings to watch the entire service being signed to them, but are still able to hear the good news being preached to them.  They worship the Lord with their hands, and some still with their voices.  I think we take our senses that we have and use every day for granted.  We argue over what type of music will be played in church instead of just praising the Lord that we are even able to hear the beautiful sounds of instruments and voices praising Him.  We know the sounds of a child’s laughter, birds singing, beautiful orchestras, and the world around us.  And yet, how often do we just stop to listen to the sounds of nature, people talking, or even just the wind. Think of even the sounds of traffic or sirens that seem to be a nuisance, but we should be thankful that the Lord has blessed us with the ability to hear them.  We need to stop and count our blessings each and every day and realize that we cannot even possibly think of every little thing that we just consider normal but is truly a gift from our Lord.  Matthew 6:25-34 is a passage that I think cannot be read enough.  When we let all of the smallest things stress us out and worry us in life, we forget to stop and thank the Lord for the fact that we are alive, living in His created world, in His image.  We are healthy, have a home, food, family and friends.  We can hear and see.  We are blessed and when we stop to remember who is in control, life all of a sudden seems so peaceful and calm.  If God is for us, who can be against us?  And then you look at people like Ella, who even though she cannot hear, still knows she is blessed and is able to smile and laugh because she knows she still has so much to be thankful for.  All Praise Him who not only blesses us, takes care of us, and provides for us, but truly spoils us His beloved children.  He spoils us with daily blessings, and then on top of all of that still freely gives us the gift of eternal life made possible through the death and resurrection of His Son, our Savior, Christ Jesus.  That is A LOT to be thankful for.  

Dear Heavenly Father, 

Thank you so much for the overabundant and uncountable blessings You freely give us every day.  Help us to never forget to stop and praise You for all You have given us.  Let us be able to use what You have given us for Your glory and honor.  We especially thank you for the gift of Your Son's death and resurrection paying the price of our sins.  We praise Your name on high through the name of Your Son, our Savior, who lives and reigns with You and Your Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.