240 days

240 days (including today) until my school is out for summer. It seems like an eternity. And this is just one school year. Everyone says high school flies by but so far, it's moving slower than molasses. But this reminds me that I wanted to talk about my new tactic of surviving school. So first of all, my school has no windows. It drives me crazy and slowly kills me throughout the day. I long desperately to see sunshine and yearn to smell fresh air. I hate being held captive like this. So I try to make it through the day by setting very short-term goals, you could say. Let's see, I start school at 8:30. By 10:30 I can eat a snack in class (Mrs. Johnson my English teacher is the only one who doesn't mind us eating in class. Before lunch, that is.) so that is something to look forward to. Then after English is Geography and if I can just make it through Geo, next is lunch. Lunch is good and then afterwards is Spanish. Our teacher doesn't mind if you eat in her class but if you just ate lunch, why would you eat more? And then finally it's the last class of the day, Study Skills/Financial Planning. I have hope then because there's only 1 hour keeping me from fresh air and temporary freedom. It's hard sometimes, but I muddle through the day. 

The next thing I wanted to mention was math. Ok, I know some people love math and all that junk, but I am not one of them. And the other day I got to thinking about it and this question popped into my brain: Why is math so important? All of the SATs and stuff like that have a big ole' math section and math is worth more of your GPA. (I think I said that right, I could be wrong.) It's like math is the "big one", it's so important. Have you ever asked why? If you have, the teacher will say "Because it will only get harder as you grow." So we learn math because we will learn more math next year? And then they will say, "You need to know it for college. It's way harder in college." So we learn math because we will learn more math next year because it will be harder in college? And then they'll say, "You use it all throughout your life." And I'm like, really? I never see my mom sitting around calculating the volume of the can of green beans she just opened for dinner. Nor do I see customers in the store pulling out a calculator to determine how much money you will save if you got a bargain and got 12% off this shirt when there's no sale at all. I just don't get it.

And finally, I wanted to go a little more serious and talk about something that just kind of hit me a few minutes ago. I was reading the blog of one of my friends who has graduated high school and is doing what I hope I can do once I graduate. She is taking a... I think it was a one month mission trip to Brazil. She is staying down there and doing all kinds of stuff to tell others about Christ. I've heard Brazil is just messed up. And something she said in there really kind of hit home. She said, "My prayer is that I would focus so much less on all that useless stuff that won't even be coming with me to heaven and focus on God being my everything.  I want to live with such a fire and passion to see God's kingdom advanced and all of the stuff is just a distraction from my real purpose of being on this earth." She also said this was her prayer for everyone who called themselves a Christian. And I realized, something's gotta change. I can't just keep living on by myself and hoping God's still there when I get worried or when the devil's stronghold is finally noticed by me. It's ridiculous. Why would I choose a life of loneliness and sin to a live full of God's mercy and love pouring out on me. His joy would fill me, my feet would be firmly planted in Him. If I just took the time and discipline to really sit down and spend some real one-on-one time with Him. I could be on fire for Him, I could have the passion that I'm planning on teaching to middle schoolers in a few weeks. I could do amazing things in His name if I just obeyed. And I am hoping to start obeying again. It's hard sometimes, the devil is so enticing. But I have to resist. And He will help me if I ask. I'm never alone. I'm never too far gone for forgiveness because His mercy goes farther still. And I need to embrace that. So sorry if this was all deep and a totally different mood from the rest of the blog, but I just needed to write this down. And hopefully you will be inspired too. 

So now, I think I'm going to go have some of that one-on-one with God for a while. Have a great weekend guys. 

Yours truly,

SD