what winter taught me.

So the University of Delaware has a freakishly long winter semester – “winter sesh,” we say. Some argue that it was made to make all other colleges have beef with us for getting 7 weeks of winter break; others contend that it exists to torture the students who opt to enroll for winter classes. While a good portion of the student body take advantage of the winter hiatus to trek across the globe, to Cape Town, to Rome, to Barcelona; New Dehli, Rotorua, Milan and Acapulco, the rest of us are left to go and beg our bosses to hire us for another month and a half – that, or we hibernate.

Okay okay, so I didn’t opt for classes and I don’t have the money to go to Beijing, and I begged my boss to hire me for another month and a half to no avail – but I didn’t hibernate. As a matter of fact, I had probably the most interesting end-of-a-year/start-of-a-year ever in all of my 20-some years of breathing. And because it would be absurd to document all of the spectacular highlights and lessons-learned of my oh-so thrilling life, I’ve decided to create an abridged version of what winter taught me this year – what God has taught me in the past two months. Enjoy.

1. we are ridiculously blessed to have home-heating systems and electricity. don’t ever take America for granted.
2. feeling helpless is a wonderful thing. acknowledge those feelings, get over yourself, and hope in God.
3. if loving your family means obeying even the most absurd commands, do it joyfully nonetheless. you’ll save yourself a lot of unnecessary grief.
4. praying for joy doesn’t mean that you won’t suffer, it just means that you’ll have a huge attitude check… for the better.
5. certain people come into your life at certain times for all of the right reasons. and don’t be surprised when that reason is love. it’s just God letting us know in a special way that He really does love us.
6. the shadow ALWAYS proves the sunshine.
7. succumbing to anger and bitterness only shrinks your heart and ability to see God clearly.
8. the people we find most irritable and unlovable are the ones we have the most in common with.
9. keep short accounts with others; grudges are things that belong in freaky movies. the only debt that we should have at the end of the day is to love.
10. you have to be willing to have your toes stepped before you step on someone else’s toes. this is called humility.
11. we are always left with a choice. sometimes the truth really does hurt. but it’s what you choose to do with it – to let it stand in your way or not – that makes you the person that you are.
12. doing is better than talking, but being is better than doing.
13. no matter how annoying and aggravating they are, big brothers really do have your best interests at heart.
14. talking about the hard stuff is better than not talking at all. “an honest answer is like a kiss on the lips,” proverbs 24:26.
15. moms are the kind of people who’d still love you even after you’ve dropped the f-bomb.
16. it’s a scary thing for a control freak (ooh, like me!) to let someone else handle it. but letting go is so sweet.
17. you can definitely have your cake and eat it too.
18. just because they look like a banana doesn’t mean that they’re not a real person.
19. contrary to popular belief, grace actually occurs on the Interstate… even after crossing 5 lanes and illegal U-turns.
20. just because our parents are grownups doesn’t mean that they’ve got it all together.
21. tradition, like skin color and culture, is just another layer of identity, another thing we like to argue about. the only thing that matters at the end of the day is whether or not you’ve loved God with all of your heart – and loved others in turn with that love.
22. leadership is born out of servanthood. always.
23. smiling until your face hurts and laughing until you cry are both signs of something wonderful.
24. words, like other things we toss around on a daily basis, have more meaning when they are used at the right time.
25. and last but not least, EVERYTHING is a gift. cherish it while it lasts, and never forget to praise the Giver.

Goodbye, Winter. Hellooooo, Spring…