It's Not Just Crystallized Intelligence...

...and it's not just Fluid, either.
--

Here I sit...
In my black t-shirt, hot pink dance capris, tights and socks, my converse on the floor beside me, and my hair up in a ponytail with that bothersome, single lock of hair that is constantly falling to the middle of my forehead.

Here I sit...
At my desk, in my dorm room. The laptop sitting on my stuffed and satisfied calender, full of happenings and events. The lamp is standing in the corner, shining it's watery light down on my fingertips as they stroke the keyboard swiftly. It balances on a small stack of books with a letter to a friend leaning against it.

Here I sit...
My psychology textbook by my right hand, along with my math workbook and binder. To my left is my agenda, full of plans, ideas, quotes, assignments and dates.

Here I am, a college student. A daughter. A friend. A conqueror. A survivor. A believer. A dancer. A dreamer. A warrior. A worker. A peacemaker. A poet. A linguist. A writer. A friend.
Alive.

And while I'm excited for what is to come, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a little bit afraid of change. What I've known has been so good...How could I know what the future holds? Why would I ever want to leave where I was?

But it's already happening on it's own. And if I don't move forward, I'll never know what could have been. If I stay where I am, I'll never know how good it could get.

And I want adventure.

So I will trust. And I will rest assured that my God is with me wherever I go. He will never leave me nor forsake me. He knows the plans and as I acknowledge Him, He will direct my paths and make them straight. Or if there are any bumps along the way, I won't mind. I'll know I'm headed in the right direction.

It's like Pastor Don once said,
"If you go forward, you may lose a little.
If you stay where you are, you will lose a lot more.
If you go back, you'll lose everything."

I choose Jesus.
^{I choose Life.}

So in the words of a good friend of mine:
I travel on.

We Only See a Part....

--

"C.S. Lewis writes: 'If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. . .If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.'

Lewis relates this desire to one's purpose in life: 'I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.'

In short: 'All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.'"



--

^{Quoted from: The Question of God. Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr. The Free Press 2002. Chapter 2: The Creator - Is there an Intelligence beyond the Universe? pg. 47}

There's a story...

about a rabbi.
^{(Forgive me if I don't get it just right.)}

This rabbi was walking along the shores of Israel one evening, heading towards his home. And like any good rabbi, he was quoting Scripture to himself. Over and over, repeating a phrase. As he goes along, it begins to get darker, and he takes a wrong turn towards a Roman fort. The guard at the top of the wall calls out to the rabbi and startles the man who is just realizing he is not where he expected to be.

"Who are you?
What are you doing here?"

The rabbi stands in stunned silence for a moment, then responds, "How much do you get paid to ask me these questions?"
The soldier, taken a little bit off guard answers him.
"I'll pay you double!" the rabbi declared loudly, "But you must stand outside my house and ask me those two same questions every morning when I leave and every evening I return."

So I have a question for you:

Who are you?
What are you doing here?

In this world of constant motion, have you ever stopped to consider? You are here for a purpose. Do you know what it is? Are you fulfilling it? There's a lot of hype in this world. We get caught up in worries and menial tasks, ideologies and philosophies, complacency and disinterest... But can you answer these two simple questions?
Can I?
Or have we not even attempted to answer them. Are we afraid of the answer? Or the lack of one? I think that's what all these distractions are about. Perhaps all this incessant noise, all this preoccupied busy-ness, all of these time consuming schedules where you can scarcely get a breath of fresh air (much less enjoy one)... perhaps it is all a desperate attempt to avoid the silence. Perhaps it is a manic fervor to steer clear of those two taboo questions:

Who are you?
What are you doing here?

To answer them could turn your world upside-down.
Go ahead. Try it.