Be Wise

"Make your ear attentive to wisdom,

Incline your heart to understanding;

For if you cry for discernment,

Lift your voice for understanding;

If you seek her as silver

And search for her as for hidden treasures;

Then you will discern the fear of the Lord

And discover the knowledge of God.

For the Lord gives wisdom;

From His mouth come knowledge and understanding."



Proverbs 2:2-6 NASB

Midterms

Three down.

One to go.

In case you forgot, I'm in seminary.

And somehow I managed to sign up for four of the most challenging professors in the school, all in one semester.

BUT I'm thankful. I came here to be challenged. I came here to learn. And I'm learning a whole stinkin' lot!!

My schedule this semester is:

Church History 1 (New Testament church through...the Reformation? I'm not sure at what point in history the class ends)

Old Testament 1

Hermeneutics (that means "the art or science of interpreting texts")

Elementary Greek 1 (I'll take a a total of four semesters of Greek, and two of Hebrew)

and Spiritual Formation, a class that deals with yourpersonal spiritual life.

Last week I had three midterms...so far I only know the grade for Church History. I made an A. :)

Thursday I have Old Testament. Those who have taken the class before me have given their advice for doing well on this exam, which covers The Pentateuch (Genesis - Deuteronomy). They say, "basically, just memorize the Pentateuch."

Awesome.

I think I'll be satisfied if I can memorize the three Scripture passages we're required to write from memory, complete all the readings (Gen-Deut twice, two text books, Justin's Dialogue w/ Trypho, and something else which I haven't even started...), and still remember my own name.

It's hard work, but it's totally worth it.

"Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Exodus 34:6-7

"Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed,

'The Lord,

the Lord God,

compassionate
and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abounding in
lovingkindness
and truth;

who keeps lovingkindness
for thousands,

who forgives iniquity,
transgression
and sin;

yet He will
by no means
leave the guilty
unpunished,

visiting the iniquity of fathers
on the children
and on the grandchildren
to the third
and fourth generations.'"

Friends

Remember when we were little, and all it took to make friends was to walk up to someone and say, "Do you want to be my friend?"

And soon you were sitting together in the dirt digging holes, completely satisfied and comfortable with each other as if you had known each other your whole lives.

More Update!

Two posts in two days!  Incredible!!

You may be wondering what's been going on in my world, aside from reading.

Well I already wrote about coming back from Spain.

Since then, a month has passed.  The first almost weekish was spent with my family, followed by a near week with friends in Virginia.  The day before going to Virginia my family moved me to Ft. Worth, where the seminary is.  When I got back to DFW, my new car was waiting for me in "The Parking Spot."  If you've ever been to DFW airport, you've seen those goofy polka dot vans.  I got to ride one of those.  :)

Then, classes started.

I'll be honest - that first week was rough.  

Not because of the classes in themselves, but the rather, the whole process of moving overseas (from a place I LOVED), starting over in a new city, returning to way of life that I thought I had left behind, driving again (terrifying!), missing my friends back in Spain...the list goes on.

Honestly, I just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.  

I'm pretty sure I did a few times.

But since that first week of class, things have improved greatly.  A guy in Spain put me in touch with a girl he knew that would also be starting here this Fall, and we just happened to bump into each other the first week.  We've been hanging out ever since.

For my birthday, instead of sitting at Starbucks by myself with no friends (what would have happened), she decided we had to do something.  So she and I and two other girls and one guy went to Macaroni Grill and bowling.  Let me tell you, that was the best date of his life.  Four girls, one guy - can it get much better?  We had a blast.  The pasta was delicious, the bowling was a blast (I bowled 136 in the first game!), and we loved watching the guys next to us bowl.  They were awesome.

Then on Friday I went home to my sister's house for my birthday dinner with the family.  She told me that the kids wanted to surprise me, so I walked back to my room, opened the door, turned on the light and.....SURPRISE!!  The kids jumped out from behind the bed which MY MOM was sitting on.

My mom.  

The one living in Asia.

The one who told me she'd be home the next week.

I stared at her.  Turned to my sister.  Stared at her again.  Finally she stood up, we hugged, and the sobbing began.  It's been a rough month, and no matter how old a girl gets, there's nothing like crying it all away in your momma's arms.

I'm sure my brother-in-law will be posting a terribly embarrassing video soon.  I'll be sure link you to it.

And now...back to reading.

My Life Lately

Is reading.

Reading.

All the time.

And more reading.

Why didn't anybody warn me about this??

Why didn't somebody tell me, "Laura, going to seminary is NOT like undergrad."

I've never had more reading in my life!

Completing the reading assignments for my Old Testament class alone seems next to impossible, and I've got three and a half classes on top of that!

Greek is supposed to be one of the more challenging classes, but so far I'm having an easier time keeping up with my Greek work than any other class, including the half-class.

Not that being a math major was easy, but at least the answers were clear. You either understood or didn't understand. And if you didn't understand, you could usually make some stuff up, quote a few theorems, mention Pythagoras or Descartes and still get some credit.

So while I thoroughly enjoy reading about Marcion (early church heretic), the Abrahamic Covenant, allegorical vs. literal interpretation, and first and second declensions of Greek nouns, when is a girl supposed to eat? sleep? flirt? (just kidding! boys scare me).

It is only by the grace of God that I'm going to survive this semester with any amount of sanity intact. And while I spend plenty of time reading the Bible for my Old Testament and my Hermeneutics classes, I'm even having difficult finding time to sit down and soak it in as anything more than a textbook. You can certainly pray for me in that.

However I must say, I LOVE that we're studying the Pentateuch right now in OT. The Lord led me to study Exodus last Spring and it was life changing. Literally. Through it He told me to come back to Texas. So here I am, wandering in the wilderness of Ft. Worth, hanging on to His promises for dear life. And as I read and study Exodus as a textbook, I can't help but remember the sweet (but challenging! let's not over-romanticize it!) times I had in Spain, reading Éxodo (I studied it in Spanish) at my dining room table each morning, looking out the window towards Atocha train station, knowing that the time was coming to say "see you later", but never "goodbye."

España, te quiero.

Leaving Spain

Many of my faithful readers* may be wondering why I have been silent for so long. My silence can only be explained by two weeks in Germany, moving across the ocean, unpacking, repacking, moving again, going to Virginia, lack of internet, starting school...the excuses are endless.

Despite the reasons for my absence, I apologize. So get excited, because I'm back!

Let me catch you up to speed:

Just under a month ago, I visited my Spanish Starbucks for the last time.

That morning I met up with my friends Paola and Rosi in an attempt to see the Sorolla exhibit at the Prado museum. We were unsuccessful. So we saw the Matisse exhibit instead. After a cup of coffee we parted ways. It's always so hard to say goodbye!!

I then walked down the street to Starbucks for the last time, and they surprised me with my very own apron! They each signed it for me before I left for church.

Church was filled with many more hugs, goodbyes, and see-you-laters. But it was such a blessing!

The next morning I woke up at dark-30 to hop on a plane to Frankfurt with my friend Emily. Long before I knew I would be leaving Spain we bought tickets to go on vacation in Germany. Our first stop was the train station, where they had....Starbucks!!

It was not my intent to buy a drink that day, but we decided to stop and see what sandwiches they had for our picnic the next day. We were just looking, and then...the check-out boy asked if I wanted a free drink.

Fo' realz, yo.

So I got a free drink. :)

We spent the rest of the day wandering around town, walking by the river, attempting to enter closed museums, seeing the cathedral, exploring downtown, talking to strangers...the typical Emily-Laura vacation combo. I had heard that there wasn't much to see in Frankfurt, but we really enjoyed it and I wished we could have stayed another day to see some of the museums (they are all closed on Mondays).


One of our favorite parts of the day was wandering through the massive greenbelt that passes through the city. It's full of businessmen and women leaving work, soft green grass, fun statues, and bunny rabbits.



We attempted to get close to the rabbits, but they were a bit scared of us. I can't imagine why. but as we were reclining near our naked friend, a baby rabbit who had not yet learned to be afraid of humans came out looking for something to eat. He/she came and sniffed my hand, and gave Emily a little kiss on the elbow.

The next day we went hiking outside of Frankfurt, somewhere with some old Celtic ruins. The ruins turned out to be not very exciting, but what was exciting were the wild blueberries on the top of the hike. Emily and I picked blueberries for about an hour and snacked on them the whole way home. By the end of the day our fingers and tongues were bright purple.


The next day we hopped a train to Munich where we met up with our friend Darby. Munich was a GORGEOUS city and I would recommend it to anybody. The architecture was beautiful, the people were friendly, and there were plenty of museums to choose from.

We only went to one museum, but we had plenty of fun wandering around, having a picnic in the grass, playing frisbee, eating some weinerschnitzel (is that how you spell it??) and enjoying each other's company.

One of the coolest things they have in Munich is a surf river. In the middle of the city there's a river with machines that create a wake to practice surfing. Surfers take turns riding the waves while onlookers watch from a bridge above. I was inspired by a new passion to learn how to surf. The only problem is the lack of a nearby ocean...

We also went to Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp that became the blueprint for the camps to follow. Dachau was a work-camp where they were worked until they died, as opposed to an extermination camp where they were mass-murdered. It was heart breaking to see. The gate entrance says "Work Makes Free" in German. It was a Nazi joke because they knew that the only way anybody left Dachau was through the chimney.
It's heartbreaking to see the horrors that mankind can commit when we give in to the darkness of our hearts. The Nazis who worked at the camp had normal lives outside of the camp walls - wives, children, hobbies - just as those inside the walls once had before it was taken away from them. The townspeople nearby knew all about the camp but chose to live in ignorance and deny the atrocities of what was going on inside. They may not have beaten and killed any prisoners, but their inaction against injustice revealed the same darkness within their hearts. The camp was a reminder that when apart from God, anybody is capable of committing any sort of atrocity. Even you and me, and it is only by the grace of God that I have done any good thing.


We also went to the Neuschwanstein castle a few hours outside of Munich. Many say that this is where Walt Disney got his inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle (however some say it was Segovia, in Spain). I can see where they would have got the idea. The castle is amazingly similar and fairy-tale-esque.


After Germany I had one more night in Spain. I went out with my friends Sebas, Rocío, Fede, and Del (who is actually an American and was staying with some of my friends that night). We ate dinner at the place where I had my first Spanish dinner. It was fabulous. Then we walked around downtown enjoying the beauty of the city at night. We walked past Sol, the palace, the opera...it was beautiful.
The next morning some friends took me to the airport to say farewell. While I didn't cry at the airport, I couldn't hold in the tears once the plane took off. I cried from Madrid to Dublin, all through the airport (I think scared the customs agent!), and from Dublin to Chicago. Chicago to Dallas I was able to calm myself down, but when I hugged my brother at the baggage claim, the tears began to flow again. I finally got to hold my nephew for the first time! Hayden Charles was born January 5th, 2009. On August 8th, I finally got to hold and kiss my little nephew.

The next day (Sunday) we went to none other than Jason's Deli for lunch. Oh how I missed their salad bar!!
Later I met my best friend Julie for coffee. It was so good to catch up! And now that we're finally in the same time zone, hopefully it will be much easier to keep up with each others lives!

And at that, my dear readers, I shall leave you. This update is already too long. Later I'll update about Mineola, my new car, Virginia, moving to Ft. Worth and beginning seminary.

Until then, ¡hasta luego!



*Do I even have any faithful readers?