Look up. Pause.

Well, I'd like to first thank Miss Annie Downs and Mr. Ryan Kennedy for the inspiration to start this blog. I've done it, I've entered into the social blogging scene. Funny. I figured after myspace and facebook I would stop, but this has a different attractiveness to it, it has sucked me in. There's something about just being able to write down your thoughts, whether anyone else reads it or not, it's sort of like therapy...maybe? But I do hope that some other eyes come across this blog. I took a personality test the other day for class and it said I was an inspirer. I don't know how accurate those things are... I mean they are free, but I figured I would give it a whirl.

Every Tuesday and Thursday I fight my way through the bitter cold from the English building to the Social Sciences building to get to my communications class. It's only about a football's field away and yet I still ginuinely dred the trek. I think to myself everyday as I pass 3 or 4 great sit-down-and-enjoy-life spots "I can't wait until Spring so I can actually enjoy being outside!" If you can't tell winter is my most unfavorite season (yeah that's not a word but we're not going to worry about it) I end up finding myself inside the Social Sciences building sitting at a coffee shop table, warm and comfortable, waiting for my next class to begin.

Today was different. I mean I still made the same trek, same bitter coldness, same coffee shop warm up, and same boring communications class, but I decided to take a different approach to life. I decided that I wasn't going to worry about the fact that my next class was across campus and it was 32 degrees outside. I zipped up my jacket, pushed open those double doors, and faced winter.

My normal instinct would be to get to class as quickly as I could with my head down blocking the stinging chill, but today I looked up. Paused. I observed people, the bare trees, the blue sky, the smooth clouds, the crispness of the air. And I found beauty. I found God. And at this moment I was reminded that winter can be dead if you look at it with the world's eyes. But when you pause for a second and take this season of life, this winter, and live it with Jesus, see it through His eyes, there is a beauty. There is life and joy. You just have to choose to live it head up or down.

Today I'm choosing up.

"Then let us fill all of our pauses with praise! Let us give all that lies within us not to the voices of the enemy, but to pure praise, to pure loving adoration, and to worship from a grateful heart- a heart that is trained to look up." -Amy Carmichael
(This just so happened to be my devotional reading for today, what I read AFTER this all occured. Funny how God works. AMAZING actually. Praise be to Him!)

EMBRACE. ENDURE. CONQUER.