Graduated!

Wow. I can't believe it's really over. Graduation was awesome. We got there an hour early to pray together before it started, & Kal had a word for us out of 1 John...he cried, I cried, we all cried. The ceremony was great; we had a little bit of worship at the beginning, & then each student had a photo slideshow on the overhead while Kal & Teresa talked about them, then they said something when Kal & Tre were done. Everyone cried like the whole time. Haha. I got to write parts & play drums for two songs, Lydia's ("Facedown") & Bethany's ("I Will Run") & I was SO nervous because both songs are written in 6/8 time & I've only played ONE song in 6/8 before...but I wrote some simple parts & played well. I messed up once, but Tom covered it with his cool guitar solo. Haha. When it was my turn to go up to speak, I was actually kind of surprised at some of the things Tre said about me...I guess it was just really cool to hear how they felt about all the changes that have happened this year. It was so encouraging. I just can't believe it's ended. I haven't had time until now to really think about it. Even though over half of us will be living here next year, it's still just weird to think that we won't have 45 minutes of worship together every morning, or play in bands together anymore, or anything else. But I'm so grateful for this year...for the friendships I've made, for how much God has changed me, & for the things I've learned.

I guess this will be my last post. Thanks for those of you that have read every post & encouraged me & left comments, & I hope that you can see the changes in me through these posts. It's been the best worst year of my life & I wouldn't trade it for the world.

EDIT: Here's a video of one of the songs I got to write drums for & play at graduation. :)

Practice:

Performance:

Done.

School is officially over. Well, the school part of school, anyway. I feel confident that I did well on all of my finals, & it feels weird not to be studying anymore.

Next week is fun week...we're going to Chicago for a day, going to Milwaukee to see the Dead Sea scrolls, & spending the rest of the week praying & prophesying over one another. I'm sure it's going to be a bittersweet time. My family is coming to town thursday & graduation is friday...wonder how many times I'll cry in the next 7 days? Ha.

Finals.

Wow...I can't believe we're in finals week. This is insane. I feel like this year has gone by SO fast...

I had my Ear Training & Sight-Singing finals today, & I think I did well on both. Two down, six to go! The only ones I'm really worried about are Theory (tomorrow morning) & Songwriting (friday)...everything else I feel pretty confident about. I haven't been killing myself studying, just taking my time & reviewing everything I can. I don't actually feel that stressed, which is amazing. I've completely notated my song (with John's help!), so that's one less assignment I'll have to worry about!

It's kind of amazing how much I feel like I've grown even over the last two weeks. Things are slowly coming together, & I'm amazed at God's provision in my life. I have a place to live when I move back here this summer, & I'm supposed to meet with someone to talk about a potential job later this week. So we're getting there, slowly but surely! It's amazing how much peace you have in situations that SHOULD be stressful when you really trust God...wish I had figured that out years ago! Haha.

Alright, back to studying. You can pray that I won't fail my finals, if you want to. ;o)