In Which Holly Keeps Her Promise

Alright then, time to catch you up on the past month of my life!

August 14-17 I went to our church's youth camp. I was on team Purple, along with half of the other teens in my church, including Maryah. =) At camp, we played games, got to see friends from past years, memorized passages from 1st John,  had amazing worship, and listened to mind-blowing sermons. It truly is a beautiful time of deepening relationships with Christ and fellowship with friends. This year, a main theme was love; God's love for us and how that love should spill out into our relationships with others. It was incredible to learn so much about His love for us...the measures He took to show it to us are astounding. Here's my favorite passage that we memorized one of the days:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest to us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, he abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

This really spoke to me, and its been wonderful having it always in my mind and heart. Memorizing scripture is so beneficial; I would strongly advise it to anyone who hasn't yet tried it. 

After I came back from camp, it was straight off to the beach with my family and...Maryah! For those of you who don't know, we go to a beach in Delaware every summer and stay at a house that Rachel's (my oldest brother's wife) uncle owns. It's such a blessing, and this year was particularly nice because of the great weather we had during the whole week, and the fact that my best friend was with me. We got to see my two oldest brothers and my wonderful sister-in-laws, and my nephew! Gosh, that kid is cute. And he's walking now!! =D Maryah and I enjoyed spending our days swimming, laying in the sand, taking the surf board out nice and far, walking half a mile into the ocean in water only up to our knees--it was a huge sandbar--reading, going on walks, building sand castles, cooking, eating, listening to music, and taking pictures. And, we also ate a lot of carobs. Cause we're cool like that.

The Monday after we got back from the beach (which was actually the day after), I had my first session of Classical Conversations. This is another one of those things that I really should have written a separate post on.

Classsical Conversations (or CC) is a homeschool co-op sort of thing. It meets once every week, and there are levels for all the grades. I'm in Challenge 1, the first year of highschool level. We had heard about CC from a family we've gotten to know this past year (the Osgoods) and I was interested right away, but after my parents checked it out more, we found that it was beyond our price range. But, God through His goodness has provided everything I needed and I am doing CC! I've had two classes so far. (They're technically called seminars but I want to call them classes or sessions....so I will.) It has been very different, to be sure. I will admit that I am not used to an actual deadline. Also, I never used to do school on the weekends. Never. And, for another thing, I'm learning Latin. And debate.

But, that's all okay. Because, I love it. Yes, I know that the novelty will wear off and it'll get hard and maybe I won't love it anymore. But, I am determined to at least not hate it. (Weeeeelllll, maybe I'll hate math. But that's it.) So, if I ever forget, and write a post about how hard it is and what was I thinking when I enthusiastically agreed to a whole 30 weeks of this, just remind me that I do, in fact, like it. Thank you, in advance.

Sooo, that's pretty much it! I've had a very full and wonderful summer, and I'm all ready for this school year. The wild pears are falling off the trees, the days are getting noticeably shorter, and I'm wearing socks. Some people are sad that summer's over and it's time to get back to work, but I'm enjoying it. For now, anyway. =)

Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. 

Blessed be His Name! 

Promises

Okay, I have come to a conclusion. Do you want to know what it is? Well....

I've decided that I'm a horrible blogger. Honestly, I thought this would be easy... "Yes! A blog! I love writing, and I do a lot of it. This should be a cinch!" thinks Holly one rainy day in April as she creates her new blog.

And here we are, September already for goodness's sake, and I have what, ten posts?

Yeah....that's Holly the writer for you. I can think of four things I should have blogged about since August, and for some reason, I just haven't. I've failed miserably. Forgive me. Now that I have reached that conclusion, I've determined to set about being a better blogger.  Haha, that was a funny sentence. =) So, I'm going to write a catching-up post for you all (I promise!) so you know what's been going on in Holly's life (because it hasn't been dull!), but right now, I'm going to write about something that I saw tonight.

I saw a rainbow!

Okay, I know, now you might be thinking, "Wowww, she saw a rainbow. Cool. I should probably get off the computer anyway." Stay with me here! I'm going to be honest...again. (And, if I hadn't seen that rainbow, I probably wouldn't be posting!)

Though I love rainbows, I've never thought seriously about them or what they signify. (Maybe I'm not the only one?) I've seen one or two huge ones at the beach that were incredible, but I'm usually just thinking about how pretty it is, or how much I wish I had a good camera right now. Tonight, I was outside with my little brother picking cucumbers and covering up my tomatoes because it's chilly. It was drizzling, which was fun, and then before I even realized that the sun had come out, Kirk was saying, "Holly, look at that rainbow!" I stepped out of the garden, and, looking past the pear tree, saw the most beautiful rainbow I've seen in my entire life. I really did gasp. In awe.

This picture doesn't hardly do it justice. But at least you can kind of get an idea of how amazing it was. It wasn't the biggest I've ever seen, but it was the most perfect. There were these huge dark clouds to either side of it, and the sunlight was cutting right through them. The drizzly rain was coming down harder, and the colors were vibrant. I stood in the middle of our field and was amazed by rainbows.

Genesis 9:8-17:
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Tonight, God remembered His covenant that He made between Himself and everything that is on the earth. Is it just me, or are you a little blown away by rainbows? They also make me remember God's amazing creativeness. Really, as if clouds, sun, stars, and moon weren't enough, He also gave us the rainbow, His direct promise to us.

There's another promise that God has made that I wanted to bring up. I was thinking a little while ago how amazing it is that no matter how old we get, no matter how many mistakes we make, no matter how many friends or family we lose along the way, we always have Jesus. He says to us, "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Isn't that an amazing promise as well? There's no guarantee that our parents or our siblings or our best friends are going to live through tomorrow, let alone our whole lives. But, Jesus says He's here for us until the end of the world, whether that's in the next week or the next century. And not only does He say it, but it's also true. It's a promise that only He can make.

Isn't He good?