I leave for school in five days. I haven't even begun to pack and I'm still finishing up the summer class I took. I have a very long to-do list but it seems pretty feasible and in the end, what doesn't get done doesn't get done and I've ceased caring so much about that lately.

I have to remember, when I'm tempted to feel that I've gotten so little done this summer (of what I'd thought to accomplish) that I have completely changed physically, I've taken an intense class in apologetics, I've learned most of a trio sonata, and I've shepherded three kids quite a long way musically. That's enough for a summer. (Not to mention all the Scrabble.)

I am excited to get back to school and eager for all this year must hold. I feel simultaneously ready to move on and glad the summer was as long as it was. God seems to work in places. I was conversing with Kathryn last week on this thought and on how clear it is that the whole person is both spiritual and physical all wrapped up in one. It seems God teaches me lessons that begin, wage fierce war in my mind, and reach closure with each physical place or temporal season He puts me in. Only the last few days have I felt any sort of closure on the many things, mentally, this summer has held. I feel ready to move on now.

Part of that moving on, I hope, is going to be, somehow, a simultaneous return to the discipline of writing (I've written so very little in the past year and a half) and a significant decrease in getting hung up on "this is how I feel" or "this is what this means" and such things. I also intend to read a lot more than I've ever done: to stay always immersed in a good book on Christian faith and life, on top of and apart from the things I'm reading for studies.

My hope is to learn a lot, in the coming year, about simply doing and obeying and living and learning to the exclusion of all the thinking about it I do. Thinking is good, but it's also good to just pack up and march. I think I will be happier if I think less and obey more. I'm striving this year more than any thing else to cultivate mental, physical, academic, spiritual, and emotional self discipline; to acknowledge and submit to Christ as King in every aspect of my life.

Last night was Knox Convocation and once again I was struck by the words to Lead On, O King Eternal, which I posted here last year, when I felt them to be my marching orders as I headed for school.

Through days of preparation your grace has made us strong
And now, O King eternal, we lift our battle song.

It's amazing how much it seems last year was my training ground for St. Olaf and now I'm headed back in with much more wisdom to bring to the picture. I am prepared now, I think, to go in and fight: fight for Christ as King not only of that campus and my friends, but of me as well.

I also joy in this verse from Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah, which we sang last night:

I am weak but thou art mighty
Hold me with thy pow'rful hand.

I think what I'm most thankful for this summer is the amazing training in apologetics, philosophy, and epistemology which I've received from the Reymond course I took. I am worlds better prepared to challenge and witness to my friends at school now. And not only that, I'm better prepared to stand up to my own doubts, which are rapidly growing fewer and fewer, thanks to my becoming "an epistemologically self-conscious Christian." To sum up in hymn texts once again, here are the words Reymond quoted to me during his class when I kept bringing up doubts and objections (less as a devil's advocate than I'd like to admit) at every class break:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord
is laid for your faith in his excellent word.
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
To you who to Jesus for refuge hath fled?

and

Jesus loves me, this I know
for the Bible tells me so.

With that ringing in my ears I'm quite ready for this next year and I hope and expect it will be a much easier and lighter and quieter one, mentally. My birthday is in two weeks. (Whoa.) I hope that in the growing-up saga I'm in the middle of that year 21 will be a lot easier than year 20 has been.

And perhaps most of all, in light of all I've learned this summer of my own sin and instability and weakness, this:

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow...

--

PS Why I'm writing all this in this forum I'm not quite sure, except that it's faster to type on a blog than write in a journal. But I was thinking about that the other day, actually (who knew Susan would THINK about something), and thinking "I tend to be a bit transparent. This bothers me a little since I have become more of a public figure than I ever expected to be, what with Parnassum and all. Do I really want people to know who I really am? But I remember my friend at school who thanked me for being so real and honest and open in front of everyone because she found it to be a testimony of God's grace and power. And anyway, it'll all be known in the end. I am who I am for God's purposes and if somehow my transparency can be a tool in his hands then that's good. I don't want to live for myself. It's up to God to take care of me and protect me. I don't need to watch out for myself. And if I am living with Him as King of my life there should be nothing to hide and everything to testify to."