Hello Everyone and Happy New Year!
My goodness, this last year was a tough one. From frantically trying to finish out my senior year of high school to finishing my first semester at Berkeley, I've hardly had time to think. However, even though this year was one of transition, it was also a year of many, many blessings and I thank God for all of them.
I know that it's been a long time since I've posted and I know that a lot of you have been asking me about this blog. My first semester was an incredible lesson in the importance of prioritizing, and updating this blog fell very low on my list the last couple of months. Now that it's winter break and I have more time, I want to give a few updates, but unfortunately, I can't promise much for the upcoming semester. But, anyways, here are some things that I've been up to since my last post:
- I have decided to attempt a double major in English and Classics (ancient civilizations)
- I am now an official member of Alpha Omicron Pi - Sigma Chapter. I'm the co-head of House Beautification for Recruitment and I joined Bylaws Committee!
- My IM Softball team went undefeated in the regular season!!!
- My two wonderful roommates started a blog about me - www.shitoliviasays.blogspot.com
- I will be taking Latin 1 next semester! Wish me luck!
For those of you who are either in college or getting ready to head off for college, I want to offer this piece of advice: It's easy to feel fulfilled by people's constant company if you are living in the dorms, but if you neglect seeking God's company, you might find yourself lacking in areas that you thought were full. I could definitely feel this happening to me over the last semester. I was so happy to finally be living with people my own age that I always turned to them in my times of sadness and loneliness instead of turning to God. Even though I felt much better after talking things over with my friends, only temporary fixes were made. I think that people often associate "going off the deep end" in college with partying, drinking, fooling around, etc., but even though I'm not tempted by those sorts of things, I still felt more distant from God than I did last summer. So be on guard for laziness or neglectfulness in your relationship with God.
On that note, I wanted to mention a cool thing that I heard in church this last Sunday - the center verse of the entire Bible is Psalm 118:8: "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in people." Isn't that amazing? So even though I've never been a big fan of new year's resolutions, I want to start holding myself more accountable to God, and to seek Him when I need help, rather than my friends.
So there you have it. Just a little bit of an update for all of you. I'm doing well, and I am very much looking forward to everything that God has for me in the upcoming months! :)
Sincerely,
Olivia
Hey! I followed your link on Facebook, and it brought me here. Naturally, I started reading, and when I'd finished the oldest post, I found that the sun had slipped away from me. I blame you. Please bring it back. But more to the point, I love this blog, and I wish there were more of it, so if you'd like, I could hold you to that "post every Saturday" thing you mentioned earlier. I hope to hear from you some more over the break, and I'll see you when we're back in Berkeley! Keep writing! :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, fun fact: the center of the Bible thing is a common misconception; you can find the real center -- plus some interesting analysis -- here:
http://www.biblebelievers.com/believers-org/kjv-stats.html
(I wouldn't have shared this bit of nitpicking with you, except for the fact that when the page quotes Psalm 118:8, the words "It is" are italicized. I took that as a sign.)