Sheryce’s Blog

Ok guys, I know it’s summer and school’s out. Yay! I am determined though to keep you guys updated through the break on Covenant and life. So first things first…What have I been up to since I got out of school? Well it has been a crazy couple of weeks. I came home from college without any set plans of what I would be doing during the summer, but in much need of some income. I came home on a Thursday, I reluctantly went out job hunting that Friday. I was scared that there would just be no places hiring with the economy like it is right now. God was so good though, and the third place I stopped at hired me on the spot and my first day would that next Monday! I only worked for a week though before I left for the one vacation I would be going on for the summer.

The cruise with my sisters! I wrote a post about it a couple of weeks, explaining how my sisters and parents surprised me and all chipped in to buy me a ticket for a cruise that all my sisters and brothers-in-law would be going on. Oh my goodness guys, it was the most amazing trip I’ve ever been on. The cruise was wonderful: the sun shined most the time, the food was absolutely incredible, the service was so nice, the ports we stopped at were fun to walk around in; but my favorite part was the time I got to spend with my sisters and brothers-in-law. My sisters and I would all go and soak up some sun rays or go to high tea in the afternoons. Then in the evenings we would all get dressed up for dinner and then sit around talking til it was time for bed. It went by too fast though, because before i knew it we were back on land and having to say goodbye. It just made it even more hard knowing that we wouldn’t all be together again for probably two years because one my sisters and her husband leave in July to go and teach English in Japan. But it made the time we had together that much more special.

So since the cruise I’ve just been continue to work…I’m a waitress at Genghis Grill. I don’t think I explained that before, so anyways I’m a waitress at Genghis Grill, which just happens to be one of my favorite restaurants! I enjoy the job, but am currently looking for a second job so I can get a few more hours. I’m so used of working none stop during the summer months, and now because this summer has been so low key I don’t even know what to do with myself. But, I am enjoying getting a little extra time to spend with family, old friends, and myself. I’ve gotten to do things that I’ve always wanted to do, but just haven’t had time to. Anyway, I’m sure you will here more about that later. I hope you guys are enjoying your summer. Only two and a half months before you will be at Covenant! It will go by faster then you know. Be sure to set aside lots of time to spend with your high school friends before you all split ways.

As I reflect on this past year and look to the last couple of days in the semester I find an overarching theme in my life: God’s faithfulness. God has taught me a lot this year. Some of it has been hard like when he has taught me about pain, obedience, patience, and abandonment. But then in all of this he has also shown me his faithfulness. Although at times I have felt neglected and abandoned by Him. I have sent up prayers wondering if they were being heard. I have cried out wondering if He cared about my tears. I hung on to the peace that he gave to me. The peace that kept me patient when I wanted an answer, the peace that made me obedient when I didn’t want to do something, the peace that gave comfort to my pain, and the peace that reminded me that I was not alone. God has been faithful. He walked me through every step of the way this year, and now I see how he has. Even now, with only a couple more days left in the semester, he is pushing away all my fears and doubts to show me more who He is. He has brought me through this year, teaching me things that will forever affect my life. What a year it has been!

I have come to this verse often this past year:
Philippians 4:4-7 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

My hall has been such an amazing blessing this year. We have all gotten real close and I love them all so much! We have so much fun together: we love having dance parties, having hall meetings talking about a date one of the girls had that evening, acting completely goofy, having dinners together, and just getting to know one another better.

So tonight after our hall had gone to dinner we were called into our RA’s room. We all piled in to the bathroom where we found our RA fixing her hair getting ready to go on a date with her boyfriend. It wasn’t long though before we saw the shimmering diamond peek through her dark brown locks. We all went crazy. Her boyfriend had asked her to marry him, she was engaged! The hall went hysterical and finally settled down to hear the story. She continued to get ready as she told us how he had taken her out to this park and as they sat on a blanket under an umbrella he began to read he a poem. Then before she even realized what was happening he was on his knee asking her to marry him. The hall was so excited for her and helped her finish getting ready and walked her to the elevator wishing her to have a wonderful night.

It makes me sad thinking about leaving these girls for the summer. They have become so special to me. I am excited though that God has a funny way of working things out and I will once again be living in room 522 on Chi Alpha next year. And the best part about it is we get a whole bunch of new freshmen on the hall too next year! I’m looking forward to another fun year with the girls!

I just finished my last class as a Junior! Golly this semester buzzed by. Usually the end of the year comes so slowly, I’m counting down the days, the hours, and even the minutes before the end. This year though I remember thinking, “Just a couple of weeks left,” and then next thing I knew i was in my last class. I think some of my favorite classes I took this semester was Children’s Literature and Doctrine II. It makes me so sad to think that today was also my last day to take a Covenant Bible Class. Being an Elementary Education major my Senior year is pretty much mapped out with education classes. In the fall I do what’s called block scheduling where I have three hour long classes on subjects such as, How to Teach Math to the Elementary Student and Essentials of Instruction. All classes that are much needed as I go into the spring semester student teaching full time. As much as I love my education classes, I wish that I could have a little bit more time to take some more bible or missions courses. It just goes so fast guys. I’m going to be a senior next year! Can you believe that I have been writing this blog since I was a Freshman. It seems like I have changed so much since then and I know that next year is only going to bring more growth and more changes. Time just goes by so fast sometimes!

So I don’t mean to toot my own horn or anything, but this is a big deal for me! For the past week I have been running everyday, and I do not like to run! It all started about a week in a half ago when I had a girl who was visiting the college stay with me. She asked me if there was any good trails around. After telling her about how many trails there were, she asked if we could go on a walk that evening. I hadn’t been on any of my trails to the pond or to the bluff probably for months. As we walked on my regular path to the bluff and then around to the pond and back up to the school I remembered how nice it was to have this escape from life up on campus.

So the next day I decided that I should on a run and then take a back route to the bluff I normally go to and then walk the rest of the way to school. So I ran as far as I could go and then took the back path to the bluff where I stopped for a while to pray. It helped so much to get things off my mind. And the weather this past week has been absolutely amazing, which has definitely helped with the motivation. Well anyways, the next day it happened again and then the next. And now one of my friends asked if she could run with me and so we run as far as we can and then walk back to school together talking about life. Yes, I knew this New Years Resolution was a good idea!

Tonight was “Girls Night In” for my dorm hall. Each of the girls halls in my dorm planned an event for all of us to do. So the night started on Rowen hall and they had finger nail painting and facial masks. It was a lot of fun seeing the girls put on this honey, banana, and yogurt goop on their faces. Then they would lay back and put cucumbers to cover their eyes. On the other side of the room was a table with several different choices of finger nail polishes. They had blues and yellows and pinks and reds. We all sat around talking and painting our nails. After an hour of pampering ourselves we headed to Harambe hall for some sweet treats.

Harambe had chocolate fondu with marshmellos, pretzels, and fruit. I mean, what more can a girl ask for. We sat around and talked for a while enjoying the chocolate before going to our next event: watching the show “Friends” on Halcyon hall. They had popcorn all ready and popped for us and couches set up. We watched the very first episode of friends and then headed over to our last even of the evening, Chi Alpha’s club glitter! That right how else could you end the night then a good ole’ girls dance party. Club glitter is a common event for Chi Alpha to do, but it was fun having all the other girls from the dorm.

I had a lot of fun tonight, even though all us girls live in the same dorm I don’t feel like we know each other as well as we should. Events like this definitely help! After the night in was over a few of us girls from the hall snuck back and watched a couple more episodes of “Friends.” :)

What a beautiful day today was!! It was so perfect that I decided to go for a run, and that doesn’t happen every day. :) I ran for a while and then on my way back to school I ended up taking a detour to one of the bluffs. The beauty of the day: the birds singing, the light breeze, the view from the bluff captivated me. I spent some time with God down there, it was just what I needed. Life just gets so overwhelming when this time of year comes around…it was so good and so needed just to sit and be for a while. When I got back up to school some girls friends and I did our traditional Sonic happy hour run we do on days like today. I love our Sonic runs! We roll down the windows, turn the music up loud and sing like no one is listening.

Then we came back up we headed down do Bakertree. Bakertree is a traditional music event, where anyone can sign up to play. It outside on the lawn and people spend the whole day out there sitting on blankets with friends, doing homework, or playing on the blow up slide that they set up. Dinner was also served outside. It was a great dinner too! Hamburgers cooked on the grill outside, potato salad, pasta salad, baked means, and lots more. It was just like a picnic in the park.

Unfortunately I got so caught up in how wonderful today was that I didn’t get the homework that I needed to done. :( So tomorrow is going to be an awfully long day! One thing at a time though.

Only two more weeks till classes are over! These two weeks are going to probably be pretty miserable because I have a big project or paper do every day now until their done, but only two weeks and then it’s over. I just keep telling myself taking it one day at a time Sheryce, one project at a time. Hopefully that will help me get to the end. The biggest things I’m worried about is a Doctrine Paper due on Monday. Yikes! But it seems like a lot of my classmates are just as worried about it as I am. So at least I’m not the only one in this boat. Tonight I went to an event for “Free Tuition Day.” Advancement planned a night of student Jepordy and served Root Bear floats and Krispy Kream donuts. Yummy! Plus the first 300 students got free t-shirts, how could you say no to that? It was a perfect study break…but now it’s back to the books. I know, I know I sound real depressing this time of year with all the studies. It’s really not that bad, just a few weeks of craziness and then summer! Yay!

I get to go on my first ever cruise!!! Yay! My four older sisters have been planning on going on a cruise for the past year. My sister Nicole decided to go with her husband as a sort of anniversary present to themselves and opened it up to the rest of the sisters. One by one each of my sisters decided to go along with their husbands on the cruise. This past fall I tried to work it out so that I could go as well, but just couldn’t talk myself into spending that much money and didn’t want to get in the way with all my sisters and their husbands. So I told them that I couldn’t go. Ever since then it has been a sort of a running joke with all of us that whenever I’m around they’re not aloud to talk about the “c” word. Even though it never worked. My sisters have been so excited about this cruise for months now, and can’t help but talk about it. Our family hasn’t ever really gone on big vacations together.

Anyways back to the story. So last week my mom called me and was acting really weird. She said that she really needed to talk to me. I got so worried thinking that someone had been hurt or something bad had happened. But when i finally got her to tell me what was going on, it was nothing what I thought. She told me that my sisters and her had been talking and they all really wanted me to go on the cruise. They decided that they were together going to pitch in so that I could go on the cruise with them! I couldn’t believe it! Ahhh! I am so excited!

So in exactly three weeks I will be cruising the Caribbean with my four amazing sisters and brother-in-laws. I feel so completely honored by how much they sacrifice for me. I don’t think I could ever imagine being apart of a more amazing family. I am so blessed!

Thank goodness a break! We get a four day weekend for Easter Break and it is very much needed. My original plan was to go to Florida with a couple of friends, but when that fell through I decided to stay here at school. It was a very good decision too. I have been doing homework none stop since break started. And the more I do, the more I realize that I still have so much more to do. I am so overwhelmed. Just one thing at a time I keep telling myself. Take it one project at a time, one paper at a time, one presentation at a time. But hopefully by the end of this weekend I will fill a little bit more ready for the rest of the semester. Less then a month left! It goes by so quick guys, be prepared. I can’t believe that I only have one more year here. I hate thinking about it, I don’t want it to be over yet. :( Alright guys I’m off to the books again. Enjoy the holiday weekend!