Not far from Covenant there is a huge tourist attraction called Rock City. All through the southeast you can find old barns with, “Rock City.” Written on them. I drive by this city on a rock in which you can see out to 7 different states, but I have thought very little about actually going. During the Christmas season though they decorate everything with Christmas lights. It’s called Rock City’s Enchanted Garden. So tonight I went to it and oh my goodness it was so beautiful. As you walked through the pathway you passed fields of candy canes, extravagant nativity scenes, lines of lighted soldiers, and an overhead of twinkling lights. About halfway through you reach the overlook. Oh my goodness, it is just so beautiful! After strolling around for about two hours we sadly reached the end. If you guys are ever up here during the Christmas Season make sure to go, it’s definitely worth it.
         

This weekend was such a hard weekend, one of my closest friend’s brother died. How do you find peace in something that just makes very little since at all. When I heard the news I went straight to her room and all I could do was hold her as we both cried. There is so much that I wish I could do for her right now. I wish I could take some of the weight of life off of her, I wish I could give her some strength to make it through this next week, I wish I could give her some wise advice that would give her the peace that she needs. All I could do is hold her though.

This morning my friend and I went to church together. It was such a good sermon. One part in particular stood out to me, “The more glory we give to God the more peace we receive.” Right before my friend left a group of about 30 of us students gathered around her to send her off in prayers. All I could pray for over and over is that even through this may God’s glory be shown and may the peace he promises be received.

I’m back at school again. Three more weeks before Christmas break…I mean but whose counting. Like I always say though, I can’t get ahead of myself. These next three weeks are going to be busy, busy, busy! Papers, Tests, FINALS! They’re all coming…and they’re coming fast. My prayer for this week is productiveness. This is a word that became very meaningful to me after I came to college. I have learned that I can spend a lot of time on something and not get anything done at all. However, if I’m being productive, I’m getting a whole lot done with minimal time. Yes, that is my prayer for this week.

Today I spent the entire day at my house decorating for Christmas. With my mom being out of town, I thought I would surprise her by having the house completely decorated by the time she returned. The first few hours were great; I just listened to Christmas music and put up garland. However, by the seventh/eighth hour had gone by and I had listened to every Christmas song twice…it began to get a little old. I forgot how much work it is to decorate our house for Christmas. I unloaded boxes and boxes of decorations from the attic and began decorating box by box, room by room. At the end of my decorating my sister brought home a tree to put up. Ah, it was finally finished!

I have to say; now that it’s finished I cannot wait to be able to come home at Christmas to this house. I’m looking forward to turn off all the lights in the house and just watching the twinkle lights in the dark, this is one of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season. Goodness, hasn’t Christmas snuck up on us this year. I can’t believe it’s already that time again. I’m so excited…I LOVE Christmas! Yes, it’s true I’m one of those people who are biting their nails for Thanksgiving to come just so they can listen to Christmas music. So now I can listen to all the Christmas music I want and not feel guilty. Because the Christmas season is here again!!!

Boy, what a day! So, as I told you before my parents were visiting my grandparents over the holiday leaving us girls to cook our first Thanksgiving meal. My sister Nicole, being the organizer she is, had everything under control though. She had our menu made up and knew exactly how to make everything. We were going to have all our traditional dishes: green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, Jell-O, and of course turkey. My family usually cooks our turkey on the grill, so for tradition we decided to attempt to do the same on our own. We thought had everything covered. The turkey was stuffed, basted, and tied. We all felt a bit uneasy about putting the turkey on, but decided finally to chance it. It wasn’t even five minutes before my mom called remembering that she hadn’t told us to put the turkey in a pan. By the time we got to the turkey it was too late. Flames had already encompassed the poor bird. Luckily the flames were mild and went out without even a fight. Our bird, however, was still charcoal black on the bottom.

The men all pondered over what to do about the burnt bird. And they decided that the best thing to do would be to buy a pan and go ahead and try to grill the turkey again, hoping the flames hadn’t ruined the flavor completely-and just incase they would pick up a ham. So off the boys went to save the day, while the girls attempted to wash all the charcoal off the bird. The boys were back in a flash and before you knew it the bird was back on the grill, with a pan underneath of course, and our fingers were crossed for our thanksgiving meal. While the turkey cooked, us girls began to cook all the side dishes. We were blessed, they all came out great! Our only fear now was our main dish…the turkey. After four hours had gone by it was time to take the turkey out. It looked like it was eatable…in fact it looked quite tasty. My sister Alyssa had the first bite. It was a success! Despite the minor set back us Butkowski girls’ FIRST Thanksgiving meal was a success!

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Thanksgiving was so great! I had so much fun with my sisters. I love those days where you just lounge around, talk, play games, and LAUGH. Goodness, I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard. It was perfect!

Financial Aid is often a big deal for a lot of students looking at colleges. I want you to know though that Covenant, along with a lot of colleges, have several different ways of helping you out with the money situation. One way is through scholarships. We have 8 main scholarships here at Covenant, which you can find out more about at http://www.covenant.edu/admissions/trad/application.php. You can also receive grants, how these work is that the school will receive money requesting that the money goes to a student with certain qualities, for example a female who is interested in teaching or a male who plays the violin. There is also Work Study. This is where you work for the school and in return receive a regular paycheck throughout the year. There are other types of government funding that can be given by filling out the fafsa. So please guys, don’t get discouraged quite yet because there are definitely some possibilities with helping you pay for school.

I want you to be aware of some facts that might help you. Covenants 8 big scholarship deadlines will be due December 1. These scholarships include our Maclellan and Leader Scholarship, Donaldson Scholarship, Community Development Scholarship, Emerging Artist Scholarship, Future Teacher Scholarship, Genesis 1:28 Business Scholarship, Computer Science Scholarship, and the Wilberforce Scholarship. So I would just encourage you to start the application process ASAP if you haven’t already. When one gets accepted to Covenant College, Financial Aid works hard put together a financial aide package within two weeks. I would encourage to fill out an application for all of your main colleges, just to see what type of financial aide you might get from them.

Goodness, I’m almost there! Thanksgiving break starts on Wednesday: which means two days of classes and one big test to make it through. I’m so excited about going home for Thanksgiving. I’m going to be spending it with three of my sisters while my parent’s are away visiting my dad’s mom over the holiday. Although bummed I’m not going to see my parents,  I’m so looking forward to just being home. But I can’t get ahead of myself, I still have a huge Doctrine test to make it through before I leave. I’m a little stressed about it too, Lord give me strength to make it through these next couple of days!

Working in admissions I talk with a lot of high school seniors who are just as lost as I was when looking for a college. The stress of it all can overwhelm you. I talked through some of these stresses with one senior and she graciously agreed to let me share our email conversation with you guys. 

Email from Senior:

Thank you for your email! Maybe you could just give me some advice, though?  Like, what should I look for?  Did you attend Covenant and if so, what made you choose it above others?  And how should my three best friends and I deal with the fact that we may all be in different states?  Seriously, I think it’s really strange, the four of us have been best friends forever and none of us are even interested in any schools the others are looking at. We are all opposites, it is true.  We balance each other out well.    But next year will be an experience, for sure.                Click to continue »

So often I try and stay away from issues that I don’t think I quite understand. This issue I know I won’t ever understand no matter how much I attempt to, but I have specifically made an effort to study, in hopes that I might come closer to the true understanding of “What love is”. Tonight I had a conversation about whether love was an emotion or a decision. What do you think? I will tell you a little about how our conversation went.

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Today I spent chipping paint and repainting an old house. It was our sophomore community project and we teamed up with the widow’s ministry to help fix up an elderly ladies house. Chattanooga has so many opportunities to help the community. The Widow’s Ministry is just one. This ministry invites groups of volunteers to come and help widows with needs they might be too elderly to do themselves. This includes reproofing houses, yard work, painting, etc. Many of my classmates had been there several times before to volunteer, but this was my first time. I found as I was chipping the bits of old paint from the house, that this was a perfect time to spend with God. I felt at the end of the day that what we did to help was so little. Lord, I pray that you will take the little work we did today and multiply it to do wonders for your glory!