the Year in Review

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So today I thought to myself, "Self? Why not post a thousand pictures to give everyone the basic idea of what the last year was like?" And then I thought, "Now, where on earth would I get a thousand pictures? And why would I want to be THAT verbose?!" So I'm not posting a thousand pictures. I'm just posting a few...to give ya'll a brief overview of some of the memorable moments from the first semester at Liberty...

To kick off the semester, we had an all-night-of-prayer, committing the campus, the students, and the academic year to the only One capable enough to handle all that that entails...and after thus spending the night, people went to various local businesses for breakfast...

...the nice thing about being up all night...is that it makes everything seem funny.

Lenn and Rachel, possibly the most entertaining pair of debaters I have ever met...she practices her kick-boxing skills on him, and he...shows off his evasion tactics while slinging sarcastic insults over both shoulders. I'm crossing my fingers they both survive the next semester...

Gina and Gabriela, after our first (and only) roommate swim outing...

and...Gina had a birthday! We love birthdays. So we got her a cake. And we put candles on it. And then we found out that candles aren't legal in the dorms. Oops.

Anthony and Andre went with me to WalMart one day, just because...and by the time we'd gotten to the vitamin aisle, we had done some skillful deductive reasoning...and that's how we realized that we were ALL wearing red t-shirts. So we took a picture...

...and Anthony texted it to all his friends...

...and we discovered that texting causes Andre's blood pressure to rise. Or maybe it rose because we were threatening to confiscate his chocolate milk. (trying to help him break the addiction...duh. That's what friend are FOR)

And then, a few weeks later, we went on a dorm outing, taking a whole lot of girls, and about half as many boys. The purpose of this gathering was to encourage the formation of deep and meaningful friendships while engaging in possibly brain-damaging or life-ending activities...

So...we went to the little creeky thingee with the big rock doohickies? And we jumped off the rocks...in order to show how much intelligence, common sense, and general wisdom we had gained from our college experience thus far. It. was. amazing. Especially if you didn't jump out far enough to avoid the rocks at the bottom. Heh.

And then, a few weeks later, just because we could...we decided to do a "Nerd" theme for one of our hall meetings. Yeah. Kelly doesn't always wear those glasses. She doesn't want to frighten other students with her obvious intellectual abilities.

The umbrella was really a nice touch. Some people can totally make an umbrella look nerdy...

The conglomerate effect of nerd night was quite...overwhelming. Never before have I seen so many pairs of glasses with tape covering the bridge...

Adieu to 2009

It's officially the turning of a new year. As we stand at the close of the first decade of a new century, there is much to reflect upon, many yet-unanswered questions hanging in the balances, much uncertainty, much pessimism, and yet...SO much for which we can be thankful.

As I sat tonight in our warm living room, surrounded by the impish little faces of a lot of smallish Kulps and a few rather biggish Beatys, I was made mindful yet again of how much meaning, security, and satisfaction is given to us through relationships--first and foremost that which we have with our Heavenly Father, but secondarily, through those which we have with the hundreds and thousands of people whom God places in our lives for us to pour into and learn from.

In looking back over this year, I realize that over and over again, in those times when I was really struggling, wrestling with big questions, or just feeling overwhelmed by the unknownness of life, it was often through relationships--through people--that the faithfulness and love of God was poured into my life when I least expected but most needed it.

Plus, life would be so much less interesting if there were no other humanoids--for real.
Tonight, for example, as our lovely guests were packing up and getting ready to head out the door, we noticed that the youngest little dude was MIA.

We found him upstairs...dribbling finger nail polish onto the floor with a fascinated expression on his wee face. There was something so delightfully comical about the whole thing--he'd given himself a bright pink goatee, was standing uncertainly in a large puddle of pinkness, of which still more was dripping from the upturned bottle in his chubby hand, and every few seconds he would gingerly lift one tiny sneaker, his mouth shaped into a wonder-filled "O" as he set his foot down in a different spot, gazing in amazement at the small pink print left behind on the linoleum behind him. It'd been approximately three minutes since we'd lost sight of him--these little people are ridiculously efficient in their uses of time, I'm telling you...

It was sort of a unique idea...I mean, it's a new year, so why not change the interior decorating a little, right? If splotches are in for the walls, why not carry it over to the floors? Think outside the box. Or the bottle. Whatever works for you.

So yeah. I'm excited about 2010. Cuz while I don't have all the answers, and I really have no clue what might happen during the next twelve months, life's an adventure that's pretty much out of my hands, and nothing takes our God by surprise.

Therefore, I wish you all a marvelous New Year, and hope the next twelve months are filled with unexpected blessings and plenty of growing experiences. In the meantime, I'll be upstairs in my bedroom slippers decorating the floor with blue fingernail polish...

Two Heads are...Better than One?

Somewhere in her many global trottings, my lovely sister picked up some new games. And one of them was sort of a He Said/She said type of thing, where one person writes down a name, folds down the top of the slip of paper, and passes it to the next person, who writes down another name, and then repeats the process until the little epistle contains the name of a boy, the name of a girl, the location in which they encounter each other, what he said, and what she said, and finally, what happened as a result.

We had the better part of the Beaty family playing this lovely game during the past two days on several different occasions, and some of the results were most remarkable.

For example:

Joel Flage

and Susan B. Anthony

met in Athens, Greece

and he said, "Well, am I ever pleased to meet you!"

she said "Touch me and I'll bite you!"

So they just sat pondering their wonderful new relationship.

Santa Claus

met Liv Tyler

on top of Old Smoky

he said, "How about a date?!"

She said, "you have got to be kidding!"

So he flanged her down 70 times 7...

Ben Beaty (my brother)

and Laura Kulp (his mother-in-law)

met at a computer store

and he said, "Darling, I have an important question!"

and she said, "Can it, Bucky!"

so they went dancing on the roof of someone's house.

An old German farmer

and Taylor Swift

met in her grandfather's safe

and he said, "Turn on the lights! I can't see."

and she said, "Oh! You have a wonderful smile."

and then they had to spend five years in counseling.

Al Capone

and Cinderella

met while scuba diving

and he said, "I need a beer."

and she said, "Oh boy, I'm not sure what to think!"

so they stepped on a mine and were blown to a beautiful alien planet.

You never realize how many inside family jokes exist until you start playing a game like this with your siblings...heh. Think what we'd be missing if we all truly could only live in the moment and there were no such thing as short-term or long-term memory...

There are so very many things to love about Christmas breaks!

Not the least of these would be a small nephew, who, in his rapid march towards an antiquated state, will be attaining the impressive age of 12 months two days from today.

This charming young individual adds huge amounts of interest to life in general, and he's mostly a joy to be around. Except for when one happens to be unfortunate enough as to upset the little man...he has a rather interesting habit of roaring indignantly with mouth opened to approximately the size of a small hippopotamus as he lunges forward to bite the nose of the offending relative/former friend. Typically this results only from a food-related offense, though, so--we just don't take his cookies away from him, and then it's all good.

On another note, though, the days at home have been a lovely break from the routine of academia. It's been an opportunity to step back, to take stock and evaluate, and to see some things from a new perspective. And sometimes that's a really humbling experience, because more often than I care to admit, I'm guilty of things that I can't exactly look back at with pride. This whole growing-up-and-taking-responsibility-for-my-own-actions thing is sometimes painful, sometimes embarrassing, and other times just plain ol' overwhelming...but I am every day more thankful for the grace of a God who loves unconditionally and is not only capable but willing to redeem my mistakes.

Today I read a really well-written article by Nathan Zacharias that dealt with the topic of failure and our Biblical response to it, and he said a couple of things that particularly resonated with me this week. He writes:

"...when faced with failure, the road to recovery can't be taken until I first recognize that I need to recover in the first place. So in those painful moments of realizing what I've just done, it's important that I take heart in the fact that feeling that emotion of regret in the first place is a major part of the battle in overcoming my failure.

After some of life's breakdowns, it's tempting to throw in the towel on what the future holds. Sometimes I think that we've messed up so badly that God will never be able to use me to do any good. That thought, though, warns me that I'm seriously underestimating the redemptive power of Christ."

It's the thought of the redemptive power of Christ that gives me hope even on the days when I feel a little overwhelmed by the sad lack of Christ-like character which appears to plague many of us who call ourselves Christians.

So as I finish out 2009, surrounded by those I love best (who are exceptionally special simply because they know what a dork I am and choose to still love me anyway!), my prayer is that God would give each of us the grace and the strength to live by the truth that we know, the humility to admit that we don't know it all, the strength to face our mistakes, own them, and allow God to redeem them, and the character to accept, cherish, and forgive those who are at different places in their journey than we are.

May God bring about a revival, and may He begin it in my heart...

I distinctly remember beginning this year with the honorable aspiration to update my blog at least once every two weeks. Which does not explain why, nearly an entire semester later, I have only managed to update the aforementioned blog a grand total of…two times. Shameful.

Virginia is blissfully warm compared to the weather that those of you in the northern states must be experiencing on a regular basis. I do not apologize for this fact, but I do extend my heartfelt sympathies to those of you who live with snow out of necessity rather than love. ;-)

During the past several weeks, I have been continually reminded of how blessed I am to a) live in a warm state, b) have amazing family and friends both near and far, and c) be serving such an awesomely faithful and gracious God.

One day last week in my Economics class, our teacher was solemnly discussing with us the most recent statistics on divorce in the United States. He and his lovely wife have been involved in pre-marital counseling for almost two decades, and they have a great deal of conglomerate wisdom. He was explaining to us the importance of a couple discussing their money matters together as a couple, and he told us all in a very solemn tone indeed that if we were considering marrying someone, and that person happened to refuse to discuss their finances, we should most definitely seek a new potential spouse and drop that girl/guy like a hot potato. We all nodded dutifully, very much impressed by his profound wisdom and experience in this matter.

We then began to discuss then the struggles of relationships in general, and he made the comment to our class that out of the five girls in our class, one of us would most likely not marry, statistically speaking. Ashley’s hand shot up: “That’ll be me!” she blurted. “I just want to live alone in a house with my fish forever.”

We rolled our eyes, knowing that it had been only a few months since she ended her last dating relationship. The teacher smiled, and shook his head, bemused by the impetuosity of college women.

Then he turned to the class, and asked very slowly, “But really, guys, what do you think the number one cause of divorce is in the United States?”

Ashley’s hand shot up again: “Marriage!” she announced energetically.

We laughed. Very hard. For a very long time. But she’s kinda right. And so, I thought to myself of how grateful I am that my parents were willing to take that risk…and to make it work! Woohoo!

I love you, Mom and Dad!