Blessings

You know those days (or weeks!) when you can't seem to be happy? When all the stress in your life piles up on you and you feel like you don't even have the energy to smile? That pretty much describes this past week or so for me. There was so so much for me to worry about; I will spare you from listening to me list them all.
But you know those times when you're feeling like just living life has gotten you down, and then God does something (or several things!) to lift you up again? When you can almost feel him picking you up, brushing you off, and placing you squarely on your feet again? That pretty much describes the past couple days for me. Allow me to explain.
Looking back, I guess it would be best to say that my series of blessings began on Tuesday night, though I didn't know it at the time. Tuesday nights are Bible study nights for me, and it's been a rather unique experience for me since I've never been in a Bible study before. So anyway, I was thinking about skipping out because of my first big college test in Communications the next morning. Not that skipping would have been a big deal; the people at the Newman Center are really great about school coming first and not pressuring or guilt-tripping us into coming to stuff, and people miss things all the time (just usually not Mass :). But in the end I decided to go just for the sake of human interaction, which I don't necessarily find throughout the course of my days at Pitt. (Of course this may and probably will change, but for now, it gets kind of lonely sometimes.) And boy, am I glad I went. First of all, the story we "studied" was that of the prodigal son, which struck a chord with me because of my feelings of being far from God and stressed out this past week. Secondly, I met a girl there who lives on my floor!!! We clicked right away and walked back to the dorm together afterwards, talking all the way. We found that we think the same about a lot of things regarding living our faith, and we were both glad to find someone to discuss our struggles with. There is something so comforting in that!
After a frenzied night of studying, I again woke myself up earlier than usual to review the material. I felt like I knew the stuff pretty well, but was it enough? I had heard so many stories about people who came to college expecting it to be like high school and failed their first exams because they didn't realize the depth of understanding required. I sure as heck didn't want that to happen to me.
Well, after struggling sleepily through work-study (I altered a shirt and cleaned out a paint bin) and Italian class, the moment of truth arrived as I sat down in the lecture hall to take the test. The Scantron sheets were different from the ones in high school, blue ink with small circles instead of green ink with tiny rectangles. Also I had to fill in my name in little boxes and then fill in the corresponding bubbles, just like the SATs!!! O no!! Not the SATs!!! I felt like my brain had been sucked out after that test, and I certainly was not looking for a repeat of that. The instructor passed out the test booklets and we began. Question 1. Oh, I know this one. Question 2. Wow, I know this one too. Question 3, 4, 5, the next 4 pages of questions... O my Lord, I know all of these!!! I know what I'm doing!! I'm not going to fail!!! Hallelujah! And so blessing number 2 came to pass. I actually enjoyed taking that test, as strange as it sounds, and I finished before most of my classmates with plenty of time to check my answers and still leave the class earlier than the usual 50 minutes. Sweeet.
Later that day, I met up with a priest friend on the lawn of the Cathedral (of Learning: there are 2 Cathedrals here! the other is St. Paul's. I love both of them, but Learning doesn't hold a candle to Mass! :) It was lovely to get advice and guidance from him. He basically ordered me to go have some fun now that most of my causes for stress were over with (i.e. paper due, first big test). So I did. After 5:15 Mass I caught a bus with a new found Newman Center friend from my Bible study (not the one I met on Tuesday night: different friend) to ... well, actually I don't remember what the town itself was called, but our destination was a bakery called Dozen, where Wednesday was $1 Cupcake Day! This is a big deal because their cupcakes are gourmet and they have lots of fancy flavors like pancakes and syrup (with a small piece of bacon on top), root beer float, vegan vanilla, chocolate strawberry (made with real strawberries!), and more. Plus $1 Cupcake Day only comes once a year, during Cupcake Week. So I tried the root beer float cupcake (it tasted exactly like a root beer float!! shocking!) and also ordered some ridiculously expensive fruit/yogurt/granola mixture for a light dinner. We met with another guy that my friend knew at the bakery, and the three of us enjoyed some lively and refreshing conversation.
When we returned to the Newman Center we headed straight for the student center in the basement, because it was Ladies' Night! Now, some of you may think this to be a cliched topic, but the theme was Genuine Beauty. I know that when I first heard that, I was thinking, "O, please, I could give this talk myself, I've heard it so many times." But it wasn't like that at all. This gathering of young women was much more interactive, personal, and all around inspiring to me than it had ever been before. We took a look at what society expects us to be as women, which gave some magnificent perspective to the whole idea, and then turned our attention to what God expects us to be as daughters of Christ. The great thing about this discussion was that we decided that when someone has a truly beautiful personality, it shines through their physical, superficial features and just radiates Christ's love. On the other hand, someone could be the most beautiful person in the world but have a rotten personality, and that would also show through their mere physical beauty.
Now, again, this may not seem groundbreaking to you, but at the time I had been struggling with how much to eat here at college and the image that I was projecting to all the new people I'm meeting, so these realizations truly struck a chord with me. After the gathering ended with a prayer, I slipped away to the chapel (where there is perpetual adoration) for some alone time with God. Words can not describe what happened to my heart during the half-hour or so I spent kneeling there, but when I left I was filled with a joy and peace that I had not felt for weeks.
As a result of these blessed occurences, I feel renewed in spirit and, surprisingly, in body. I feel on top of all the work that my classes are throwing at me and ready for anything. It's fantastic, really. This is such a perfect example of the way God places certain people and situations in my life because He knows exactly what I need. "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation. O my soul praise Him, for He is thy help and salvation."
May the Lord bless you with even more grace as you carry out your mission on this earth. :)