One Year

I remember exactly what I was doing on April 1, 2010. It was a very important day. A day of joy, fears, and soul-searching.

One year ago, I had an interview with Dr. John Mark Reynolds, and he told me that I was accepted to Torrey, this program I had applied to with only a vague idea of what it was about. After the interview, I promptly freaked out. I didn't know what I was getting into or if I could handle it. I find it funny that exactly one year later I am sitting in my dorm room at Biola listening to Rachmaninoff and (sort of) reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, still worrying about how I'm going to make it through.

One year ago, I was told with regard to this crazy Torrey venture, "Siobhan, if God has called you there, if John Mark Reynolds wants you there, and if you have a desire to be there, then you will make it."

One year later, I still hold onto that promise.

Music and Memories

For some reason (and I know exactly why), "Wild World" and "Miles From Nowhere" by Cat Stevens and "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd make me really miss my brother. And I haven't missed him in a long time. I think "Summertime Dream" by Gordon Lightfoot, "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles, and "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey make that list, too. He introduced me to these songs (and other "good" music) during our daily driving to school adventures.

I don't appreciate my family enough. And college is teaching me to. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to learn that lesson.

I have also been humming the first few chords of "By the Rising of the Moon" and it makes me miss my dad. It's an Irish freedom song, and he used to play it for me on the guitar when I was little. I used to beg him to play "the moon song." "God Bless the U.S.A." also reminds me of him. He has an unwavering loyalty to America, and this is the only song I've ever seen bring him to tears. It reminds me that he's human, too.

"Forever in Blue Jeans" by Neil Diamond makes me miss my mom. She loves Neil Diamond, and even though its sappy, my dad still bought the CD for her.

"Church in the Wildwood" (especially sung by Johnny Cash) and "Daddy Sang Bass" by Johnny Cash make me miss my church in Woody. I miss the old hymns, the people who have known me and watched me grow up, and the fact that it is in the country with cows and a creek right over the barbed wire fence.

Music brings back memories. God knew what he was doing when He created it.

I Just Need to Process What's Going On

I am mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. The weekend is almost here, but I have two books to read and take notes on, a paper to write, a test to study for, a 7-10 page paper to start, pull questions to do...the list goes on. I am praying for discipline to get everything done and ignore the existence of my social life for awhile. But in the midst of that daunting to-do list, I need to process what is going on. And I need to count my blessings.

• I love my professors. I was skimming Amazon.com last night (instead of doing homework) and I found a book by John Mark Reynolds. It is so awesome to smile to myself and think, "He's one of my professors."


• I particularly loved Torrey session last night. There was a lot of laughter, from the students and from the professor, and a lot of diagramming on the board, which I love to do.


• I love Professor Schubert. When she is our tutor, I feel like she is part of the class, learning and discovering with us, rather than leading the discussion. And she has wonderful stories.


• Augustine blows my mind.


• The love within my Torrey group is amazing. I pray it continues to grow.


• I'm really excited for Freshman Initiatives.

I am so thankful for God's love and the old hymns that express that love. Two years ago, I stood the gym at BCHS singing the last verse of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," realizing for the first time in weeks that God loves and cares for me.

"O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;

here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above."

A Day of Firsts

Today has been a wonderfully surprising and surprisingly wonderful day. I went to a reformed-doctrine church for the first time and watched the Super Bowl (well, some of it) for the first time. I also attended my first Super-Bowl-party-turned-hymn-sing.


I was planning on going to church this weekend with Maddie, like we did near the end of last semester, but she went back to Bakersfield for the weekend, so I asked Elizabeth if I could go with her. So, I ended up at a reformed-doctrine church with Elizabeth and two other friends. Afterwards, we planned to go to Elizabeth's house for the Super Bowl. Because I'm not a huge football fan, I wasn't entirely thrilled about an afternoon of football, but I decided to tag along because free (non-cafeteria) food was involved, as was getting off campus and hanging out with friends. However, everyone who wanted to go along were Torrey kids, which meant all of them had homework to be doing. So, we talked ourselves into believing that this would be a study party, too.


Some of us (especially those of us not interested in football) opted to do some homework, too. So, I sat in the Bush's kitchen, alternating between watching Super Bowl commercials and reading Psalms. Talk about a clash of cultures.


After dinner, the die-hard, I-actually-came-to-watch-the-Super-Bowl people parked themselves in front of the TV to finish watching (and loudly discussing) the game while the rest of us went into another room to read or do homework. Elizabeth played the piano, while we sat contentedly doing our work. Eventually, a guitar was brought out and more people migrated to this room and we started singing praise songs we knew from memory. I sat in an armchair with my Bible on my lap, looking at the scene. Mr. and Mrs. Bush and their 11-year-old daughter sat on one couch, reading and doing a puzzle. Their 7-year-old daughter sat in the arm chair next to mine snuggling in blankets and reading a book. Cree played the guitar, and Elizabeth, Cori, Robin, Andrew, Kyle, and Sean sat in various places on couches or on the floor singing along. Elizabeth beckoned me and I joined the college kids sitting on the floor. I smiled. This was what live is supposed to be. Family that loves one another and others. Students who want to glorify God. A place where friendship, books, knowledge, joy, truth, mentoring, prayer, and songs abound. We eventually gathered around the piano as Elizabeth played or we sang acapella to many of the old hymns I grew up learning. We sang all of my all-time favorites: "Nothing But the Blood," "Be Thou My Vision," "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," "The Old Rugged Cross," and so many more. Mrs. Bush brought out tea for us, and I laughed as I watched college-aged boys rushing to the china tea cups, trying to figure out how they were meant to be held. We sang a few more hymns and prayed. As we prayed, I felt like I was a part of the Body of Christ in a closer, more personal way than I feel when I'm at chapel or in any gathering of believers (other than my Torrey group and my home church). I was with a variety of people: one who knows me better than I know myself, one I had only met that day, and everyone else fell somewhere in between. Yet all were a part of the Body of Christ, all were my brothers and sisters in the family of God. After we prayed, we loaded up into Elizabeth's car and ended the evening by driving back to Biola on the freeway, singing along to "Don't Stop Believing" and "Lucky."


Super Bowl Sunday has held special significance to me for four years: on Super Bowl Sunday in 2007, I was baptized. Four years ago, I never imagined being here. I never could have imagined the spiritual steps I have taken. I look at my infant-Christian self, and see such a huge change in my relationship with God. I can see where He has brought me, who He has put in my life to touch me, and how He has loved me.

On Books and Growing Up

I grew up reading books. For Christmas one year, I asked for "a book with lots of pages." I was thinking dictionary-sized, but I was too young to know what a dictionary was. So my mom got me a children's books about a mouse that discovers the Bible. Not what I had in mind, but I liked it anyway.

Ironically, I hated learning to read. The books were hard to read and were boring when you could understand what the words said. The only thing that kept me going (besides the fact that I didn't have much choice) was my dad telling me, "Readers are leaders and leaders are readers." I wanted to be in charge of something when I was "all grown-up"- I didn't care what- but that meant I had to read.

In elementary school, I always had a book with me. I read when I finished my work, I read during recess, and I probably got in trouble for reading during class. Whenever my family went on long road trips (which was often), my mom would buy us a new book or two to keep us occupied in the down-time. The worst punishment in my family was "going to bed without a story." My mom would read aloud to us every night until I was eleven or so. Then, I would read books, then dress up and act out the parts of the female main character. My mom spent countless hours sewing dresses, bonnets, capes, and skirts for me. (Then I discovered thrift stores and my costume hunting took place there, instead. But I still haven't outgrown that urge to dress up in long skirts like the heroines of old). And it all stemmed from books. Even now, my room is full of not only school books, but also children's books, young adult books, and novels.

For my first two years of high school, I adored books. I always had one with me. I had my preferences, but I read almost anything. Then I discovered people. I realized that although books were wonderful, people were like living books to me. The "best friend" relationships in books could happen in real life. There were people who had lived exciting things and could tell me about with a twinkle of the eye and the expressive tone that I missed in reading. For that reason (and due to too much homework), I stopped reading for fun during my junior year of high school. I read philosophy homework, economics textbooks, and political articles for debate, instead. I still read the occassional fun book (and books for English classes), but the novels I usually carried to class to read during passing periods were gone. They were replaced by wonderful conversations and genuine smiles. But I still missed those books. Especially the feel of a book in my hands.

College brought back the wonder of books to me, combined with the joy of being with people. In college, I read stories again, instead of textbooks. I read fiction again for the first time in a long time. There were characters to relate to (and analyze, now that I was older). But the best part was that it was not just me reading the book. In college, I read it with people by my side, reading the same book, and enjoying it with me, and discussing it to no end. We bonded over books. We stayed up to all hours reading. We had "study parties" during which we read for hours straight. That feeling brought together my early years of loving books and my teenage years of loving people. I cannot think of a better way to end my childhood.

Precious Memories

As I prepare to leave for college, I am learning more and more acutely the importance of memories. Yesterday was the day I finally sat down to clean out my desk in which I found so many things to jog old memories. You see, when I find something that I want to keep but I don't want to see on a daily basis, I stick it in my desk. I found my first pair of glasses that I haven't worn since I was 12, all kinds of crafty materials, pictures that were taken 17 years ago, stickers from my "pioneer girl" phase when I was ten...Let's just say that I don't clean out my desk often.

But among all of these useless odds and ends, I found a stack of photos that I view as the "diamond in the rough." These photographs were mostly taken by my mother, which makes them valuable, because my mother is now unable to take pictures easily due to her MS. Then I looked at the content. One picture was of five first-grade students during a class party. I was one of those students. Two of remaining students graduated from high school with me. All I could say was, "Wow." We had all grown up together, learned from each other, experienced each other's happy and sad moments. The memories are indeed precious, as the old hymn says.

I found another picture of me and my brother sitting in a pile of leaves outside of my great-grandfather's house in Northern California. I appeared to be about four, which would have made my brother two. This photo was significant because I haven't been to that area in about ten years, but I am planning to leave tomorrow to return to that very area, where I spent so much time when I was young.

The last photo I found nearly stopped my heart. It was taken during a Christmas party when I was in third grade. I was decked out in a lovely purple cast from when I had broken my arm two months before. In the center of the picture was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Mitchell, and all of my class sat surrounding her. Mrs. Mitchell recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. We would never be together again until heaven, but this photo made me look forward to heaven more than ever, though I sorely missed the times past.

Some tell me I'm nostalgic and old-fashioned, and that is probably true. But there is something about memories that are so precious. Sometimes I will sit and replay old memories in my head. I am so grateful that God gave us the capacity to have memories. To remember the people He put in our lives. To remember the joys and even the sorrows. To remember the dramatic "firsts" and epic "lasts." Lord, thank You for memories.