you make me feel happy

Today is my friend Maria's birthday. What better way to kick off a birthday than with a French-themed picnic breakfast in Christ Church Meadows?? Answer: there absolutely isn't one.

Maria, Emma, and Charlotte.

Ruth, Abbie, Alison, and Nadine.

Maria cutting her birthday cake.

Alison, Ruth, Angie, Maria, Charlotte, Hannah, and Emma.

Broad Walk in front of Christ Church.

sunshine + picnic blanket + camembert + sweet girls = happy

may morning

It's 6:45 am and I've already been up for two hours. May morning is an epic event in the life of the Oxford student population. Everyone goes out the night before, the really committed (and even moderately committed) stay up all night. We collected a massive group of people in Regent's at 5:15 this morning and traipsed down to Magdalen College, where this is the scene that awaited us:


We lost quite a few of our bunch in the crowd, and then waited half an hour for the promised thrill of the Magdalen choir coming out to sing from the top of the bell tower.



As you can see in the video, there are neon-garbed police guarding the bridge so that people don't jump off it and impale themselves on rusty bicycle bits at the bottom. When the magical moment actually arrived, it was... less than magical. We were so close under the tower that we could hardly hear the choir and there was more attention on the random attempts by staggering performers to streak across the bridge than anything else.


It's not all a let-down, though, because the vast majority of the restaurants in Oxford open up early to provide breakfast to starving revellers. And then, the crash. Good thing it's Saturday.

glory of the ordinary

Golly, it's a good day.

Today was that amazing special first day that I didn't wear a coat out. It was a beautiful early-spring-feeling day. Now I'm sitting at my desk, listening to John Mayer, watching the rain outside and smelling it through the open window. It's not a spitting misty rain like normal in Oxford, but a strong, cleansing rain. Tonight I get to work in the Ebbe's kitchen with some of my favorite people. Somewhere in there, I'll write an economics essay, but that's okay. I might even bake some banana bread for our breakfast-and-prayer tomorrow morning. Oh, and my house is clean and my laundry is clean and there are yellow tulips spreading sunshine in my living room.

Life is broken, but seriously, it is also beautiful.

And in this daily beauty, this constant provision, the joy of labor, the glory of the ordinary, I worship my God. For it is daily that I meet with him, see his face, receive his provision, and treasure the way that his beauty overflows into the things that he makes, even the smallest of things.


"You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
     let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up,
     let righteousness grow with it;
I, the Lord, have created it." Isaiah 45:8

the whole earth reverberates the story

Lucy and I lived life together yesterday. Good times.

Flowers are starting to bloom already in University Parks, which I can't believe! It's the middle of February! Spring always used to be my least favorite season, but I now love it like a normal human being. There is so much spiritual symbolism in spring. I was overwhelmingly reminded yesterday of the significance of spring in the Chronicles: when spring finally begins to shatter winter in Narnia, it's because Aslan has returned. It's a reminder that though he had gone away, and some people had given up hope that he would ever return, he comes back, and joy and life for the whole world comes with him. As always, Aslan is only a dim reflection of Jesus, who is no longer here walking on earth with us as a human. But when I see the snowdrops pushing up through the wet dirt, I remember him. And it makes me ache for him. I miss him, I miss his physical presence, in a weird and unexplainable way; how do you miss something you never had? But I can't wait until he comes to live with us again.







"Let us acknowledge the LORD;
let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth." Hosea 6:3

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'" Revelation 21:1-4

when he shakes his mane

Melody shared this with me. Best PostSecret I've seen in a long time.

"My lover spoke and said to me,
"Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.
See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come..."
Song of Solomon 2:10-12a

" Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises, he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth."
Hosea 6:3