Hello Again

It has been a little while since I last posted...But only a little.
I have been busy with school work and my assistantship. Last week the place where I work, the Biggio Center for Enhancing Teaching and Learning, hosted a conference for engaging students in learning. It went very well and we were pleased with the number of people who attended, especially since it was our first try at this.
Now that that event is in the past I can focus on other stuff, like my thesis.
For those of you who are interested, I am done checking my data for errors and now I am looking at the characteristics of variables and fun stuff like that. The best part is that I am using a data analysis tool called structural equation modeling (SEM) for my thesis and I am in a SEM class and I am using my thesis as the project for that class. So, yes, the thesis will be done this semester. I am also taking a College Teaching course that is being taught by the head of the Biggio Center, and I am enjoying that class a lot.
Also, I am sitting in on our Advanced Research Methods class. When I took the course I didn't really understand everything that was going on, so this time around most of it is making sense.

I am working with Grace Campus Ministries again this semester, involved in community groups. I wasn't involved in community groups in the fall because I was afraid something with my program would fall through. Now that I am balancing my time between GCM and HDFS I find that I have time enough...amazingly enough.
Next weekend me and 3 other grad students are heading to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for a grad student conference called Quint State that involves HDFS programs from 5 universities. Also, because Greensboro is only 2 hours from where my sister and brother-in-law live they will come down for supper and bring my visiting parents with them.

So that's what's going on with me, in a very general way. But one last thing.
In January I was reading through the book of Matthew and several things were impressed upon my heart that had not been before.
One of them was in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28:
"Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and by burden is light."

But have you noticed what comes in the preceding verses?
verses 25 to 27: Jesus said, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

Jesus is plainly calling God His Father, and I think it is only because Jesus is in the Father that we can place our burdens on Jesus. He can handle it.
Colossians 1:17 says, [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
I think sometimes we are afraid of totally surrendering our concerns to Christ because we are afraid that things won't end the way that we see is best. Yet, time and time again we are asked to trust and surrender. But we must also remember that he is powerful enough, he is strong enough. He can handle it, and it is he who works. And he is faithful. This is lesson that needs several lessons to be learned but "oh how sweet to trust in Jesus."