One Month: Lessons, Faith Questions, + Incident Reports.

Last year, almost around this time but not quite, I was writing a one month blog post for my time in Montréal.

As of yesterday, I've been living in a house with nine other students (and two Residence Directors) for a month.

This first month being back at school has been quite different than my first month in Montréal was, but as it turns out, there are still some similarities. I re-read my one month in Montréal post and in that, I shared five lessons that I had learned during my first 30 days.

backyard cotton candy sky viewsss.

This time around, I've once again recognized that transitions are rough, you need to have people in your corner, and everything will be different, and that's okay.

These lessons are all less in-your-face (or my face, rather) than they seemed to be last year, because I'm living in my home province this time - only one hour away from home, and I'm pretty used to the "being in school" vibes from prior years of life.

It's been great being back in the classroom, actually; I've realized I missed it more than I ever imagined I would. Today we finished studying through Genesis, and I've been learning so much! I mean, I learned a lot throughout my undergrad, but that was a whole different ball game because I was taking general studies courses, theology courses, and music courses. The program I'm in now is completely different because we're spending the whole year studying through the Bible, and that's it. No music courses, philosophy, hermeneutics, ethics, or anything like that.

During my undergrad studies I was in a different mindset faith-wise as well. I was in a place, mentally, where I was simply taking in everything that I was learning. In my program this year, my headspace is more inquisitive and thoughtful; on the first day of class I almost had a crisis of faith while we were talking about whether the Bible should be taken at face value or metaphorically. It was actually pretty cool; I was happy with myself for really thinking about the things I'm learning instead of immediately accepting everything that I'm being told.

Over the past two weeks, another lesson I've been learning is about bruises. How big they can be, how dark purple they can turn, and how long they last. This lesson has been less fun.

I've been called both "Bruiser", and "A Walking Incident Report" over the past 72 hours. I now have a fear of wooden staircases, doors, and the wind. Be glad you're not me. 🙃 Orrrrr just send a giant roll of bubble wrap my way asap, please and thank you.

My most recent incident report-worthy escapade happened almost 24 hours ago now. Fun fact: I actually intended to write my one month post yesterday, but spent my evening in the ER instead. Here's the story, because it's pretty iconic actually:

One of the assignments we have for school is to memorize a small section of Scripture each month, so yesterday I'd set a reminder for 5:00pm to remind me to work on memorizing that. I decided I'd go outside on the front porch to work on that task, so I grabbed my sheet of paper and the iced coffee I'd made and went to go outside. The thing is, someone in the house had opened up the screen door in the back, and it was a pretty windy day. So when I opened the front door as well, the house essentially turned into a wind tunnel and as I reached back to close the door, the wind whipped it closed on my fingers.

'All I wanted to do was memorize a Bible passage!!!' is what I thought to myself as I sat on the front porch, trying to get a grip before re-entering the house to find a driver who could take me to the hospital. After all that, I ended up memorizing half of the passage while waiting to get x-rays done in emerge, so I guess that's good...??

Last week I fell down the stairs by the way, hence the "Walking Incident Report" nickname. But that all seems like a distant memory now in light of more recent events.

Aaall in all, month one has been quite memorable. It's had its ups and downs as you can obviously tell but, in the grand scheme of things, isn't life just one big ol' rollercoaster of ups and downs? Tell me I'm wrong... Except don't actually.

Like I said in my Montréal one month post when talking about how different you realize everything becomes in a new phase of life:

"Sometimes the "different-ness" of it all will feel like a lot. It will feel like it's consuming you. But it will be okay. Because while everything is different, you can rest assured that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8), and it's that truth that will hold you up during the uncertainties of the "different-ness"."