Update...

I added some pics to my slide show. Give that a look.

Ponder in Your Heart

Each Christmas I enjoy looking at the Christmas story in the Bible. I seem to notice new things each year, or something imparticular will get my attention. One verse I have tried to think about this year is Luke 2:19, which says, "But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart." Seeing the movie The Nativity Story made me think about the meaning of this verse and "all these things" that Mary was pondering. So many amazing events occured that first Christmas season, from the unlikely birth of John the Baptist to the visits of the shepherds and the wise men. Mary had a lot to think about.

This Christmas, I'm trying to "ponder all these things in my heart," both about the Christmas story and about how God has blessed my own life.

One thing I love about the Christmas story is the simplicity of the Christmas message: There has been born a Savior; he is Christ, the Lord. Right there in one verse from the Christmas story is the gospel in a nutshell. There is a Savior! Jesus came to save us from our sins. That's good news. I've also been thinking about the prophetic implications of Christmas this year. Myriads of prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus' birth. Pastor MacArthur talked about many of these prophecies last night at church and did not begin to scratch the surface. However, even more myriads of prophecies remain unfulfilled. Christ is coming again, and we should be anticipating that like Simeon was anticpating his first coming. (Luke 2:25-35)

This Christmas I've also been pondering how God has blessed by life, specifically through my family, my friends, and my future semester at IBEX. I will never stop giving thanks for my family. One cool thing about my family this year has been that it has grown! I now have a nephew and a new sister! Tyler is the cutest little dude I know, and it has been so much fun to watch Billy and Cory get engaged and get married. God has also blessed me with great friends. This last week I traveled to Yosemite with people I have made friends with over the past couple years and even the past couple weeks. God is so faithful to continue to bring godly friends into my life. At the same time, I still enjoy keeping in touch with some good friends from high school. Just this afternoon I got a call from my friend Richard; we enjoyed catching up and thinking about all that has happened in our lives since our BA days. Finally, I'm so thankful for the opportunities I have to travel this next semester to Israel. It should be an awesome learning experience, and it should be some of the most fun I've ever had. I'm really excited about the group of people with which I will be traveling.

It's been a good Christmas here in Santa Clarita. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the break hanging out with friends and family and getting ready for Israel. Hopefully, I'll be blogging it up, too! Have a great Christmas.

Hello (Again), Bedford Falls

My most sincere apologies. First, I have abondoned the blogosphere for quite a while now. Second, I gave you (the reader) no warning of when I might leave and when I might come back. I simply left you to come back and look at an outdated post about USC football.

All that being said, I'm back. First, let me tell you what I've been up to that has kept me from blogging. Second, let me tell you my hopes for the near future of "Step Onto Liquid."

On the Sunday night after Thanksgiving, I recall telling a friend over the phone as I drove back to school, "I feel like I'm about to be shot out of a cannon." That's exactly what it felt like. The last three weeks of school was intense academically. I had to wrap up all my classes. That included reading books, answering a lot of questions, practicing piano, and taking some intense finals. Also, I produced the fifth edition of the Hotchkiss Starlet CD. This cd is a collection of music (both original and not) that the men of Hotchkiss give to the women every year or so. Making the CD was a blast, but it made for some late nights of recording/editing. I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

When school ended, I quickly shifted into an action packed first week of Christmas Break. As soon as I finished my last exam, I loaded up all my stuff in my car and drove home, only to get in another car and go to my brother Billy's wedding rehearsal. Billy's wedding was a blast. It was so much fun to see how excited he and Cory were, and I also enjoyed hanging out with the guys in the wedding party. (Check out Billy's blog for Maui pics, and Matt Rehrer's for good wedding shots.)

After the wedding, I drove down to Vista (near San Diego) and spent the weekend hanging out with friends. On Tuesday, I returned to the area to help a friend move to Escondido. Northern Sand Diego County is a really nice spot. Orange County is pretty nice, too. I got to go there on Wednesday to visit Bobby, Christa, and my little nephew Tyler.

In between those two events, I got to play golf at Trump National with my dad, my grandpa, and my uncle. Trump National is the nicest course I've ever played, and I don't know if I'll ever say that again (unless I play Pebble Beach.) The course twice brought us all to our knees. First, it astonished us with its beauty. You can see the ocean from every hole on the course, and the sky was so clear that day, it made Catalina look two miles away. Second, it demolished our golf game. If you don't bring your "A game" to Trump, you get an F (as in "You're Fired.")

Thursday I took off on an amazing road trip to Yosemite National Park with a few friends. By the time we made it to the park, we had already had a blast just having fun on the drive up. At the park, we got to enjoy the awesomeness of so much beauty crammed into one valley. IT was also the closest experience I've ever had to a White Christmas. Yosemite is definitely a place I plan on going back to. Hopefully, I'll add some pics of that trip soon.

Yesterday, I got to rest. It was the first day I had spent completely in the Santa Clarita Valley in over a week. So to make what has turned out to be a really long story short, I'm back to blogging. Here's the quick vision for what I'm hoping to blog over the next sixth months. Over the rest of Christmas Break, I'm hoping to continue blogging as I was before I stopped three weeks ago. All of this will be gearing up for IBEX. On January 20th, I will be leaving for Israel. I will be spending all of next semester there before returning in early May. I'm hoping/planning on blogging from Israel, so hopefully I will be building blog-momentum until that will carry over into the Israel trip.

That's it for the update. Have a great Christmas Eve. Watch It's a Wonderful Life tonight at 8/7c on NBC.

What do you know about that, Bert!?