I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live...: November has come and gone...

Hello, hello, hello! :)

I am so sorry it has been literally over a month since I've had a chance to update you wonderful friends and family I have who take a few seconds to catch up with me via this blog! Things have been absolutely INSANE! Which is clearly why I haven't updated my blog in so long! Let's see. The last time I updated, we were getting ready to sing the Brahms at the Kimmel Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Talk about an AMAZING opportunity!!! It was crazy! We had 3 performances that were just breathtaking every single time. I am literally still amazed at the opportunities that I have been given since starting school here! I mean really, in less than two months, I sang with both the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra... talk about crazy! Our soprano soloist, Dorothea Röschmann, was absolutely AMAZING and I got my picture taken with her! And the conductor, Maestro Yannick Nezet-Seguin, was absolutely remarkable - he did the entire Brahms from memory, with no score! I just - wow. That man has such an enormous and remarkable love for what he's doing that it just pours out of every single thing he says and does. It was simply absolutely inspiring to work with him!

And then! The weekend after the Brahms I FINALLY MOVED!!! :) The good ol'Scott Ziegler made his first appearance to Princeton to help me move and oh my gosh, I'm so thankful! Talk about a crazy busy weekend... I'm not sure how I got anything done school wise, because it was crazy trying to get moved out of the old place and into the new! But alas, I now have a new amazing home that I am so thankful for, and somewhere where I am not treated like a constant plague. It's such a great thing!

Then the NEXT weekend, a few girlfriends and I went to New York City for the weekend to go to the Metropolitan Opera, sightsee, and to go to the Hillsong Church! Talk about an AMAZING experience! Wow! I got to ride the train for the first time ever, which was super exciting! lol. And then also we got to spend the weekend with my friend Anna, who I was so blessed to be able to spend time with when I was at IUP! It was SO STINKING GOOD TO SEE HER! Oh my goodness. And the whole entire weekend was just absolutely phenomenal! Saturday when we got there, Karisa and Sara went to go see the Bodies exhibit, so Carola and I just strolled all around NYC literally for like 5 hours! hahaha. I'm pretty sure we managed to make it through all of Central Park... it was such a blast! And then that night we went to see Rodelinda at the Metropolitan Opera! OH MY GOSH IT WAS AMAZING! Renée Fleming was the lead! And I was in heaven getting to see the very woman who fostered in me such a love of opera and classical music sing on stage with my very eyeballs! It was so cool. AND THEN I GOT TO MEET HER! And we literally had like a 5 minute conversation! She was so excited I went to IUP because she was born in Indiana! And then I was even more excited, because she was excited, and it was this whole awesome ball of excitement! hehehehe! Then we were up bright and early to go to the Hillsong Church that Sunday morning, and to our surprise Brooke Fraser was there leading worship! It was just - wow. I am literally speechless thinking about all the amazing things that happened that weekend! I took a bajillion pictures, all of which I immediately put on facebook! :)

We only had 2 days of school then once we got back from NYC before I got to head home for Thanksgiving break! I'm telling you, these past few weeks have been so absolutely crazy and I am shocked I got anything done! hahaha! Which is why I haven't had even the slightest second to update this crazy blog! Thanksgiving was so bittersweet. I got to take my wonderful friend Karisa home with me, and what a whirlwind tour of home that was for her! (As you can imagine... hehehe!) We had such a blast and such a crazy busy week, full of so much laughter and so much fun! Wednesday we got to spend some time with Jenner, Sean, and Larry, all of which was a blast! It still isn't real to me that Sean Cogan is my high school choir director. I love it! :) And then Thursday was THANKSGIVING and SO MUCH FUN!!!!! Oh I love my family. :) Friday, I went Black Friday shopping for the first time EVER! Which was crazy and scary and fun all at the same time! hahaha! Then Saturday we got to relax for a bit, go to the Christmas parade, and spend some much needed time just hanging around the house. :) And then before I knew it, it was time to go back to New Jersey!

And so then we came back. And I got insanely sick. I'm still fighting whatever it is I got. It seriously came out of nowhere. We got back from break Sunday, and Monday I started with some crazy cough - swore to myself I wasn't getting sick, and then Tuesday woke up to realize I sounded like an 80 year old asthmatic man who still smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. It was nuts! So pretty much the past 2 weeks, all I've been able to do, is get out of bed long enough to go to my classes and then come home and sleep. That is quite literally all I have done. I've missed so much work, which kills me because I'm going to be gone without a chance to work for a month, but my boss is just so great! (Both of them!) Rena, my supervisor, told me that she thinks I just got so sick because I wanted to make her worry! lol. She's been telling me she's now become my mother away from home... oh, I love that woman! I called my doctor, got an antibiotic, took it in its entirety, slept like it was my job, ran my humidifier on overdrive, and did everything that one is supposed to when they're as sick as I was. I have a doctor's appointment for when I get home this week, and so hopefully we'll have some answers then! I'm just kind of riding on knowing that whatever is going on, the Lord will keep me in His hand, as healthy as I need to be whenever He decides! And that He'll keep me going enough until I can get home to my Momma who will infinitely make everything better. <3 (And Grammy, too!)

Needless to say, the past 2 weeks have been really hard - trying to finish everything I've needed to for school, trying to find energy to do what I need to do, all amidst this awful sickness. I don't ever remember being this sick, except for when I was little and in the hospital with croup or during 6th grade when I had tonsillitis once a month until they took those suckers out. So that too has made this extremely difficult. And on top of being sick, there have been some things here that have completely broken my heart, without really a better way to say it. Things that have left me lost, confused, and extremely hurt... and really confused about whether I really am here for the right reasons/if I should really be here, putting myself through this and into so much more debt. So it's just been a really difficult few weeks, and I am so extremely ready to just go home, spend so many wonderful weeks there, visiting Indiana, where my heart still remains, and hopefully finding the time I need to just relax and remember why it is I am here in the first place. I still believe that this is where the Lord has brought me, but it's just become a little harder for me to trust and rest in that with everything that's going on all around me. Though this is the perfect time for me to cling to Him even more. When we went to the Hillsong Church, the man who gave the message said this at one point:

"The Lord is with you in the highs and in the lows! Always He's with you! He wants to see you through! Oh the places you'll go and the things you'll do! If you don't appreciate the lows, you'll never appreciate the highs! He is God when things are going wrong, too! No man is strong enough to push back what God is pushing forward. No matter how big the task is, He is bigger to keep you in it!"

I find that so comforting. Especially right now, in the middle of this mess I've found myself in! So for right now, all I know to do, all I need to do, is cling to my Jesus - knowing that it doesn't matter what it looks like I'm going through right now, it doesn't matter how it appears that it will turn out, none of it matters because all that matters is as long as I seek Him, and keep my heart in His, I can rest knowing that He has greater plans for me than I could ever imagine, plans for good not for bad, and that it will all be okay. It has to be, because He promises that it will be! He loves me. He hears me. And He comforts me and meets my every need. How blessed am I?

"This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles."

- Psalm 34:6

"Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness."

- Lamentations 3:22-23