I'm back, baby!

I, Daniela Orozco, by God's abundant and continuous grace, have just completed my junior year at California State University Northridge! I will be a senior next year. Frightening. But! I have an entire summer ahead of me before I have to think about that.

Last year, I posted a list of things I wanted to accomplish in the summer. The same goes for this summer. The difference is that this summer, I'm fortunate enough to not have to work. It's honestly a little bitter sweet. While we could definitely do great things with the extra income, not having work in the summer is going to be a blessing. I get to focus on my relationship with the Lord, serving my husband, and my commitment to my home. (The apartment looks like a disaster zone right now - as it always does the week after finals). I will have extra opportunity to spend time with friends and family, go hiking, read, and begin a project or two that have been on hold.

The plans for this summer (in no particular order):

- Catch up on my Bible reading plan. I'm several (SEVERAL)weeks behind.
- (FINALLY) Put together my wedding album.

- Read at least one new John Piper book - Probably Think

- Read at least one new C.S. Lewis book - Probably Til We Have Faces

Here are the two biggest projects and so they each deserve a paragraph worth of explanation.

First of all, memorizing scripture has always been a tremendous weakness for me. I can easily remember principles and doctrines, but I always have to look up where the evidence for those principles and doctrines are. To combat this unfortunate proclivity, my plan is to read even MORE C.S. Lewis fiction.

For a research paper on the influence of the Bible on C.S. Lewis fiction, I had to do a lot of cross references with certain C.S. Lewis novels and scripture. I found that those scriptural references remained a lot clearer in my mind for a longer period of time. So, big project #1 for this summer is to read through as many C.S. Lewis fiction as I can and write in the margins of the books the different scriptural references to characters, lines, situations, plots, etc.

Big project #2 is to begin on my book-writing endeavor. Many of you know that I have been wanting to begin writing a book exploring the spiritual perils of books like the Secret and other self-help new age nonsense. I plan on beginning my research for said book. All I need is to get MacArthur or Piper to write the forward and I'm set for a while.

In addition to these things, of course I'd like to make time to hike semi-regularly, keep up with a gym-schedule, keep the apartment presentable all the time, and try new recipes.

I also have one more significantly-smaller project concerning my blog. There are so many blogs out there whose thematic premise are things like, "Little things that make life great." I like the idea a lot, but considering it's very man-centered and ultimately temporal joys that will fade, I would like to regularly post things under the umbrella of, "Things that remind me of God's unwavering grace that result in my joy and admiration of his goodness." I don't think they put themes like that on coffee mugs, unfortunately.

The first thing that reminds me of God's unwavering grace that results in my joy and admiration of his goodness is.....

Sweet and juicy summer-time fruits :)