2015 has So Much Potential…

I’m full of hope and excited to see what will happen in this new year!

This photo is from Napa Valley, CA.

By M. H. Campbell Copyright 2015

2014: A Growing Year

2014: A Year of Leaping Ahead, Falling on my face, and getting back up again: A beautiful year

Second graders singing, with me playing the piano. This year I got a keyboard and started playing piano again!
A chocolate and flower birthday with friends.
Flying to North Carolina for spring break, getting so sick, and celebrating about a friend having a baby (that arrived a few weeks ago).

Getting hired as a Bible/Writing teacher, moving to the city and getting a wonderful apartment. Moving in on the hottest day of the year!

My nephew’s first birthday (I made him his cake).

My sister married her best friend, Danny! A city wedding full of cream colored roses…

School started and the students learned, and I learned a lot. Then that job ended unexpectedly, and I rested, healed, and connected with lots of loving people. Now I’m tutoring at a community college! I hope soon I can be an adjunct professor…

Forgiveness works! God knows how to direct life well. I’m so thankful nephew knows my name, and I’m dating a great guy.

I never thought my year would end in Napa Valley, California meeting a great guy’s family and who I’m falling in love with…life gives you lots of challenges, but if you trust that God is guiding you, life may hurt for a while, but you heal and grow stronger.

2015 is going to be amazing! I wish you the best 2015–full of hope, joy, and lots of love.

By M. H. Campbell Copyright 2014

One Year of Blogging: Thank You for Joining Me!

I appreciate all of you who have joined me during this year of blogging about transitions through LIFE! My life is so much better now than last year: I’m going deeper into my career, I’m more fulfilled, more loved, and much more happy!

Last Easter to This Easter: A Year With a Lot of Endings (and a Few Amazing Beginnings)

Endings:
Graduating from Grad School!
A boyfriend ending things.
Moving out of a cute house where I lived with friends.
Lots of okay first dates.
Several second dates.
A few third dates and beyond, then an end. (I’ve found that having a song to listen to after a relationship doesn’t work out is so helpful. Mine is “This is not the End” by Gungor. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5Cjt83wWDk).
My brother-in-law passing away unexpectedly.
A friend from high school dying suddenly.
My grandma passing away.
Friends planning on moving away…

 
Yesterday was Good Friday, and it pushes you to consider death: Jesus, who didn’t have to die chose to die for us, so that we could have new life and hope if we accept his life in exchange for our wrong-doing. Because death is coming, we desire to fully experience the life we have.

When you fully embrace life, you get to feel greater pain, but also greater joy. If you’re numb then you don’t feel emotions fully. For example, my fears caused me to choose numbness for years, and I was able to “control” my life more, but life wasn’t very fun. Now that I’m learning to feel and not have the numbness, it seems like there’s more loss in my life, but also more joy!

Beginnings:
Life without classes hanging over my head!
A sister getting engaged, and her asking me to be her maid of honor.
Writing more consistently and sharing that writing through a blog.
Moving to a place with a bigger kitchen.
Meeting over a dozen different guys and learning a lot of insightful things from getting to know them a bit.
My nephew came into the world and has brought so much life, joy, and mirth!
New connections with my sisters.
Seeing young people at church and at work keep on growing up to become beautiful young people.

My experience is this: Even with all this messy life, I can have hope because Jesus died  AND ROSE AGAIN to bring new life.

Happy Easter!

Happy Jewish New Year– Rosh Hashanah begins tonight!

The passage of time is strange. It’s always moving, never stops, and is continual transition. Here in the United States we have two times where we think of a new year: our start of the calendar year on January 1st and the start of the educational year when school begins. However, many other new year celebrations abound!

Next winter, my students and I will celebrate the Chinese New Year as part of a unit on China. Last year we danced around our classroom with a dragon and gong! The paper lanterns the students made hung from the ceiling for months.

Another culture that has celebrated new years for millennia is the Jewish culture. Tonight begins the Jewish celebration of Rosh Hashanah, and the beginning of their 5774th calendar year. It’s a time to blow the ram’s horn, bless each other, and eat apples dipped in honey. (See http://www.chabad.org for more information.)

All these cultures are celebrating a transition from the old to the new. New year celebrations are a time to reflect, give thanks, and hope that the next year will be sweeter than the last.