It has been a hellish couple of days. The end of the year is most definitely NOT a sprint. It is a marathon. A grueling, painful, emotionally trying marathon.

Thursday night, my friends and I had a cookout at Northside Park. We had SO much fun. It was hosted by some of the guys and they bought food and we cooked hotdogs and made s'mores and just sat around the fire and laughed. Mostly all of my favorite people from Wheaton were there, so it was the perfect end to the year. After we drove back to school, I said goodbye to some of my friends and headed upstairs. Laura, Amy, Megan and I finished "Pearl Harbor" and cried our eyes out. Then I had to say goodbye to Megan and Adrienne.

I woke up early yesterday so I could say goodbye to Brands. She actually started crying as she was walking off the floor so Laura, Amy and I ran up to her and we all had out last group hug as a suite. I had a ton more packing to do, so I resumed. Then, I had an extremely entertaining lunch with Laurelin and her parents. Afterward, I said my final goodbyes then headed downstairs to catch the cab to the airport.

The cab never came. Turns out the company had the wrong day. So another one came at 3:15, when my flight was at 5. I was very, very worried that I would not make the flight. We pull up the curbside check-in and there's about 5 people ahead of me. So I waited for about 10 minutes, which was worrying me in and of itself. I got through, checked my bags (which were 49.0 and 50.1 lbs... go me) with three minutes to spare before they closed check-in for 5:00 fligths, and RAN to the security line. Well... it was the longest security line I've ever seen at O'Hare, so I almost started crying thinking that I made it this far and I'm going to miss my flight. My dad says to ask politely to cut to the front of the line. So I did. I got to the ID checkpoint and the women behind me were like you should just keep going! so I did. I got through security in three minutes. THREE. Those poor people were probably waiting for an hour. I put my shoes on and RAN down to E12, which if you know this terminal, is almost a mile away from security. I found a seat, collapsed and called my dad. I said, "I'm here!" and he asked where and I said, "At the gate!" He didn't believe me because I had called about 5 minutes earlier about the security line. He said later that about 30 seconds before I called, he and Peter had prayed for me to make the flight. Then the phone rang. And I was there. I made the flight. I think- no, I KNOW- that was a miracle. God got me to the airport in time, He checked my suitcases in time, He made the bags weigh under 50 lbs, He got me through security (if you saw my carry-on bags, that in itself is a miracle), and He got me to the gate before boarding began. I don't know what else you can call that. And, on top of all that, I didn't have to sit in the airport for 4 hours!!! My flight was on time (mostly) for the first time in a VERY long time. I almost started crying as I was sitting there completely out of breath waiting to get on the plane. It couldn't have worked out more perfectly if I had tried. When I sat- no, collapsed- down finally in my dad's car last night, I let out the biggest sigh of my life. God is so good. If He was watching me yesterday through that all, He is going to be watching me in Argentina, making sure everything goes smoothly. He's got me in His hands. That's all that matters right now.

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:1-6

In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Colossians 2:11-15

Tonight at church, we each had the opportunity to pound a nail into a wooden cross. I wanted to pound and beat that nail in as hard as I could, as if the farther the nail went in, the more forgiven I was. But as I was pounding the nail in, trying to hold back tears, I realized it made no difference how much energy I used to nail it in, because that was already done for me two thousand years ago. That was when the latter verse came to mind: "He took it away, nailing it to the cross." It's gone. As far as the east is from the west. Everything I've ever repented of, everything I've ever repented of and returned to. It's all gone. And if God is for me, who can be against me?