God is good.
Today has really been a stellar day. Nothing BIG or earth-shattering happened today, but I think that's how God has 'wowed' me with with His goodness. Just from a refreshing church service this morning, to spending quality time with my roommate, to being taken to a grocery store by a friendly neighbor, to a night worship service and an invitation from the twenty something crowd there to spend the evening with them, God revealed Himself to me today. Seeing Him involved in "small" things is a real blessing that I hope will happen more often. Having my "small" things be so good is what makes a day a stellar day.
We were eating pizza, drinking beer and soda, and throwing bean bags into platforms in a competitive game and I marveled at how God designed us.
Here was a whole crowd of people that I just very recently met who embraced me and loved me as their own. God created us so that doing something as simple as a backyard game of "corn-hole" (the bean bag toss) we could coax every ounce of pleasure and enjoyment out of it. Our security is in Christ and our identity is in the LORD, therefore the joining together of ourselves is good, beneficial, and every bit a part of being a part of God's Kingdom as evangelism, worship services, mission work, etc.
I'm just really happy here.
At our orientation one of the people who was on the admissions selection team gave us a vision casting talk. He told us how he's heard all of our testimonies, he's read all of the letters of recommendation, and had the pleasure of talking to most of us already. He's been privy to the powerful stories of God working diligently in all of our lives to bring us to this same point. He was marveling at how amazing God is and how much treasure there is in being able to discovery wonderful things about one another. He told us to treasure each other and dig into one another's lives because he knows how much treasure there is to be found. His repeated line was, "I wish I could tell you... but I can't tell you." Let me tell you, as I was sitting around a table on the deck of a new friend's house I found real delight in hearing bits and pieces of these people's lives. They went on to tell me how difficult seminary can be. Everyone over the last weekend has been telling us just exactly how profoundly difficult these next few years will be, but also exactly just how worth it it all is. I never had so much fun hearing about how hard life might become.
Life here isn't perfect.
I've already struggled a decent amount with lonliness, feelings of inadqueacy, fear, and doubt. I'm pretty sure that I decided to take all of those pictures during my car ride because I was struck by the lonliess of being in a car for so long, expirencing so many things, and not having anyone to share it with. I had this impulse to share my life so I started taking all of these pictures and fantasized about the video I was soon to create and how impressed everyone would be. What it ended up being was an amazing opportunity for me really to turn to the LORD and realize that He really wanted me to share that time with Him first. He wants me to let Him into all of the areas of my life and to enjoy a long car ride with me.
Life isn't perfect, but God is wooing me to Himself (we studied Hosea in church this morning) and as part of that process He's led me to St. Louis. Really, I am eager for life here!