I Love Friends

So... here's the scoop. Katie Hammar is in town from this past weekend til this coming Tuesday sometime. But, I just found out today. Grumble. But, I was over at HTC and guess who stops by.... If you guessed Ms. Hammar give yourself one pat on the back... no more than one, cause it was easy. Anyways, we end up having just a great long conversation about life and it was sooo refreshing. So thank you Katie, you brightened my day and life.

In other news Jonnie is coming up this tomorrow... or I guess today either way I'm pumped. I'm loving my friends so much right now. Lots of reminising tonight. I also want to make a "power trip" through the lower peninsula and maybe into Ohio to see people this Thanksgiving break. We'll see if it works out.

I love life.

Currently Listening to... Bad Reputation by Death Cab for Cutie
Currently Reading... Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

For once I don't even know what to say...

Just click here to see why.

Retreat!

Well. This last weekend was pretty intense for me. It was retreat weekend for CCC. It wasn't intense because the speaker was incredible, that being the main reason that it usually is for me. The speaker basically talked about what I have be harping on and trying to do myself since this semester began. Live an authentic life. Need more clarification? Fine then. Living a transparent life. Living a life with nothing to hide. Finding your identity in Christ and living it. I've actively been trying to live this way more and more starting this last summer and maybe a little bit into last spring semester. So most of what he said resonated with me, but it was old news.

That's all great Dan, but why was your weekend so intense then? Well, I'll take them one at a time.

Praise
It's funny that this is one of the reasons, because I really wasn't able to praise well with NMU's band up there. Sorry guys. But I was able to praise well the last half of out first set and on Sunday's set. I had a semi-solo with Alex on guitar and Bill on violin singing Your Love is Extravagant. I was in it there. Don't get it? Watch the movie and thank me later. But the praise highlight of the weekend was after our Friday night praise band practice where me and Alex stuck around and just kept playing and praising God. It was moving... so we went and grabbed people from the rooms at like one o'clock and had a spontaneous group praise. It was wonderful.

Rest
This is particularly funny as I got maximum 4 hours of sleep each night. But we prayed for rest and God definately granted it as I was wide awake and functional when I was awake. So that rocked. Also, me and some of the guys slept outside each night and it was just great bonding time with some people I didn't know too well and others that I did. Good times.

Workshops
Or workshop... I went to Ryan Stanski's first and it was again, things I've already heard before. But then came the highlight of my year. Dan Konstanski talked about freedom from sin. He used Romans alot in his talk, which for anyone who knows me is beyond great. He talked about different agreements that we may have made and that by buying into these agreements that are not necessarily a sin we accept a clause with them that is. And the clause is what we focus on. We focus on mopping the floor and not fixing the hole in the ceiling. And that hole in the ceiling can only be fixed by God, and asking for his mercy. And it hit me like a load of bricks... to the face. I had been feeling so guilty about my inability to stop this sin in my life, (see here) , and just dying inside. And this is what I needed to hear.

What can I say other than that life is good and I love it. Oh, and if that wasn't enough it was my two year anniversary on Sunday. So... yay!

Currently listening... Neutral Milk Hotel live in Auckland, New Zealand
Currently reading... Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton