Yay Good Conversation

So I've had a couple really good conversations with a few friends over the last day or two. They've given me a little perspective. I've been thinking a lot recently on faith, on what faith means and what all it entails. But now I'm getting ahead of myself. 

I had a great conversation with a friend the other night. Very down to earth, very real. We talked about all kinds of things. God, childhood, innocence, faith, sex, mercy and justice, God's presentation in the Bible, lifestyle choices. He and I agree on probably none of these things, and it was one of the most encouraging conversations I've had in a long time. He said something at one point that really struck me. We were discussing my beliefs, and I was saying that I'm very open to being questioned about and challenged on my faith, because if I can't question it, I can never be sure of it. It's only if my beliefs can stand up to doubt that they can really be real. 

Anyway, right after that, he told me that be that as it may, he couldn't ask me the same types of things he would ask a normal friend. The kinds of things "the faithful don't talk about." I think he was expressing a really common stereotype (a stereotype that's far too often the truth) about Christians that I really have a problem with. 

My faith encompasses all of my life. There are no parts of it where it's like, "Hold on, this subject makes God uncomfortable. Let's not talk about it ever." My faith doesn't fit in a little box that I take out whenever it seems relevant to my current situation. Too many people pick out the parts of their faith that they can share in every day life and then just don't ever go near the parts that might seem awkward or uncomfortable. But God doesn't work like that. You can't out-awkward God. There's no question you can ask Him that's going to make Him blush and stammer. A faith that only pertains to some parts of your life and not others is not a faith worth having.

Every lifestyle choice I make is a direct result of God's love for me. It's not because of some arbitrary rule or some law that the Church preaches. My faith is real - I've questioned it, I've doubted it, I've really looked at it so that I'm not believing anything blindly but really understanding what I believe and why. It doesn't shy away from the hard things about life. It's not poetic little sayings that I can throw out when the going gets tough. The world is messed up, and terrible things happen every day. My friend I was talking to was telling me stories of things he'd gone through that absolutely broke my heart. 

God sees, and God knows. He sees our pain and He grieves right alongside us. He doesn't ever sit idly by and watch us struggle and hurt. He is always actively working in our lives. His goal for us is not to punish us for our wrongdoings; it's for us to come back to Him and see the absolute love, acceptance, and joy that comes through - and only through - a personal relationship with Him. 

That's radical. It's life-changing. Once you have experienced the love of God, you can't live the same way anymore. 

I feel kind of like I'm in a little faith bubble here. And in a way, it's been good. I've got a fantastic group of friends that are a solid foundation for me. God has blessed me with an absolutely amazing church whose goal is the Gospel and nothing else. I've been trained here. And I know I have a lot of training left, a lot of the world yet to see and understand. But I'm getting anxious. I'm ready to be out of my bubble. I want to be somewhere where I can share Christ with people and watch Him change their lives. I know that He can do it. I've heard other people's stories. And I want to experience it for myself.

The Gospel isn't quiet. It's aggressive, and it's offensive. It makes people uncomfortable. And shouldn't it? It challenges everything they believe and cling to. If we weren't made uncomfortable, we would never see that something was amiss. And if we never saw anything was amiss, we would never start to look for a solution for it. Fortunately for us, God already provided a solution. And the power of the resurrection is unstoppable. It'll change your life if you let it. I did, and I ain't never turning back. :)

Dook Game!

Today was the Dook game! And boy it took some preparation.

First of all, I've spent the weekend with my adopted family, who has been just amazingly sweet and helpful and generous (especially considering they're all Dookies! Though I've been working on the four-year-old ... ). They took me on a last-minute run over to Raleigh to get us facepaint so we'd be able to paint our faces Carolina blue for the game. I love you, Jeremy and Robin!

Cat, Leigh, Tyler, and I met up right after church to dye our hair and paint our faces. We made a huge mess but it was lots of fun! I decided that as it was my last game as a student and the Dook game, I wasn't holding back. I did silly hair (as a general rule, I don't wear pigtails) and we got to work with the dye and paint. 

This photo seems somewhat narcissistic to me, but it was the best I could find that showed both my hair and my face. 

I met my friend Ben at the Dean Dome about 3 hours before the game so we could wait in line to get in. We had Phase Two tickets, but somehow when it came time for us to get in the Dome, there were still riser seats left! I was BESIDE myself I was so excited! So to the risers we went! Two hours to game time, and no sitting down. The humidity from several hundred people standing together for hours on end was oppressive and it got real hot down there real fast. But we were right on the floor!

It was like I could reach out and hug them all right there on the court!

The only thing weird is that they wouldn't let us have any water in the risers. Apparently they were concerned we were going to throw the water bottles at the players. Seriously? It was so hot down there, access to water would have been cherished! We wouldn't have wasted it on throwing it at players! A friend of mine actually passed out during the senior speeches after the game. At that point we'd been standing for almost five hours, only able to grab sips of water if we left the riser area. She's okay, but the principle stands. Let the people have water!

The game was really good. We had to fight to win it, but we managed to scrape by. Dook was up one at half, but whatever pep talk Roy gave the boys at half must have helped, because second half we played better and managed to get a lead and mostly keep it. Winning made us regular season ACC champs, so we got to watch our team cut down the net right in front of us after the game. After that was senior speeches, since it was our seniors' last home game. We had 7: J.B. Tanner, Jack Wooten, Pat Moody, Mike Copeland, Danny Green, Bobby Frasor, and Tyler Hansbrough. We're losing so many! They all gave really sweet speeches, and if Bobby Frasor had turned around and asked me to marry him on the spot, I'd've said yes without even hesitating. But I digress. Tyler's voice was breaking through his whole speech and you could tell he was on the edge of tears the whole time. I was really glad I got to be there to see all our seniors!

Post game, Tyler, Cat, Leigh, Ben, Danny, and I met back up all together and then we took a celebratory Taco Bell run. But not before Leigh's dad got a super cute pic of those of us who had painted up!

From left: Tyler, Leigh, me, and Cat. GO HEELS!

All in all, a good day. Soooo glad I got a ticket. And so glad we won! It was exhausting (slept until 11 the next morning lol) and it felt fantastic to shower and get all the paint and dye off me, but man - it was fun. :D

Punny

Q: What do you call a toothless grizzly bear?

A: A gummy bear.

Come on, you know it made you laugh!

In other news, my summer plans have been firmed up, so I'm going to go live with Tricia this summer. I'm super excited! Taco Bell within walking distance = Heaven. I'ma start calling around for jobs next week hopefully.

In other news, application is going well. Have a bunch of writing to do, most of which will happen over spring break (only one more week of class!). Once I get that stuff in, I'm pretty much done with the application, which I am excited about. Woot. 

In other news, God has blessed me with some great friends recently. It's funny how He does that out of nowhere. For the last couple months I've just sort of been chilling and doing my own thing, but God's been showing me that He doesn't want me to be complacent and content with that and to prove it He's been throwing people at me that as far as I can tell He wants me to cultivate friendships with. I love people, so it's pretty exciting. 

In other news, a few friends and I have decided that the BCM here on campus is not nearly as social as it should be, so we're gonna start making social events and such to get people more involved. I'm excited about that, as well. We're also going to clean out the attic at the house that BCM owns and organize it and find all kinds of cool stuff hidden up there (We found a 72" inflatable ball! Can anyone say Super Awesome Game Day?!). We were up exploring it at like 2am last night and it was superfun. Now we're all motivated to clean it up. There's all kinds of BCM history up there going back to the 40s, and we want to find that and make it accessible to everyone. We'll proly have an attic-cleaning day soon after spring break. I'm excited about that too.

So, overall, lots of exciting things going on. Yay God and yay friends!