"At 2211 College View Drive..."

Many good things have happened in my life this semester... and some hard, devastating things... but God has been good throughout both kinds of things, so I have been learning to take it all in strides.

I got to look at the stars tonight, up at Brandy Creek Beach in Whiskeytown. Went with a huge group of friends (steer-headed by the ever initiating and persuasive Matthew Lopez, of course) and we froze our butts off while naming constellations that didn't exist (though, they do now!) and taking pictures as if every flash would be the last blinding light to impair our vision for the following twenty minutes. It's moments like those that make me realize college is an incredible experience to be treasured...even well into the last semester of your senior year.

I wouldn't be the way I am without college...without Simpson, more specifically. Classes have taught me how to think--dorms have taught me how to feel. The Spiritual Formation department here has guided me in so many things, and the faculty and staff, who I owe my ever developing theologically-overloaded-but-essentially-still-hungry mind to, have profoundly impacted my worldview in ways I cannot forget. And because of God's grace--because of God's love--I have overcome things within the property lines of this school address ("Here at 2211 College View Drive..." as Travis Osborne says) that I would never trade for an 'easier way'... Because when I think about God now, He really IS a gracious God who loves and bestows mercy unimaginable...
And knowing this God to the core of my being is what I long for more everyday...what I find has undone me enough so He can be making me over and over. This God does not look at me and say, "Bad"--He has only ever said, "Good," from the very beginning--but He does say "Be made new." With the Word of Christ, God's Voice has resounded, "NEW CREATION!"

At that Voice, my knees keep hitting the floor. I approach God, and I love Him with such a surprising fear--a good fear--while He lifts my face to His and says, "I am making you in Christ... 'If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!' and I am making you in Christ."

I am left on my knees after moments like those...trying to decide if I ever want to leave that place... but God does not leave me there--He does not just speak those things so that I may freeze there, soberly humiliated all my life... He wants me to step into that re-making...and into the new creation of Christ.

...Simpson has been a place where this is happening--for me, for many others. It has been a space to learn--cultivated by those who have looked to see what God is doing and moved by His anointing to participate in some way. It has been a home in which I have learned to listen to the voice of my Father, (though through ears so imperfect), and longed to believe what He says (though through doubts so impeding).

So when I say that many good things have happened this semester, I do take for granted the many GOOD things that have been happening every semester...

It is in this semester, though, that I'm beginning to recognize the fullness of it all...God's fuller story in me...

And it is this semester that has pleasantly surprised me with another story... one about the community of schoolmates, the simple joy of star-gazing, and the delightful blushings of really really (REALLY) good weeks...

:)...