pizza and better office space

It's been a really long weekend, friends. But it was good.

I spent most of my weekend on a guy's retreat, with some boys from my youth group. We spent 3 days on a small lake near long stretches of ranch land and rolling hills. Driving there it felt like the movie "Open Range".

At night the moon mirrored on the lake perfectly, setting up an atmosphere of loons and frogs, the sound carrying across the surface of the lake. It was really more beautiful than I can describe with prose right now.

Then yesterday I spent the day at a silent retreat place called "The Mark Centre". Me and some young adults read books, talked about life, ate food together, and enjoyed a day of quiet, which is a nice thing to have every so often in the chaos of life.

I had a lot of conversations this week, mostly about the love of God. From what I have read, and heard from a lot of interviews on "The Hour", a lot of people don't like God. Sometimes it feels like the God they are talking about hates them, or else could care less about what they do. The God they talk about, in fact, seems to do more harm than good via the people who call him friend.

I have a problem with this, because I have this image of God as a lot more loving than that... a lot more gracious than all the rules and legalisms that Christians tie to God.

So here is what I came up with in my reflections. There are two basic, essential, truths I have of God. The first is that God likes me, likes me, and nothing I can do will change that. The second is that I am trying. I'm trying to be a good person and figure out life, and that, I think, is all God expects of me.

And this kind of love is really hard for me to accept, because I grew up feeling worthless a lot of the time. In the working world our worth is defined by what we can do. The people with the highest skills get money, success, and value. But a lot people with low social skills- the mentally handicapped, the abused- are deemed worthless.

In light of this, the love God is supposed to have for us is opposite. Essentially, I don't have to do anything to deserve love, and I don't have to carry all the guilt or shame from mistakes I made in the past.

Really, this should free me, us, up to enjoy life. Even if I am feeling broken most days, I want to know that I have love to look forward to everyday. The question "am I loved" should not even come into my mind, as much as the question of "what can I figure out today" should.

One thing I have said in conversation before is that "If life feels easy for me, I'm probably not being honest with myself". To be honest is to know I have a lot of hurt to carry, and having the humbleness to give that up. In the end, I think it is more humble for me to accept that I am loved and cared for, rather than always thinking God's love is only given to those people who are good enough.

I am good enough. Right now. And that is what makes the difference.

In case you are wondering what my "today" is like, today is my first day working in the office, at my first Youth Ministry job ever. The beauty of working here is that things like solitude, praying, reading and meeting with friends is part of my job. So far, I am loving it.

More to come.

PS- please ask me any questions if anything I just said sounds confusing. It's really tough trying to transfer really good conversations into semi- good journal entries sometimes.

Later.