the process goes so slow

but keep faith,
keep faith.

today was yet another great day, and for that i'm thankful. it started out with a really great lunch with courtney at aron's? deli, where we stuffed our faces with some really great sandwiches dipped in an amazing special sauce. we left there and went to the pet store to get courtney a beta fish, which was a mistake. never, ever, should two people as indecisive as us, be given 30 choices of fish. we were there for at least an hour, looking at fish. we would find one with a big tail, but it would have an ugly face, so we would pick out another one, but the color wouldn't be right.
we finally settled on a nice, medium sized pink one, with a cute face and decent sized fins.
so, after we took hamster [she had already picked out a name] to courtney's dorm room, we went to starbucks and susan and mike met us up there.

eventually, we all ended up back in madison's dorm, and palmer and denton came over too. turns out, madison just bought a bunny yesterday. yes, a real live hopping bunny rabbit, that she named marilyn. it is by far the cutest little bunny i've ever seen, and it's a tanish white color, so madison says that it's blonde. and she's keeping it in her dorm room, which is against the school rules but shouldn't be. so, we all sat in madison's dorm, playing with marilyn, while courtney cooked us all spaghetti. when the food was ready, all of us sat in the kitchen and ate spaghetti. and somehow, we all ended up as a family, and courtney and palmer were the parents, and madison and denton were the neighbors, and susan, me, and mike were the kids. that led to a lot of interesting conversation, about heredity, and sibling love, and sex changes?! that's all i'm going to say.

so, a little more on the serious side, after our epic spaghetti family dinner, i went with courtney, palmer, denton, and madison to shack, and i'm so glad i went. they had house church, and there were ten people there, five of them being us, and we just basically had an open group discussion the whole time. we talked about our breaks from school, and trying to get back into the routine of things, and we talked about reviving our friendships with god, and we prayed, which was the most awesome part of the whole night.

all in all, i'm really excited about the possibility of actually being able to go to shack on a regular basis. i really feel like that's where i'm supposed to be right now, not only because courtney and denton go there, but because it's refreshing. i don't need to be in a church that constantly talks about finances, and is always focused on giving money to in turn, receive from god. that kind of corruption had made me so disgusted with christianity, that i had basically given up. it's only in the past few weeks that i've began trying to rebuild my relationship with god. because up until now, i haven't really been at a place mentally where i actually could begin to try to start over. i mean, how could i have began to justify to myself that christianity is good, when i was still attending a church that just spent $13,000 in tithe money for new chairs and a new sound system, and paint for the sanctuary.

but, all of that behind me, it's refreshing to finally go to a church that focuses on the things that i need to focus on. it's refreshing to go to a church where i don't have to pretend. i can be myself, and not have to worry about someone judging me. i need that kind of environment, a place where i feel close to god, without feeling out of place or awkward. i don't have anyone looking at me funny because of my piercings, because most of them have piercings too. this is church as it was meant to be, a group of people in jeans and tshirts, sitting on couches drinking coffee, and talking about god.
i'm really excited about this.


ps. i'm about to start reading the screwtape letters, by c.s. lewis!