Answered Prayers

When the weather isn't verging on winter, Fall in Michigan is beautiful. Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. It was a little windy, and yet it was warm enough out that as long as you were wearing a jacket you were golden. For the first time in a couple weeks it's actually felt like it was fall and it was lovely.

It is looking to be a promising week.

This weekend was the His House Fall Retreat, and obviously since this is my first semester at MSU it was my first retreat... and it was amazing. This weekend, I mean, I'm not even sure what I thought this weekend was going to be but ultimately now I see it as an answer to some of my most recent prayers.

I have been struggling, and I've really been praying over those struggles lately. Saturday I decided to be baptized, and I didn't realize that that was the reason that God had me there until literally about an hour or so before. But now I can look at it and know that that was my reason for being there, that is why God wanted me there, why he wanted me here. I hadn't realized how much weight I was carrying around on my shoulders, until it was lifted away.

I can definitely tell that there is a difference in my general attitude over the last couple days. I just feel so much better, and it's simply amazing.

Saturday morning we split up and went to workshops, where we talked about our faith and knowing where we stood in our faith and ways to express that faith. During the first one that I attended the speaker talked about the four responses, one of which was baptism, and that first planted the idea in my head. I got to really thinking about where I was in my spiritual journey. It was a step that I hadn't taken and I started thinking about it.

The idea was there, but it was in the back of my mind rather in the forefront. The afternoon was spent initially playing frisbee golf with a group, but that quickly disintegrated into climbing trees, and just generally hanging out and walking around the woods.

Northern Michigan is gorgeous in the early fall, and the camp was right on Lake Ann. It was later in the evening after the last workshop and dinner that we were walking to Campus Time, when Felicia hesitantly brought up baptism, and I think that's when it finally clicked. I think that's when I realized that that was why God got me here, got me there. God was nudging me to solidify my commitment to him. I certainly relied on him a lot through me life, and especially the last few years.

So Saturday night, in front of five hundred people our Associate Pastor, Kevin, took my confession and my friend Felicia baptized me, and so much of the heaviness that has been weighing down on me lately melted away. I feel so fantastic right now, and I feel like that makes all the difference in the world as far as how I interact with everyone around me.

I feel more connected now, I'm not simply going through the motions, and the focus has become today rather than an eventual tomorrow. Of course there will be rough roads ahead, but today is great, and even when I struggle God will be there.

Caelum Quirk

The bulk of my day has been spent reading "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb. I've been reading this book for several weeks, but in my defense I've read it while reading a couple other books at the same time. Generally what I've done is taken Wally's book to work with me, and then had another book to read here at home. I am now down to just reading "The Hour I First Believed", and am about one hundred pages away from finishing it.

I think it's a little simplistic to say that it is about a school shooting, because while that certainly is a facet of the book it is not it's sole plot line. In truth the focal point of the book is the main character, Caelum Quirk. He narrates the bulk of the novel, describing his life in terms of before the shootings and after the shootings.

In the novel he struggles with... life. He recounts the struggles of his childhood, and later adolescence, and then further into his adulthood. We watch as relationships crumble, and ones are established, and later as he comes to realize that some things, particularly people, should not be taken for granted.

"The Hour I First Believed" is an exploration into the inner workings of the human condition. It is a glimpse into the life of an average Joe just trying to get by and keep his head about the tide that seeks to pull him under. At any rate it's been a really exquisite read so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it concludes.