So, yeah. God is good.

This has been an incredible week. It started when I was baptized on Sunday. I was saved almost exactly 16 years ago, and for most of my life, my faith was no more than a result of my parents. After having lived on my own for almost a year and a half now, the Lord has taken hold of my life in a way that He never has before. I feel I'm changed, I know that I am a new creation. The baptism itself was awesome, as many of my good friends out here braved the rain and watched it happen after church. It was so powerful, and I could feel the Spirit move in me in an awesome way. I feel like I've been glowing ever sense. God is so good.
The Lord has been working in an awesome way in me since my baptism. Today we had our mid-week service where I lead worship for the middle school at Church. I went in early to talk to the worship pastor Don Damborg, because he has taken an interest in my music (finally someone has). But after I saw him, I went in to talk to Nate, my NextGen pastor. Me and this girl up at church have been hanging out a lot, and we had talked about dating, but decided to take it slow and become good friends first. Sounds nice, right? Well the deal was that she was a senior in High Schooland because of that, I wanted to talk about it with pastor Nate, who is also the HS pastor, and make sure that it was alright with him, etc. The ensuing conversation changed my life. We talked at length about dating and relationships and what the purpose of them is. Nate shared with me his expirences and mistakes and presented to me what a scriptually based relationship should look like. He said that the only reason for dating someone is because I would want to marry her. The Lord pointed out to me that I am so far away from being at a point where I'm ready to get married, and that any relationship that I'm trying to get into now is driven by my flesh, no matter how wholesome our actions are. He just poured into me through Nate, and I honestly feel like I understand what is required of me, and what the correct take on dating is.
All that to say that the Lord has done some incredible things in my life recently. And he is continuing to do those things. He is so good.
We have a short week, tomorrow being a half day. We took a unit test today and yesterday, and I smoked it. Once again, God is good. I'm only 37 hours away from home. And I am more excited than I have ever been. St. Louis here I come. And a Merry Christmas, too.

"I believe in Christ as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."