Tumblr = on the back burner.

But tonight, i just have to let some things out.

God is SO good. SO good.

I am being pushed to my limits this week - my mind doesn’t shut off, it’s not allowed too. I am sleep deprived and exhausted. I am working everything communications related for Homecoming. Dr. King’s class is destroying me with a huge project. Other homework is a bother. I miss my dad a lot, and feel for my mom. My girlfriend misses me but she lives literally 100 yards away. All these things are pushing me, pulling me, stretching me, and doing their best to break me.

But they’re not breaking me. God has me this week so much, and I feel it randomly and powerfully, and fully.

That sounds dramatic and lame. I get it.

Let me explain it to you this way. I am praying about my busyness every time I start to fret. I am just giving it to Him out of this, Lord please just listen to me - I have to get this out of my head and if I don’t I am going to freak out. That’s the start.

Now, even though I still freak, it’s like I feel God in my center. He has staked Himself to me, and me to a solid ground. That’s the point.

So yea, I am being pushed. I feel the stakes start to come out of the ground. I feel the dirt slide on the side of the power of God. I see them rising and myself falling and I feel the weight and the toll and the pressure on my back all at the same time and it feels - like - I am going to fall. That’s the enemy.

But I don’t fall. I fall back into place, or better yet I am placed back into the ground. As if the Lord steps in and saves me from myself. He hammers the stakes back into the ground in ways I never would have thought. That’s the grace.

God reignites me through people. He does it through the music of Andrew Peterson and through books on reserve for days not hours. He does it through random CU students at IHOP at the same time as me. He does it through her smile, through my mom’s voice, through my brother’s relationship, through the chatter of mingling in the corum. He does it through my belief and passion in my responsibilities. Through men of mine participating, through laughter and competition, through people I am able to speak into, and through this growing and unexplainable love for alumni. This love that makes me actually feel the impact of disconnect from such a strong community. That’s the joy.

God is good - He is SO good. I want to give up and whine. I want this week to be too much for me. I want to break. I want to finally admit that I really can’t take it and that I am in to deep. I can’t though. I can’t because God shows me in random, diverse, little ways how incredible He is. He is blessing me through this time, He is with me in the tension, and I, logically, spiritually, and emotionally, don’t really have a reason why I shouldn’t be able to make it.

Yea, God is good.

During my Senior year in High School we each chose a poet to study. I chose Langston Hughes. Yesterday I was reminded of just how incredible the spoken word is, and how much I long to find my Sue. Mr. Hughes, though I speak with no authority on the subject…well done.

When Susanna Jones wears red
Her face is like an ancient cameo
Turned brown with the ages.

Come with a blast of trumpets,
Jesus!

When Susanna Jones wears red
A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night
Walks once again.

Blow trumpets, Jesus!

And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red
Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain

Sweet silver trumpets,
Jesus!

- Langston Hughes

…really love my friends.

Their honesty, their humor, their “isms” that make them who they are. The fellas and the ladies alike. I love the way they love God, others, and themselves. I love how we could drive 8 hours and talk the whole time or drive the same distance without saying a word and I would know that we enjoy each other all the same. I love how they listen to me, let me be dumb, annoying, or stressed out. I love how they accept me and treat me, pray for me, and feel for me.

I just really love my friends.

it’s finished. that’s it. there is nothing left in my apartment save my TV, bedding, and the food in my fridge. the end of the summer is officially here, marked, checked, over, and I feel at a loss.

if you’ve read anything i have written you know how much this summer has meant to me. life lesson after life lesson, change after change, apology after apology, redo after redo, and prayer after prayer, this summer has molded, shaped, and grown me in more ways than i could have ever imagined.

and it’s over.

with all of these happenings i think the most significant one is the end of being roommates with the same guy i have shared a living space with since freshmen year. he is getting wed to a wonderful and perfect woman for him soon enough, and because of this he has moved out, moved on, and grown up. it’s good, i am happy for him and i respect him so much more than i think he knows but all the while, i am left feeling at a loss. i never would have thought it would be difficult nor did i anticipate feeling so lonely. but in this small way, which just adds to this season of change in my life, i feel uneasy and nervous. again, it’s all good. i have made major changes (literally) and i know that God is going to bless this last year at Cornerstone but, i can’t help to feel like a large part of who i am is gone.

at this time in my life i find myself trying to rely on everything else but God all the while knowing that he is the only one i need to trust.

i know this ended kind of abruptly but that’s my life lately, abruptness in God’s plan for me seems to be a common theme. and in a strange way, i’m okay with that.

Have you ever really expected something?

You know, like the dictionary says, ever really “anticipated the occurrence or the coming of” something?

You know, like when deep down you expect something? Maybe you never think it’s going to happen, maybe there are one million and one reasons why it shouldn’t happen, why it won’t happen, why it couldn’t happen, or why it never will happen. Even so, you still expect it, you want it, you know without a shadow of a doubt that when it happens you won’t believe it, stop thinking about it, and you won’t understand why you haven’t been doing, experiencing, breathing, living it the whole time you’ve been expecting it. You know, when you expect something big, something right, something good, something worthwhile, something life changing?

I don’t think I knew what to expect this summer. I know, I know, I have written a lot about this summer, very broadly and vaguely yes I know but still a lot about this summer. I thought I knew what it was going to be. I had this planned, and that planned, and I was going to buy this and do this, or eat here and go there, or meet this person and travel with this person. I thought I had all these expectations.

What I realized was this: I never had expectations, I had thoughts and ideas about what was to come, but the only thing that I expected, you know, that I believed would come true, that I had faith would be shown to me, is that God would move me and shake me whether I prepared myself fully or not.

I just want to say this: I have come to experience things this summer that I have never expected. Things that don’t just last for a few days. Experiences that aren’t just memories, or laughs, or moments wherein I think I am truly who I am supposed to be. But rather, moments wherein I believe God has been waiting for me to enjoy. Moments wherein I know that he has been sowing a seed of expectation in me, a seed that I never knew was growing until I saw what it produced and only then, could I finally name it.

Expectations - yea, this has been an incredible summer.

God is awesome - He is so awesome.

I have had an amazing week of late night talks, re-established friendships, laughter, and meeting new people. I feel filled with fellowship and life, knowing that it is all so, so good.

I have never learned so much about myself before. It has been incredible finding me again. That sounds a little corny but what the heck.

Oh, how I am loving this summer.

:D

Summer is supposed to be what we make it.

Mine has been nothing like I wanted it to be so far.

I don’t feel empty, I just feel still, too still.

I feel moved right now to laugh at myself for how shallow and fragile I treat me.

That may not make sense, it’s okay.

Praise God

I am learning a lot right now about what it really means to know someone and not just take them at face value. I mean, a lot about that right now.

Oh golly…If you only knew.

Life isn’t about all that crap we are told we should want. We try to fancy it up, put Christian lingo and philosophy onto everything but it doesn’t matter. It’s not about the job, the money, the career, the car, the savings. It’s not about our faults, or failures, or the crap. God cares about sin, but it doesn’t matter. We should stop sinning because we don’t have to. Because we are free. It doesn’t matter.

I miss my family a lot. I miss being a kid, having dogs, playing in the leaves, wrestling with my brother. I miss being able to wake up and be free. I miss the joy, I miss the experience, and I feel as though I don’t shine those feelings I get when I think about those times into my everyday life. I miss my brother and I playing action figures, I miss having a pool and getting bitten by horse flies, and I miss not going, or doing, or spending, or living up to a certain expectation other than being yourself. I look at my parents’ relationship, what it has been and what it is now, and I want it. I find myself looking for a goal lately, for something to do or become or strive for. I think that’s it. If I am lucky enough to have a family as wonderful as mine was when I was growing up I will count myself the most fortunate person in the world, and I would soak up every single second of it. I don’t want to say that I won’t be happy if I don’t have a family but rather I think I would rather cherish those things than the other junk we all seem to shoot for.

Nate told me something today. He looked right at me and with a big smile said “People like you Matt”, and then proceeded to talk about it. I didn’t even know it, but I needed that so much. It’s at times like these I am honored to be his best man.

I don’t know what this was about, but there.