things are looking up

this might be another short entry because it's currently 4:05am. i've been up writing material for a comedy night at echo(the student ministry that i work for) tomorrow night & i still have more to write. ugh... being funny isn't easy. and unfortunately for me, my creative juices don't start flowing until the wee hours of the night/morning... i will say though... so far, so good. not to toot my own horn, but... TOOT! i'll post a video from the evening here at some point so you can all share in the laughter.

ok... so this is the first week in the thomas house & things are going splendid! i live here with ricky, natalie, amanda, paul, bill, pearl & joey. ha... one BIG happy family! the folks living over in the hamline house right now are rudy, kevin, marco, anna, terrie & wesley. it doesn't hit me how many flippin' people live in these houses until i list them all off at once! haha... but yeah, things are so different today than they were two years ago when we started all this. this year has been especially hard, but especially good. i think for the past 8 months it's felt like we've been trying to sprint through mud up to our chins. stuck. confused. frustrated. doubting everything. and in an effort to stay alive we dedicated most of our time to devising plans to rescue ourselves from sinking rather than turning to the saving one. a couple months ago we all sat down and asked the question, "are we even capable of having these conversations or living this life together when we don't even trust each other?" i think that was a turning point for us. nothing immediately got better. but our posture towards one another changed. we began to believe the best about each other. we extended one another the benefit of the doubt. the mud slowly began to subside & we started to see things a bit more clearly. about a month ago, i felt hopeful & truly happy. & i hadn't felt those things for a long time.

this week has been one of the best weeks of my life.

thank you lord.