it matches my sheets, my hoodie, my walls at home, countless shirts and scarves etc. i had a really great weekend. and like, when i say that, i mean, it's one of those weekends that i never want to stop talking about. because i spent it at Jesus Ranch and it was spectacular. here's a story that i can't stop telling: i was raised catholic but that means almost nothing. catholics still have to be saved, because catholicism has left in most of us (at least all i've met) a void when it comes to an actual knowlege of Jesus Christ and an actual idea of what it is to be a christian. i came to school catholic, but just barely. i figured that i would stop going to church once i got here because i wouldn't be going with my family and i wouldn't care enough to go by myself. then i met my roommate, and her friends, and my friends from the internet, and my friends from their friends and their friends and so on, and you know what? they were all christians. everyone for the first two months of my being here was a christian. and they brought me with them to campus ministries, and invited me to their bible studies, and i went because i had no other friends. but i was really pretty terrified of christianity. i don't know why really. i wanted nothing to do with their worship, but i wanted to be their friend, so i tagged along a few more times. peer pressure. and little by little the word of God started getting lodged in my mind until i couldn't think about anything else. it was awful. absolutely horrible. i was miserably depressed. i remember thinking that God was calling me to join Him and His servants, and i could do was cry about it. i was too frightened. too insecure. no way that Jesus would ever care that much about me. why? there's no reason for that. i don't deserve that. the weekend that i finally accepted Christ into my heart i remember just bawling all the time. sobbing into the phone, or crying all over my journal, or just sitting there staring out the window and thinking. but there was no way i couldn't accept the call, and i knew that. that was me giving up. i was holding out because i was scared. i was scared because i'm insecure. i'm insecure because my entire life my shield, my backup, my safety blanket has been self-deprecation, as odd as that sounds. and while it had sheltered me from outside it had left me so empty and messed up inside that i didn't know what to do with the idea that i might be worth something. it made me feel better to beat myself up harder than anyone else could. i guess like i was still in control of me. and that's a very hard thing to give up, when that's all you've got. i've never been happier since. i've written about this before, that feeling of realizing that God made you the way you are and that that's a glorious thing. i'm fantastically awkward, i'm horrible at math, and i'm afraid of the dark, and that's great because that's me and Jesus loves me. i pretty much can't stop talking about Jesus lately. Jesus Ranch was good to me. God is good to me. there aren't even words. even before i was a christian He was there, all along, watching over me and guiding me and blessing me and i had no idea. i am so incredibly blessed to be surrounded by the people that i am and i just pray that God will use me to be to others as they have been to me. last week there were cru (campus crusade for Christ) events every day, and they will continue till wednesday of this coming week, and i am beyond thrilled. God is good, people. and we don't deserve it but it's there and that was the hardest part for me. bethany calls this color the green of my life. it matches my hoodie and my sheets and my walls at home, and so many shirts and scarves and everything i own. i get a new favorite color about every 6 months to a year. the last couple years have given us: blue yellow pink red and now, green. my friend becca's favorite has been purple since she was a little girl. that baffles me.