Wait, God sees my crumbled soul as crisp, clean and pure? Dang, He's Cool.

The suspense was building. Flock in general is stinkin' awesome, but when Sara posts "So, FLOCK tonight will potentially have multiple special guests....holla!!" on the Flock Rocks facebook page, you know it's gonna have an extra side of EPIC.

Now I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat, wondering who in the world these special guests might be! ... (Drum roll, please) ... Michael Sheerin and Andrew Rockers! Woohoo! For anyone who doesn't know these two fabulous men of God, here's a quick intro -- Michael is Sara's fiance who plays the guitar, sings songs about smoking meat, gives really good advice about sales techniques, cracks the best jokes ever, and is one of the coolest guys I've ever met. And Andrew is an amazing seminarian from the Diocese of Salina, was involved in changing our lives at Prayer and Action, eats weird sandwiches, rocks (just like his last name, Rockers), and has the coolest beard I've ever seen.

So tonight's Flock kinduh rocked (and by kinduh, I mean that it totally, completely, absolutely, undoubtedly rocked). Michael got up there and pretty much spilled his heart. He told us his story, and gave us one of the best analogies ever (similar to Aaron's dollar bill analogy). A piece of paper. That paper is our souls. Every time we sin against our Lord, we put a crease in that paper. Eventually, that paper ends up all wrinkled and crumbled up, and maybe even in a trashcan. But guess what? God sees our souls through eyes of LOVE as clean, crisp, pure pieces of paper. It's crazy. One thing Michael pointed out that is so true: God sees us as a new, crisp sheet of paper, but sometimes it's more difficult for us to see ourselves that way. We know what we've done, and we'll always remember those folds and wrinkles we put in that paper. But Our God is a loving, merciful and forgiving God.

But Our God gives us free will because he wants us to make our own decisions. Wow, that's a lot of freedom. But that's also a lot of responsibility. Because freedom is desiring and choosing the best thing.

So it was a great night of learning about God's forgivenessand unconditional love, with some QPT (Quality Prayer Time) in the church. Which was also some quality chatting time with Michael. Dang, he's cool. (You've got yourself a keeper, Sara!) We talked about smiling, joy, surrounding yourself with people who are going to build you up in your faith, my dorky fun little brother, love, responsibility and life. Quite the conversation. And a few of my favorite things he said:

"In life, see the opportunities. In love, see the reality."
Mike: "How many times do you smile in a day?"
Me: "Uhh like thousands of times... Probably too many... I would die if I couldn't smile!"
Mike: "Haha. Never lose that sense of joy. And show everybody why you smile so much."

"In college, pray every single day. And if anyone questions you, don't let that make you question yourself."



For seminarians, paper souls, forgiveness and smiling... GOD IS GREAT. :]]