Dear Diary

When do you get old enough for death to seem normal? Maybe never, but it seems like my Mamaw has to face it with her friends on a regular basis. For our generation, it still seems so far away, so unreal. But it just hit a little closer to home.

One of Natalie's friends from college, Mary Claire Satterly, was diagnosed with Leukemia last week. Monday morning we found out that she had passed away. She was 27. It happened so fast.

Natalie's friends are pretty amazing and know our $ situation, so they chipped in and bought her a plane ticket home to NC for the funeral. She left early this morning.

I know it sounds sappy, but we can't stand to be apart and it just was painful to tell her goodbye at the airport. I am so thankful she gets to go and be with her friends and family, but selfishly I miss her already.

So I began the morning pretty sad, but God breathed his encouragement on me all day long.

1. Wednesday mornings after Greek class my friend Chris (aka "D1") and I have a time we affectionately call "Benchpress and Confess," mainly because we can't think of a better name. Today we forsook the "workout" part and just took a walk together and prayed. There are few things that push me closer to Christ than verbal encouragement from other men. I'm so thankful for guys in my life that will pray with and for me.

2. This afternoon I had a "mentoring team meeting." As part of our curriculum at Denver Seminary, each student has 2 mentors, a spiritual formation group director, and a Training Center director. Those are all just fancy terms for 4 folks who love God and push me closer to Him. What an incredible gift it is to have older men speaking truth into my life. Thank you Deral Schrom, Don Payne, Pete Menconi, and Bob Krulish for giving up your time to invest in my life.

3. Tonight, instead of Young Life, I convinced everyone in our area to go as a group to the Rockies vs Braves game. (Sadly my Bravos lost 12-6) I've met some guys on the freshmen baseball team and was hoping we could all go to the Rockies game together tonight. Yesterday one of them sent me a text message telling me that they couldn't go because of a "team feed" after practice. I was pretty bummed. As I was passing the high school on the way to the Rockies game tonight, I got another text telling me the "team feed" was next week. The "lil Honda that could" jumped the curb and screeched into the parking lot. Six of us crammed in the five seater and made it to the Light Rail station in time to catch up with everyone else. We unfortunately missed out on "the first 8,000 fans get a free Rockies shirt giveaway," but made a great night of memories. Here's a link to a photo from the game.

If you have read this far into this extra long post, you are probably related to me or really bored. Either way, thanks for caring.

From the bachelor pad,
drew