I found a bunch of old facebook notes the other day. So now whoever reads this gets to suffer through more bad writing. Aha!

I like notes, because they make me feel important. Important as in "Someone will read this and think I"m deep". So really, it's just an extension of my arrogance, which is awesome because it means my self confidence grows every time I write a new note. Maybe I should start writing these every day

My sarcasm makes me sound like a jerk, which is probably pretty much true. Never mind. 

I am interested in rain. I am interested in rain because rain is inconvenient and unpredictable(weathermen are generally clueless). I am interested because sometimes rain is cold and cutting. Sometimes it's warm and sticky. Sometimes, it's normal and exactly what we expect from it, though the general expectation is never anticipation. 

It rained today on campus. I walked outside around nine and the air was heavy with that sweet, cloying smell that comes just before the skies open up. Being extremely aware, calculating and conscientious, I continued on in my jeans and t-shirt, without an umbrella, and in flip flops, completely clueless and having a great time. Cue 11:30. The torrential downpour(nah, it was just an average thunderstorm. But t-shirts make it seem alot bigger)caught and mercilessly assaulted me. Which would have been fine except that I had all my homework in a canvas backpack, I had jeans on and nothing waterproof on me. So, grumbling, I stomped out into the rain. Which was cold, with big drops that felt like little ice pellets every time they hit my protesting skin. But I have a harder head than anyone I know, and I wasn't going to miss lunch because of this stupid storm, especially not a lunch I paid for! So I stubbornly strode to the cafeteria through waves of water, sloshing through the ever growing pools on the street and becoming completely wet from head to toe. (I want to interject that for an engineering school, LeTourneau has about the worst drainage system I've ever seen. A five year old child with no hands could draw up better plans). After grabbing my box lunch, I began the long trek to Glaske. At least it looked long. Anything looks long when considering walking it in pouring rain. About halfway there I considered my predicament. I was still trying to stay dry and was now focusing on being indignant because I was wet as well. I had water dripping into my eyes. My pants looked like I tried to drown them in the pond. And if my backpack was a child, it would have been whimpering. That's when it hit me. I was there. I was in that spot. I was wet. There was no getting dry. No salvaging the situation. No covering up the fact I was now twenty pounds heavier due to being soaked. So you know what I did? I laughed. I laughed, and laughed, and when the guy walking by me on the sidewalk gave me a raised eyebrow that said "this one's been in Glaske too long" I continued laughing and waved my hands at him, as if I could communicate the moment by hand signals. The rest of my walk was spent smiling. Not trying to go straight through puddles, as if I could spite the rain by pretending it hadn't surprised me, but certainly not trying to delude myself with thoughts of salvaging dryness. Or pitying my state. Or even planning how Id fix things. Just smiling, and being thankful that I could feel rain, and experience walking through it, knowing that at some point, though I didn't know when, I'd be dry and warm again. And even if warmth wasn't in the near future, I still had a goal, and I still had a purpose, and I still had the ability to walk. So walk I would. 

Kinda parallels life, yeah? Being on the front lines with Jesus does not mean taking direct fire. It means taking sideways fire, and backwards fire, and pop-up-and-grab-your-ankles fire. It means waking up every morning and facing a new battle, with new rules, and new strategies, but never new companionship. Thank God He's consistent. This semester has been an on the front lines experience for me. I certainly didn't expect it to be this way. I didn't expect life to inform me that it wanted to punch me in the face and then proceed to do so. But it did. Hard, and fast, and let me tell you something: Life doesn't hit like a girl. So in the middle of my rain, in the middle of my downpour, in the middle of my soggy, unplanned mess, let me say that God is a good God. God is a faithful God. God is a redeeming God. And God is wholly love. And I am aware that I cannot salvage what has already begun. I cannot stop the wheels that have been set in motion, I cannot impede the heavenly plan that is unfolding before my eyes and still unknown to me. I am here. In the middle. And that is perfectly ok.

Kara Hollifield, my beautiful PA, had an inside joke with me last year. When we saw each other somewhere on campus, we would make the train arm motions that five year olds make and say "Just keep going, one foot in front of the other, just keep going." And the secret I didn't know was in the "going". To go. To move. To progress, sometimes digress, and sometimes to slide back. Yet all movements, where movement is life. And life is dynamic, and dynamic life is abundant, because Jesus is in the flowing and writhing and twisting and breaking and restoring. I am alive. I am moving. I am changing. I am learning. I am not comfortable, nor am I feeling safe and secure, but in a whole other sense of the word security, I feel at home. I am with Jesus, who walked on the very sea He calmed, and who Caught up Peter as he sank. My Jesus can walk on water. And to quote the fantastic song we sang in chapel a few weeks back, "If our God is for us, who can ever stop us?"

I am thankful for life, and thankful for a hand to hold, and thankful for new mercies every morning. And I know that where I am going is so much better than where I've been, and because of one man, one act, one life, I am never going to walk alone again. Because He desires my heart. And it's His. And I have made the determination, in the face of whatever anyone else tries to tell me, that the destination of becoming closer with my Savior is worth ten thousand thunderstorms and all the messes in the world.