Not Trying to Make Light of a Serious Situation...

Okay, last night was INSANE. As a lot of you probably know, Missouri/IL had a lot of weather drama last night. Although I've lived in Missouri for a little more than three years now, I cannot get used to tornados. I hate them as a matter of fact (I know, who likes them). And I can't ever get the proper reaction down. Either I'm in the fetal position in my laundry room during a watch, or out driving around town during a warning. I'm telling you, these things mess with me.

So last night, I was at a concert around 20 miles from home. I was working at a child sponsorship table, so I didn't have my cell phone with me, and didn't realize my roommate was trying to call me every twenty minutes. Several missed calls later, I finally grabbed the phone at the end of the show, and she told me not to come home, but to go somewhere "safe." Well, at 10:30 at night, the safest place is Wal-Mart. I don't know if you're a Wal-Mart frequenter, but after 10 p.m., it becomes an entirely different place, so I'm using "safe" relatively.

So I'm at Wal-Mart, talking to my roommate on the phone, when they make an announcement for everyone to go to the "coolers." I don't know where the coolers are, but I just start following everybody else. And they herd all of us into...get this...a big walk in refrigerator. It's like 40 degrees, and I'm soaked from running from my car in the rain.

Luckily, everyone was really calm, nobody was freaking out, etc. But I looked around and couldn't help thinking "I am at Wal-Mart, in a refrigerator, with 50 other people." It was like a tripped-out nightmare.

After about 30-45 minutes they let us out, but we still can't leave the store. I grabbed a magazine and headed to the shoe department and read for about an hour until the rain and hail stopped. Finally, after midnight I arrived home, exhausted and in a pretty foul mood. My roommate wanted to go to a friend's house to sleep in their basement, but by this time I was practically shaking my fist at the lightning-streaked sky saying "Bring it on!"

But the night has now ended, and although my town escaped with little to no damage, many of the surrounding communities are dealing with quite a mess right now. I'm glad I made it fine, even if God did provide safety at Wal-Mart, in a refrigerator.

It's been a while...again

I apologize to both of my readers for the delay in posting. I've just been super busy lately, and haven't really felt like I have anything worth writing. So, today I just decided to come on here and start typing and see what happens (just like I did in college with all of the columns I wrote for the paper!) Kind of like stream of consciousness...but not.

Well, it's two days later, and I still haven't finished this blog. Haven't really started it yet. I just have TONS on my mind right now...most of which I can't really go into detail about here (unlike a lot of people, I understand the concept that this is a public forum, no matter how private my thoughts are).

I think part of the reason I'm feeling unmotivated is just this time of year. It's rainy and dreary, which fits my mood really well...or maybe vice versa.

Last Sunday we had the Lord's Supper at church. I have these weird little quirks that I always do when I take the Lord's Supper. One of them is when I take the small square cracker, I always hold it between my thumb and index finger, but with the pointed edges poking into my fingers. And then I hold it as tightly as I can without crushing it. I think that tiny bit of pain reminds me of Christ's painful death. It's weird, I fully realize this, but this Sunday we switched crackers, and there are no sharp points. It threw me off, and I began to realize a little more just how odd I can be sometimes.

On a completely different note (wow, this is a disjointed posting) I interviewed Dave Barnes last night. He's doing a show here in about a week, so I did a quick phone interview to get the word out. I've decided that any person who answers the question "How are you" with the phrase "Rockin' the free world" rates high in my book. It was a fun interview, and a bright point to the week. Also, in researching Barnes to get some background information, I read this quote from an interview he did:

I’m reading a book right now called Wild At Heart by John Eldredge. The first chapter in the book is talking about pursuing passion in life. He sub-quotes a playwright (I can’t remember the name), and he says, “Life is a hypocrite if I can’t live like it inspires me.” And I thought, that is the credo of my life. I don’t feel like I have a choice. This is who I am. All I can choose to do is to heed the call and trust that the Lord puts steps out in front of me. It’s a choice for either misery or mystery. You choose your road, and misery is when you get a job and deny the call because there’s risk involved. Mystery is when you say, “I have no clue what’s in front of me. I just know that this is where I want to be.”

That was so what I needed to hear. I think it's funny how God orchestrated that moment, for me to be digging through an interview for a nugget of information for my article and I instead came up with a nugget of truth for my life.

And I just decided I don't care for the word nugget.