Sandy

Some of the imagery in the movie "Jarhead" is just mindblowingly beautiful.  It’s somewhat bittersweet that some of the most beautiful images are spawned from some of the most horrible circumstances.  What really blew my mind, though, was that when I went to my front window to see if it was raining (I could hear thunder), the sky was an eery color of orange and brown.  I had to double check my watch to make sure it was actually 3:00am.  The sky was lit up as if it were 6 in the morning.  The air had become so dense and humid that low lying clouds were sitting right on top of downtown Columbia, and the city lights where eminating throughout the surrounding areas.  The lightning creeping its way through the rusty colored sky gave it an even more impressive effect.  Some would certainly see this as extremely bleak… but for some reason I just find it extremely beautiful and calming.  I sat outside for about half an hour just watching the clouds roll by and listening to the thunder. 

I did something very awkward today.  I prayed…. probably for the first time in almost 2 years.  I’m not even sure if it’s been longer than that to be quite honest.  I went with Joey to institute tonight and I had this incredible urge to speak with the stake president.  We discussed a lot of my concerns about becoming active again as a church member and he asked me if I felt comfortable saying a prayer at the end of our conversation.  At first I didn’t want to… but I ended up changing my mind.  It took me close to 5 minutes to string together about 1 minute worth of actual verbal prayer… and a lot of it was spent crying.  I can’t really explain what prompted all of this today… but I feel good about it. 

One of the first things I told the stake president was that this was certainly a very awkward and conflicted decision for me.  There are a lot of old feelings stirring up right now… and I have yet to realize just how much more I’m going to experience.  I feel like I’m doing the right thing, though.  I’m going to read my patriarchal blessing before I go to sleep… I haven’t looked at it in almost 3 years. 

Sleep well, everyone.