Just a little note of caution, my head is spinning crazily right now, so this post will probably be even more discombobulated than my average post. And yes, that is, believe it or not, possible.
I really shouldn't be blogging right now, I should be at Youth Group. But I kinda slipped up. My physics class ended at 4, so I went to my friend's house to wait until swim team started at 5:30. When 5:30 rolled around I was chilling with my friends in a nice, cozy room. I thought, (and my friends also) Why would I leave this advantageous position and go freeze my head off at swim team? I didn't think that it would be that big of a deal if I just stayed at my friends house until youth group because I'm not in training and my parents weren't expecting me home till after youth group anyway. Ok, you can pretty much scratch all of that sentence. Just keep the 'didn't think' part because that's pretty much the jist of it. I wasn't thinking.
It probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but my mom saw my friend and I going down to his house and she thought that we looked like gangsters. (I was riding my other friend's bmx, so I guess that automatically=gangster. I do have to say though, I really hated it. It was really impractical, partly because of its proportions and partly because it didn't have a brake that I could use.) So, when my brother told her that I wasn't at swim team, the first thought that entered her head was that we were mistaken for rival gang members and were shot or something to that extent. Yeah, I probably should have called. Anyway. She ended up calling me. The conversation went roughly: Thomas! You did A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. To which my reply was: Yes mom, yes mom, yes mom, yes mom, yes mom, yes mom, and yes mom. It ended with me parting with my friends and walking the dark, long, lonely way home.
For about the first half of my walk I wanted to shoot myself. I was really looking forward to youth group, for lots of reasons. First, I hadn't seen lots of my friends for awhile because I was gone over the weekend. Second, two of my friends just got accepted to college and I wanted to give them congrats. Third, (and this is kind of related to the first one) there is this girl that I really really like who usually goes there, so it's pretty much the highlight of my week. And yeah, I know my life is lame.
For the first part of my lonely walk I was running through all the cruel and unusual punishments my mom could possibly come up with . "It's probably going to be a shell shacking of yelling and then I'm going to be grounded forever...maybe I should just leave this shabby town and make a living for myself." And so on and so forth.
As you have hopefully gathered by now, I wasn't in good shape. But then I started to think (imagine that) and that led me to start praying the rosary. Everything was suddenly better. As I was finishing the second mystery, my parents drove up and I somehow knew everything was going to be alright. And it was. We had a really good talk, there was no yelling, and I'm not grounded. (yet, keep 'em crossed;)
This sounds really cliché, but I just know, to steal a line, that Jesus took the wheel. And I have a peace now that I've been missing lately. Recently I'd been experiencing this kind of hollow emptiness that I couldn't get rid of. Praying and going to mass weren't giving me the usual peaceful satisfaction that they usually did. There was always this nagging feeling that would come whenever I was left to myself; it seemed to be constantly gnawing my heart and peace of mind into little bits. But Jesus has come to me again!
I was thinking about how amazingly caring he is for us and why he is so. And I immediately thought about last weekend. Let me explain. After I finished that agony of a triathlon, I went back along the course for a few hounded yards to cheer the rest of the participants on for the final stretch. I was an amazing experience to see the different people in their moment of triumph over the course. At one point I was actually tearing up it was that emotional. Seeing the jubilation that they got from my cheering and from the fact that they were practically home was just amazing. The people and I had a special bond with each other because we both had experienced the highs and the lows; the struggles and the triumphs. I truly cared for them and their accomplishment; their accomplishment of coming home, where refreshment awaited them.
And I think that is why Jesus seems and is so personal and lovingly caring to those who know him. He has run the same race as we are all running right now. He not only knows of all of our lows and struggles, but he has experienced them himself. He has also experienced triumph over all those struggles through the cross and because he is all-loving, he cannot wait to share that triumph with all of us; he cannot help but sympathize with and help us in our struggles and he is preparing heavenly refreshments for us for the time when come to our final resting place, our home.
Well there you go. I know that its over-simplified and quite childish, but Jesus did say that unless we become like children we cannot come to know him....
And yes, I did just liken myself to Jesus....Don't worry, I wont let it get to my head. ;)
-thomas
No comments:
Post a Comment