April Showers Bring May Flowers...or something like that.

I have been living in the great city of Portland for almost six years now.  Over those years, Portland has become my home. It started our just being a place that I went to college with no real intention of staying or leaving. Well, I never left. I have become a "Portlander". Don't worry everyone...I'm not one of those young people who came here to retire. I am no food expert or music buff. I don't wear skinny jeans nor do I have a strange haircut or facial tattoos. Although, I have to admit, I am a slight coffee snob...

After being here for all this time, I realize that little surprises me anymore. There is still one thing that baffles me. In all of my six years, this still has me perplexed. People in Portland complain that it rains ALL THE TIME. First of all, this is a little over exaggerated by the masses.  It rains, yes, we are near the Ocean...and not the warm one. But in reality, it's not that bad.  Here is what has bothers me about people who live here. It begins around September. People start complaining that it's too hot! They can't wait for the Fall Season so that it cools down at least a little bit. You see, in Portland, most people don't have air conditioning, so 80 degrees is unbearable. Then after Fall comes Winter. Everyone gets excited thinking maybe, just maybe we will get snow this year!  About one month into Winter, everyone is in some depressive state because we don't get snow, ever. Since we don't get snow, Winters seems to last twice as long! Winter and Spring join forces and become one season, one is just more windy than the other. Eventually, everyone just wants Summer to be here, only to complain that it's too hot.

There are a few things that I find strange about this. First of all, you would think in a city where is does rain often, people would know how to drive in it. Instead, they turn into 15 year olds with their learners permit. And when it actually does snow, (I mean...flurry) people literally abandon their cars on the freeway creating an obstacle course for those of us who do know how to drive in freezing type weather. On the flip side, when the sun comes out, they are just as terrible of drivers. The best part about this is that  everyone complains about this here. Including the people that stink at driving in those conditions. In my opinion, the best driving weather for the greater Portland area is overcast.

I apologize for the rabbit trail there. What I really want to focus on is the rain. Although everyone complains about it and wishes that it would stop, they never seem to leave Portland. Wouldn't that be the easiest solution to escaping it? What keeps them here? I have been asking myself that for a long time. Personally, I love the rain! It brings a certain freshness that you can't get in any other way.

I have been thinking about the rain for awhile now. I decided some things about it. What makes rain unique is that it washes things clean and refreshes them. It promotes new growth.  What people don't like about rain is that it's cold and wet. It's sort of a small suffering sometimes. I feel like people tend to forget all of the great things about rain.  Have you ever noticed how it smells after a really hard rain? It's absolutely wonderful! The grass is greener, flowers perk up and the sound of rainfall is so peaceful. Rain seems a lot like life to me. The rain, in and of itself, sometimes sucks. But isn't that how life is too? Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes life is cold, lonely and miserable. Just like rain. But after the rain passes, the flowers are so bright, the grass is so green and a rainbow appears. I have heard rumors that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but nobody has confirmed this for me.

What I have discovered since living in Portland is that I have come to appreciate things like the green grass in November. I have also come to appreciate that my life experiences are not always pleasant or easy.  I have had to deal with things like death of loved ones. Loved ones who I thought were taken from the world too soon. Loved ones who meant more to me than anyone else in the entire world. It sucks. I have had to deal with betrayal of friends, broken heartedness, and questions about my own faith. This all sucks. These things, these trials in life are much like our wonderful Portland rain. It sucks when it's happening. The good news is, it will end...eventually. It might take days, weeks, months, or even years, but it will end. The end result is so much more beautiful that it would have been without the rain to rinse away everything else and promote new growth. You see, just like the crappy things that happen in life, rain is necessary. When the crap happens, you feel like you are drowning at first, then it hurts a little less, and eventually you learn to grow through the pain. My life has been one rain storm after another. Some of them are caused by my own choices, but in the end, I am a more beautiful person for every storm I have encountered.

You may be reading this thinking "I don't have any issues like that in my life". I promise you one thing. You will. The more it rains, the more I see the aftermath of it. The more I see the aftermath, the more I appreciate the beauty that it brings. This has made the rain more bearable for me. What's the rain like for you?

Truth

I had a pretty sweet childhood. My brother and I were pretty decent kids and we had a more than a decent family. We went to Catholic school until I was in the 3rd grade then we were off to the big, scary public school.  Now, you would think that going to Catholic school and Catholic church would teach you about the Bible, God, and Jesus. I don't recall much of that. I always believed in God.  Not because I was told to, but it just seemed to make sense to me.

Fast forward several years to High School. I had managed to survive most of high school without any major issues. I had friends I probably shouldn't have had but they were all good people at heart, I firmly believe that today. However, despite all the friends I shouldn't have had, I did have a couple of friends that are still my sisters to this day. Krista and Amy. These two have been my sisters since elementary school and Jr. High.  The three of us were the best of friends. Krista and Amy had been going to Young Life for awhile and attended a Bible study they called "Campaigners". I thought it was kinda weird but since I didn't have to go I wasn't too concerned about it.  One day, my junior year of High School, I actually decided to give in and go to this weird campaigners group.  I thought it was the coolest thing in the entire world!...Just kidding.  I was so confused and felt like a complete moron! I knew nothing of what they were talking about and I felt completely alone. I wanted to leave so badly but two things stopped me. Neither of them was a tug on my heart from God. The first thing was that we were literally in the middle of some country neighborhood (yes, you can live in the country and in a neighborhood where I'm from). The second was that I didn't drive there...I was stuck there in a teenage version of hell.

Fast forward 2 months...

I continued to go to campaigners group every week with Krista and Amy and little by little I became less annoyed about being there and started to enjoy it.  I didn't enjoy it because we were holding hands and praying out loud (super weird for me), but because I actually started to become friends with the girls in this group. As a group, over those first couple of months I attended, we went through the book of Romans. Talk about "WELCOME TO JESUS!". All we talked about was salvation, justification, glorification and so on and so forth.  What the heck do those words mean?!?! To this day, I do attribute my salvation to the book of Romans, however, I think that at the point that I "gave my life to Christ" I really wanted to give my life to a sense of belonging.

Let me explain this. I never really felt like I fit into any one group in school. I was the person who had a lot of acquaintances in every possible social group, but never fully connecting with them. I understood enough about my decision to follow Christ to be confident that I was indeed saved, however, I had no idea what that really meant for me.

Time passed and I read the Bible with Krista and Amy throughout the rest of High School and into the college years. I didn't go to college right away like my best friends did. I went to the darkest form of school there is....Beauty School.  Ok, so it's not that bad, but it did not promote a very Christian worldview either. Luckily, at the same time I was attending school there, I was plugged into an truly incredible church. I had been attending Life Center since I became a Christian my junior year. It had become a second home to me. I was involved in the High School youth group, college group, church on Sundays and every other possible event I could be at. I LOVED being around all of these weird Jesus loving people! I felt a joy that I had never felt before when I was around them. I really loved the conversations we had around fire pits on worship nights at James' house (his house was also next to the county jail...super safe neighborhood).  We had summers filled with pranks between the guys and the girls of our college group. Those were the best years of my life! I was growing as a person and learning about God and his place in my life. There was a problem with all of this. All of this was going to eventually end. People were going to listen to God tell them to move away and go to school, be a missionary, get married or just move on to something else. My perfect world started to fall apart before my eyes.

As everyone was growing up and growing closer to Jesus, I started to feel more and more alone. I kept thinking that whatever it was that God had planned for me and for my life couldn't be nearly as important as what they are doing.  Noah went to Bible College in California, then off to Australia and eventually Germany. He was doing this incredible work for the Lord and I felt like I had missed something. Why didn't God want to use me? Was I not "Christian enough?" I decided that a little prayer might be in order.  I had prayed before, but I learned how to sound more "Jesus like" by listening to others. I'm not sure how genuine my words were, but I know my heart was there.  I really knew no differently.  I had asked God to show me what he wanted me to do with the rest of my life.  You know what he said?  Nothing.  I would ask again another day and still nothing. Day after day I begged him to show me something. I would tell him "If you are really as great as everyone says you are, then where are you? Why aren't you answering me?"  Finally, he did answer me.  Or maybe I made it up, the jury is still out. The answer was...Bible College.

AJ Swodoba describes Bible college so perfectly in his book Messy. God likes it that way.  "Bible colleges are weird places for weird people. On so many levels". AMEN! Let me back track for a moment. I applied to one Bible college.  I also only researched one Bible college, if you can count googling "Bible Colleges in the Northwest" research.  Apparently, Multnomah Bible College thought I was an appropriate candidate for their school and accepted me! WOOT! I felt like moving to Portland was what God wanted me to do. Well, He may have, but the truth is, my best girl friends were both in serious relationships, people I was close to had already moved away for school or mission work and I felt like I needed a change.

I moved to Portland and began my Super Christian education. Don't be offended Bible College Grads, I loved it! But the truth is, any spec of relationship with Christ that I had before attending, disappeared while I was there. I know that this is of no fault of the faculty or other students, but only my own.  The more I learned about who God was, the less I knew him. Honestly, the less I cared to know him.  I think I have really only held on to Him for so long out of obligation and fear of what people (my fellow Christians) might think of me. While I was in school I was involved in youth ministry and on leadership teams. I talked a big talk about what it means to be a Christian and how I was so great at it.  Awesome right? I thought that I was so much better and I thought that I was "good to go" as long as I was going to church. Really, Dani? Four years of Bible college and you seriously think that you're "good to go"? I would pray asking God to change the hearts of those who didn't know Him and of those who desperately need Him, but I never seemed to make it on either of those lists for me. Looking back, I needed those prayers prayed for me more than anyone else I knew. This became especially true my Jr. and Sr. year of college.

I had met this guy and we fell madly in love! It was like God had finally shown me why He brought me to Portland in the first place. Clearly, God's only concern was for my love life to be full and happy. Well, this guy and I got engaged and were planning our wedding when all of a sudden, BOOM! "I'm not sure I ever loved you". What?! Maybe you should have thought of that BEFORE you asked me to marry you?! This was my major turning point. This is where it gets really ugly. This is that part I haven't really talked about to anyone before. I have been so ashamed for so long. It's time that I get real, for real this time.

Promising to spend the rest of your life with someone is a promise that I don't take lightly.  When he promised me a life together then took it all back, just like that, I was pissed. At first, I was just heartbroken. I kept thinking that I had done something wrong to make him leave. He and I went back and forth for nearly a year after the initial break up. Talk about dragging it out, eh?  I would tell him that God had confirmed in my heart that he was the person I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with. The truth is, I never really asked God.  I never told anyone that before. Maybe if I had, I wouldn't have suffered as much as I did. Maybe if I had attempted to build a relationship with God rather than one with myself, I wouldn't have the scars and the wounds that I look at and deal with every single day now. Honestly, I didn't even pray for months after we broke up. Months. I didn't open my Bible for almost a year. When I finally prayed, I prayed the same prayer I had in the past.  "If you are really as great as everyone says you are, then where are you? Why aren't you answering me?  Do you even care about me? Why did you do this to me?" You know what he said?  Nothing.  I feel as though he has been silent ever since. My prayers have become less, my Bible reading has become non existent, and I have never felt more empty in my entire life.

The emptiness that I mentioned above had been increasing more and more lately. For quite some time now I have just felt...I don't know...sad. I have been hopeless, angry, frustrated and my poor husband has had no idea what to do. I haven't even known what was really wrong. Until this last weekend.

I got up this last Sunday morning, no different than any other Sunday morning. I made my coffee, cuddled with Rogue (the dog) and turned on the TV for some catch up on the weekday shows that we recorded. It was 6:30 when I got up, but I had been tossing and turning for a couple of hours already.  Adam rolled out of bed near 8:30AM, made coffee and said to me: "Church is at 9:30, right?" Um, no. Church is at 9, has always been at 9, with the exception of Easter weekend. Once that was cleared up, we got ready and set out for our long 2 minute commute to church.

We get to church, late of course (I'm still not sure how that is possible when we live so close), and sit in our usual spot. To  be completely honest, I have not really been all that excited about church.  All I could think is that this week would be no different than the rest. I would hear a message, it would apply to me, but I wouldn't actually take it to heart.  This has been my experience for longer than I care to admit.  Worship ends and our Youth Pastor, Kevin, gets up to introduce our speaker for the day. I had been expecting Jared or Ann (our Senior Pastors) to preach and was caught off guard by this mysterious guy in skinny jeans, thick, black rimmed glasses and who looks to be no older than 25. Kevin introduces him as Dr. Swoboda. Dr.?! What?! I thought...hmm...maybe I should pay attention today. This guy is super smart!

AJ Swoboda spoke today about a story that I am extremely familiar with, but it has never impacted me quite like today.  To be honest, the Bible passage he taught on had little to no impact on me. It was the point that he continued to drive home that began to make my ears ring.  God can decide when he wants to be revealed to any one person. Only God can open our eyes to him, in His perfect timing.  I have been a Christian since I was 17 years old, and God has never opened my eyes like He did Sunday morning. What He showed me was probably the hardest thing for me to see. I realized that for entirely too long, I have been putting on the face of a Christian life.  I wasn't doing anything terrible or anything like that, but I wasn't really being a Christian either. All of my frustration, sadness and everything else was my heart and my soul being torn from end to end.  God was fighting, and fighting hard for my soul. I was allowing the enemy to win, for years. I was accepting defeat when all I had to do was ask for help. Luckily, Adam has prayed for me and I have been praying for guidance. Well, God gave it to me. He was in my face about it too. He used AJ to remind me that the Christian life is full of great things. But it's also full of hardship. In that moment, God spoke to me in the most quiet voice. It is the first time I have ever been sure it was Him. He said: "This is for you. You keep asking me where I have been. I'm right here. I always have been. You just haven't seen me. Welcome back!"

This may not seem to be a big deal to some of you. But for me, this is a life changer. For the first time in my life, I actually understand grace the way I believe God intended me to.  AJ, thank you for bringing the Word to life for me today. Jared and Ann, thank you for being a people that invites and encourages others to speak in our church.  To Krista and Amy, thank you for being the one constant, regardless of choices. to Life Center Church in Spokane, WA...thank you for introducing me to community and to a hunger to know more. To Adam, the most incredible gift that God has given me...you are truly a blessing in my life. Thank you for you patience, your devotion, your love and your prayers.  You have been teaching me so much throughout this entire journey. I love you.