Easter

Today was Easter.

After waking up way too early on a holiday, I stumbled to church about ten minutes before I was forced backstage and made to wait half an hour in the dark for my part in the Easter celebration/presentation/illustrated sermon to take place. Three times. In between, I taught a bunch of Biblically dressed kids who were going antsy in the multi-purpose room how to play Mafia, and I must say it was a huge hit. The illustrated sermon, too. As we sat behind the curtain (back onstage)in almost-silence (how much could they really hear from the first row anyway?), we discussed deep theological questions, like, "When is it okay to lie?" and "Well, if the Nazis came to your door and asked if you had five Jews hiding in your house, would you tell them the truth?" (Assuming you actually do have five Jews hiding in your house at the time.) We all decided we would lie, but the question was, would God hold it against us? Ooooh.

I was pretty much asleep when I got home, but I just had to clean up the apt a little-- it was driving me nuts. And then I sat down to do some homework. I got through a whole chapter without falling asleep and was really stinkin' proud of myself as I set in for the next chapter.

But in the midst of it, something was calling me. Maybe it was the fact that I was studying while laying out on the couch with the door wide open, facing the beautiful day that was going on out there without me. So, even though I was actually purposefully studying for the first time in about two months (as opposed to the quick one-through of the chapter five minutes before the quiz), I laid my book aside and went to change into my sneakers for a quick run.

It was that time of day where it was really starting to get cool outside if you were just standing around, but perfect if you were running. I figured I had about twenty-five minutes or so of daylight left so I took the usual trek up Granite Hills toward the stop sign at Washington.

When I was close to that farm off to the right, I came to this one street that has always intrigued me. Mainly because it's just a very calm-looking, nice street, but also because it winds around and I can't see more than maybe fifty yards up it. And I wanted to know where it went. So I headed up there.

It wound up for awhile before reaching its peak and heading back down in three different directions. I chose the one that headed back home. I came out on the other end, hoping I could find a side street that cut back to one closer to the apt, but I only came to dead ends. So I headed back up the hill and then down the original slope.

It was one of those streets that had no sidewalks. But the street was preferable for running anyway. It was smooth, perfectly even all the way down, and the street had this feel about it, like I wasn't really in El Cajon anymore, but somewhere that God could speak to my soul. It was just above the rest of the houses, so the sunset was gorgeous, this orange color with some pink clouds that I'm pretty sure God set out just for me.

So I was jogging down my little paradise, headphones feeding me Rob Bell's latest sermon, beautiful sunset to my left, totally feeling like I was in Nooma video, and I knew that God was the something that had been drawing me outside. Because even though spending all morning at church and then devoting my time to cleaning and homework was good, all day God had had a date planned for me and him at seven o'clock. I'm glad I didn't miss it.