Yes, I know my final story is a lot like my rough draft. Yes, I did tweak it here and there, and no, I'm still not happy with it. I just don't do rough drafts. My rough drafts are unintelligible (sp?) even to me! So, I just write, and in a couple of days I'll look at it again...and change it again. Oh, well. C'est la vie!

I love God stories. Now, I don’t mean Bible stories, although those are pretty great, too. I mean God stories. A God story is all about that moment you realized God’s hand was all over a situation even though you hadn’t really noticed at the time. Take the events of a recent rainy day, for example.

Every Thursday, I have about an hour between classes with nothing to do except feed the parking meter. Last Thursday, I decided to go to class early rather than wandering around aimlessly. The classroom had computers and internet. I was sure I could find a game of Solitaire, Free Cell, or some other mindless endeavor to occupy my time. Cautiously, I made my way to the classroom. I say cautiously because I am still not very familiar with the campus, but I am very familiar with my own ability to easily get lost. My first day of class, I had walked around the outside of an entire building and through the entire first floor before I could figure out how to even get to the second floor. So, you can understand my relief when I found the right door, and you can understand my dread at seeing an ominous note, its words mocking my success, hanging on that very same door. The class had been moved to another room.

I took a deep breath. “This is a small campus. How bad could it be?” I reasoned. Then I looked at the sign again and realized I’d never even heard of the building I was looking for. Now what? I was doing just fine on time but that wouldn’t last. Getting lost on a college campus has a way of eating up large chunks of time. I needed a plan. So, I carefully found my way back to the stairs in search of direction. I found that direction from a kind woman who took pity on me at the Parking Permitting Office. She handed me a map with a big red circle around my destination. The exit doors opened with a swish, and armed only with my map and good directions, I happily stepped out…into the rain.

While I had been re-routing my evening, dark clouds were spitting rain pellets on the campus. The sidewalk that would bring me to the door of the right building loomed before me speckled with droplets of water. It was a long walk from where I was to where I wanted to be. I didn’t carry an umbrella. Instead, I carried a paper map whose usefulness didn’t extend to protection from the rain. Looking up at the mass of grey in the sky, I asked God if He thought this was funny. I kept up a stream of muttering for the entire walk across the campus. Occasionally, I glanced back at the sky and sneered. In my heart, I know it's not all about me, but at that moment, each raindrop seemed like a personal sting to my pride. I did try to be a little more humble as I walked and thanked the Lord for the nuturing rain that our sprouting garden desperately needed. I just did it rather sarcastically.

I had worked myself into a pretty good snit by the time I finally made it to my destination, damp and still confused. I may have found the building, but I still hadn’t found the room. Drop me off in the middle of nowhere; give me a topographical map, a compass and a good walking stick; and I would be more apt to find my way than in a strange building trying to understand someone else’s sense of organization.

Suffice it to say, after looking in every corner of the lobby for a sign, I did find my way out of the lobby, and back outside again. It seems in this particular building all of the classrooms opened to the outside not to a common hallway. Dodging a few more rain bullets, I made it to the right door. It was locked.

Just as I was turning to find a comfortable seat back in the lobby, the sky opened and rain poured down all around me, but I was safe and dry. The door I had been searching for was located in a covered walkway. As I made myself comfortable on the concrete, my back against the brick wall, I looked up. I had some apologies to make. He hadn’t sent me out into that light drizzle to make me miserable. He did it to keep me from being soaked in the deluge that followed. He patiently let me fume about the very personal offense I took from each and every raindrop. That annoyance had quickened my pace a bit. Had things not happened exctly as they had, I would have been drenched and shivering in the air-conditioned clasroom. Funny, isn’t it, how God will put those little ideas in your head, and if you’re not careful, you miss them?

I was not raised in a Christian home. In fact, my early Bible knowledge came from movies like The Ten Commandments and Jesus Christ Superstar. I don’t even think there was a Bible in my house, but I’m learning. I’m learning just how much work God put into getting me to this moment. I’m learning to watch for His hand in my life, even on the little things like saving me from the rain. I’m learning to be grateful for God’s whispers, especially when that whisper is urging me to run, and I have no idea until I reach safety that a 500-pound, 16-hand-tall thoroughbred had been chasing me. But that’s another story for another time.

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ElizabethMcNelis

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