My Dull Depressing Life

In June 2008 my uncle, who had cancer, died. My family and I came down to help my aunt and cousins cope. It was hard. Brought back memories for me of my grandmother’s death. I cried a lot. My family felt like strangers to me. I felt like I didn’t know any of them anymore, not even my favorite aunt. I hated it. I wanted to scream and run away. I didn’t of course, but I wanted to.
When we went home from the funeral, my mother and I went on a retreat called Higher Ground. At Higher Ground we talked about a lot of things. One of the things that stuck in my mind from Higher Ground was about signs from God. So one day when we went to another church to pray, I asked God for one of those signs. I told God I didn’t feel like I was right with him. I ended up asking him to send a friend of mine I had met on the retreat to talk to me if I wasn’t right with her. Instead my roommate, who I had also befriended, came to talk to me. We were sitting there talking quietly, I was suddenly stopped midsentence noticing my ‘sign friend’ had shown up and was standing right above me. Before I had looked up and she was on the other side of the room. I had though “Okay, cool I’m good. God and I are right where we’re supposed to be. I don’t need to do anything.” But now here was my sign staring me in the face. I was now thinking “Oh, crap! I’m in trouble now.” And apparently she read my thoughts; because she asked me what trouble I had gotten into now. I told her about my… Bargain (? not sure that’s the right word) with God. And she offered to pray with me. Long story short I got saved that night. I told my mom before we left the church and then I told the rest of the people at the retreat when we got back. Oh, did I mention that the day I got saved was June 21, 2008? Yeah. The 21st of February I was born, the 21st of June I was born again in Jesus Christ. Cool huh? I’ll probably die on the 21st of something. I want to get married on the 21st of April… If I ever get married. I want to get married in the rain too. But anyway. Back to the story…
When I got home I told everyone. I was making phone calls and going to people’s houses. All kinds of things. I wanted the whole world to know. The next week I went to camp FunInTheSon. It’s the coolest camp. I love the people who own it. They’re some of the best people I know. While I was there I gave up secular music… That didn’t last all that long… Ah, foreshadowing! Anyway I went home and threw out all of my non-Christian music except the Lion King II sound track (I’m a Lion King Fan so sue me! I LOVE Lion King!) I even threw out my Plain White T’s CD’s, which were a major memory of Graden. Our song was Hey There Delilah. Now I know if you’ve been paying attention you’re saying hey isn’t Delilah your friend’s name? And well it’s the name I gave her in this, because she’s the one of the best girls in the world and I don’t want anyone bothering her so to protect her I changed her name. And I called her Delilah because she loved that song and that name. So there it is. And yes it’s a painful reminder. I can’t listen to Hey There Delilah without crying because I miss Graden so much. Okay moving on…