Let's begin shall we, I'm a child from a divorced family. Which I'm sure many of you can identify with because of the divorce rate but that's a whole other matter. So two houses, two versions of every holiday, etc. For me, that was learned and lived. That is water under the bridge we've moved on from. This isn't my subject tonight.

Skip ahead to high school. Things are okay I guess, it's high school. You can't really win in high school unless you're really lucky and you think I'm crazy. But we're not talking about that either, so let's skip ahead to this summer. More precisely to just a few days ago, the 18th. It wasn't the best of days and it all started with this bright yellow shirt.

Let me explain... I'm at my dad's hanging out not doing much while still recovering from camp and doing laundry. When I realized that I still haven't found my bright yellow work shirt that I'll need. I tear apart the room at my dad's with still no sign of it there. I think okay, that's fine, not too bad. I have to get over to my mom's anyway to find my phone charger because it wasn't in my suit case from camp, so I it has to be over there. I drive over to my moms which is on the other side of town. I arrive to find our key then run into my room. I start to tear that apart everything , I'm digging in my laundry hamper, I'm going through every drawer and just putting all my clothes into a pile on the floor as I look. Nothing, it's not there either. So I'm thinking okay, I did change out of it into my VBS shirt so maybe it's in my car. I'll be fine. Nope... Nope that's a bust too. So I go to my next option which is to blame it on my twin sister, everything is so much easier to blame on my sister. We have the same work shirt so I figure, eh, maybe she found it where I left it and just you know grabbed it thinking it was hers and she's got like two. So I called her. I then get yelled at - that's always fun.

So now I'm standing in the hot garage in anger and I just have a pit in my stomach that tells me today is going to be a bad day.

I drove back over to dad's after about half an hour of sitting on my moms couch to calm down because you never drive when you're upset.

I tear apart my room again, and it's not there. By now my sister's just telling me it's lost. To just get over it, sucks for you, I'm not gonna help you in anyway possible. But I can't do that, because admitting that it's lost means admitting defeat and I'm not about to do that. And I just start think, oh my gosh, I'm such an idiot, I can never do anything right, I'm never organized.

I mean I've already had kind of a bad rep with losing things and I always have to be that one person who is prone to missing things. Nothing is safe with me. And I'm just beating myself over it. I'm thinking there's no way I can ever be a responsible adult. I'll never function as an adult. I'll never ever be good enough. I've already lost a check from my job and they must think I'm so irresponsible and I just make everybody's job harder for them. I must be the worst worker ever.

And here's the kicker guys, I work in the church. I work in the nursery for goodness sake. I'm in the best possible environment to make actual mistakes in and yet I keep beating myself up over it.

So my day goes on, bad stuff just keeps coming. I missed lunch with my family cause of that stupid shirt. None of my friends want to hang out but I see on snapchat that they're all together. I burned my feet on the hot concrete and everyone in the house leaves to go grocery shopping and they don't come back until 8. So I'm by myself all day just trying to keep myself busy by putting camp pictures on my computer and figuring that whole mess out.

By the end of the day I'm feeling pretty crappy and alone. But I know I'm not cause God's always supposed to be with me but I can't stop feeling that way and I hate myself for it. I hate myself because I'm just feeling sorry for myself and get over it but I can't. And I just start crying.

So after a good fifteen minutes of just wallowing in self-pity, I get up and go grab my bible. You see there's this thing I do where I take the bible, pull out the bookmark I have in it and just let it fall open. Hoping I'll get a little bit of advice or comfort.

Well I try it about three times. I'm reading the pages through tears, but nothing is really clicking. I'm sure God was up there just like face palming and going, "ugh, you're killing me, do I have to spell it out for you?"

Please?

So it's about the forth time but before I clutch my bible close as if it were a lifeline and just silently go, "Please, please, say something, I need you, I need you to tell me something because I can't take this."

I keep my eyes close as I open it that forth time and it lands in Isaiah 45. I don't know why, okay I know why, but my heart just kinda feels pulled to the left page and I start to scan and I see it.

Isaiah 45: 5 "I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me..."

At first I was kinda like, okay ouch, little bit of tough love but I'm starting to calm down, I'm not crying as much as I was.

And then it starts to rain.

Here's the other ironic thing, I was writing an article for the Odyssey, and I called it 5 tips from one Introvert to another on Friends and Summer Plans and one of those tips was in fact to break that cycle of selfpity and to go do something. I never wrote that if it was raining to go play in the rain.

I was still in the sundress I had worn that day, so I had to rush out of it and threw on some of my sisters short that she had left in my room and a t-shirt because if we all know Oklahoma weather it's that it's never the same for fifteen minutes, and ran out the back door. I did something I hadn't done in years. I played in the rain.

My dad has a pool- which was a lot warmer than the rain - I was standing in the shallow end, looking up as the rain came down and I didn't feel so lonely anymore. I was thinking about how this rain was God's love and how I was literally being soaked in God's love.

Of course, there was some thunder and lighting not two minutes later and I'm sure God's was going, "Do you get it now?!?" And I was like - Yep! Yep! I do, we're good, we're great! Thanks for the lesson. Now let me just go stand under this little overhang but you can just go ahead and keep going.