I fell in love when I was fifteen.
Summer days became nights became days — when the Ohio sun set late and I didn’t use an alarm clock. We piled into friends’ jeep wranglers and drove around as if this Sophomore summer meant we had unhinged freedom. We formed a pack of “best friends” — we played pranks and made life-long promises and told one another as much of the parts of our hearts that we could access, then.
In the middle of which, I fell in love.
Curfew brought me home. I’d find my spot on the swing in our back-yard and I’d talk to God.
The Bible that sat on my shelf since my First-Communion now had marks. The combination of the moonlight and the spot-light from underneath my parents’ bedroom window became my nightlight. I read His Word and talked to Him and it was electric.
He was near.
It felt natural to place teenage angst at His feet, that summer when everything was romantic. He was new and mysterious and I was hungry and unpracticed.
But somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five the other noise got much louder and what was mysterious, that summer, became just …normal. Just another thing on my list. My Bible and my planner shared a shelf.
He was near — but the swing out back was empty. Continue Reading Over Here —>
