tornado survivor!

that's right, I survived my very fist real live tornado. I mean, technically we aren't supposed to get those up here in the Appalachian mountains. I was at church, helping out with this big youth thing called JamFest, and we had to go down in the basement and hang out for a while. But everything's fine I guess, there's a big oak tree laying across my back porch, but as far as I know it didn't hit anything super important. Well except my friend's dog died, and if Smudge died in a storm, I would just totally fall apart. I wonder if it's bad to love my dog that much, but oh man I do.

So I mean, all this got me thinking about God of course. Because when you're sitting in a church basement and someone tells you there's a tornado outside, you really want to know where your family is all of a sudden. And of course none of them answered my text messages, so everyone was just freaking out, wanting to know where in town it was (and it actually touched down 2 miles from the church we were in). And I had gotten in a big argument with my parents before I left the house, so of course I was feeling wonderful about that. It's funny how God puts things into perspective for you that quickly. I'm constantly trying to examine my life and see where I have sin habits I'm not taking seriously, or places where I'm missing an opportunity to glorify God. And I walked out of my house and drove to church today, thinking "oh well, same old situation, this is hopeless just like it's always been" because getting along with my parents has just gone from bad to worse since I've been home for the summer. But man...God threw in that tornado and all of a sudden I was really on my knees, ashamed of my apathy. I think the tornado was just for me, really. The same God who can bring a storm can calm a storm, just like He can move a mountain. I forgot that today. God has really neat reminders.

In other news, I leave for Colorado on Friday and I have yet to start packing. Bad news bears. I can't believe I'll be gone for a month. I've never flown before, either. I've always had a fear of flying...big time, so I'm sure it's going to be stressful. Apparantly the Dallas airport has some kind of train inside to move people around between terminals, and I'm just like "what the heck!" but whaaatever. If 5-year-olds can do it, I can too.

My Chaco's and North Face backpack are supposed to come in the mail tomorrow; I'll finally be a real Young Life leader.

I bought the new Jonas Brothers CD (shut up) and it's not even good.