The last two months of school dragged by slower than ever. I was just tired all of the time, and ready for the school year to end. I wouldn't be returning to that private Christian school. My mom found me another school that was still small, but not so small that it needed only one classroom to accommodate the entire high school. It wasn't a Christian school either. I hoped to have more freedom to learn and more exposure to different ideas there, and maybe it would fit me best.

I did remember praying once, asking God to get me to someplace much better where I could be successful. Instantly, I felt a peace come over me, and a thought popped into my head, which I wrote down on a sticky note, "You will be taken care of, and you will end up someplace that works for you. Just be patient. It will be soon."

In my mind, "soon" meant the following school year after I left the Christian school, and I was actually excited. However, I was more excited for summer, because as soon as school let out, I'd be going to Clarke's for a weekend, and from there, my grandparents were taking me to my grandpa's childhood farm in North Dakota. We'd drive there, just me and them, and while they worked with their siblings to renovate the old farmhouse, I'd have the entire pasture to myself to ride my dirtbike. I could do whatever I wanted, and I couldn't wait to have 2 weeks on the farm, with just my grandparents and their siblings, to be free. 

The North Dakota trip was exactly what I needed. As soon as we arrived, after driving for over 12 hours, I started up my dirtbike and raised some hell as the sun sank below the western plains. I didn't ride for very long. I was hungry and needed to bring my luggage into my great uncle's new trailer house, which was built just a few dozen yards away from the old farmhouse. By the time I had settled down in my bedroom for the trip, and sat down for dinner, it was pitch dark outside and my dirtbike was parked in my great uncle's tractor shed. 

For the next two weeks, I woke up late, rode my dirtbike all day until sundown, only stopping to refill the gas tank and get some food, ate dinner with the family, and played cards with them until well after midnight. I'd go to bed, wake up sometime between noon and two in the afternoon, and the cycle continued. I was in heaven, though I was haunted by the still unanswered, and increasingly difficult questions I had about God and Christianity. 

I found myself entertaining those thoughts well after midnight. I'd sit on the back porch alone in the dark and stare up at the bright Milky Way, while listening to the crickets, frogs, and occasional coyote yips and howls, wondering if there was a God. If there was a God, was He a theistic God, or was He simply deistic, or maybe even just pantheistic? If God was theistic, was He the God of the bible? If He was the God of the bible, then why was the world so messed up? Why was God not obvious? Why didn't I feel His presence? Was I doing something wrong? Etc, etc, etc.

I had no answers to those questions. I didn't know if I should still consider myself a Christian, or if I was merely agnostic. All I knew was that I didn't know where to turn. I was lost, and in need of some serious guidance.