For most of that summer after North Dakota, I honestly stopped thinking about God. I figured He'd reveal Himself to me when I was ready. I was open to God, but I wasn't spending much time thinking about Him. Even when I was 30,000 feet in the air, staring out the window over the snow-capped Rockies with nothing but music and a few games on my dying phone to entertain me, I still didn't ponder the existence of God. When I was kayaking in the Puget Sound near Seattle, Washington, surrounded by islands of magnificent, bright green rain forests, and dipping my paddle into swarms of thousands of moon jellyfish, I didn't think once about how God created all of that. When I was swimming on the surface of the ocean in Santa Monica, California, occasionally getting tangled up long ropes of slimy kelp, I still never thought about how awesome God's creation was.
The only time I really thought about God was when my dad and I were on the way to Minnesota, and we got caught on the very edge of a gnarly storm somewhere in Nebraska. It was really a fear response for me to pray, since the sky directly above us was pitch black, the rain and hail were coming down in extremely heavy sheets, and the wind was pushing my dad's Xterra towards the ditch. But, just as I asked God for protection, the storm passed and the sky was a pale white. We didn't have AC during the whole ride, because the AC belt snapped when we were still in Colorado, so I was glad it wasn't sunny. It was still uncomfortable, especially since my dad had all of the windows down and was pushing 100 miles per hour on some stretches of highway, but I was at least cool. Perhaps, that was also God's doing.
Once we got to Minnesota and stumbled into my grandparents' house that night, I was surrounded by bible verses and cute little signs and notes that acknowledged God in some way. My grandparents on my dad's side were both very devout Lutherans, so reminders about God were everywhere. In fact, my grandpa was listening to the local Christian radio station, which was playing an old song by Gene Autry, which I sat down to listen to with my grandpa, while my grandma talked to my dad about our road trip.
"Make your sins all skedaddle
Get old Satan outta your saddle
If you wanna clink your silver spurs upon the golden stairs."
I took God a little more into consideration during that trip. I was still mainly focused on riding my dirtbike, shooting guns, lighting bonfires, feeding the cows and calves, and most of all, spending time with family. However, whenever I walked into my grandparents' house, I was always reminded of God. And wherever I explored the farm, I was reminded of God's beautiful creation too. It's pretty hard to ignore Him when there's a church on a hill just across the road from the farm.
On the final day of our trip, we were hit with a sudden, heavy summer thunderstorm. The sky was a dark grey-green color, and the wind howled through the trees as rain fell in heavy, blinding sheets. I watched from the sliding glass door to the porch with my dad, as the trees bowed violently and the rain fell sideways. We were fascinated by it. We hadn't seen something so strong in a long time, and we would continue watching it as long as it didn't turn too dangerous. As soon as it stopped raining, and the wind wasn't blowing so hard, I stepped out onto my uncle's back porch ahead of my dad. Right above us, stretching from my grandparents' farm to the rolling green hills to the northeast, was a huge and vibrant double rainbow. I wish I thought to take a picture before it started to fade (even though I couldn't fit the whole thing in just one picture), but I still got some pictures of it. A few final heavy gusts of wind blew against my back and pushed the storm eastward, as the rainbow was replaced by a deep blue afternoon sky.
I didn't know it then, but that storm was a metaphor for things to come. Huge, sudden changes were on my near horizon, and while it would feel dark and stormy for awhile, eventually it would pass, and I'd be rewarded with something beautiful.
