I'm kind of sad that my weekend of solitude is over. Sandy, Ro and I had originally planned to go to Seoul for this 3-day weekend but last minute that didn't work out. Then Sandy and Ro ended up opting to go to a national park, which would be cheaper and closer than Seoul. I, however, much to my surprise decided to stay home and be a hermit instead of go with them. Actually, I love being a hermit. Anyone that knows me well knows that I can be alone for days without any contact with humans and love it! I wouldn't love it forever but I love it for periods of time. Some of my favorite times in university were my drives from San Diego to Portland twice each summer. At first my friends and I thought I would go crazy being 18 hours in my car alone. I ended up eating it up and after one trip I didn't want anyone to come with me on the next one. ;-) The drive is incredibly beautiful cutting through southern Oregon's plush countryside and Northern Californian's mountains. It stays beautiful until the middle of California then it starts to get flat and desert like. But nonetheless I loved it, being alone with my thoughts. Being totally anonymous. I found that my thoughts would go through a pattern. First, I would think about the more immediate. The people I just left, the papers I just finished. Then after hours of sifting through that my mind would start to drift to deeper things. I would start pondering meaning, culture, life. Then my mind would drift into my own life, start to take the wrapping off different experiences, feelings and after hours of trees whipping by me I would start to untie knots in my mind. I remember slowly making peace with people, with situations during those many hours in my cream-colored Toyota. Those times are also full of memories of fellowship with my invisible passenger: Jesus. My prayers became thoughts and my thoughts became prayers all through those hours. I remember once when driving through the mountains in June I was so struck with the beauty of the scene before me that I pulled my car over to the side of the thin mountain road and sang in worship, "Mountains bow down and the sea shall roar at the sound of your Name!!!" That's a sweet memory.

I also had one of my scariest moments on one of these trips but I still can't help but look back at it with fondness. It was my first time driving up to Portland and it was the only time I did it during the winter. I made the mistake of choosing to ascend into the mountains close to nightfall. Being an amateur driver of this route I didn't realize that if I didn't sleep at the hotel at the foot of the mountains that I wouldn't have another chance to pull over for at least an hour. It was a skinny two-way road and my only companions were semi-trucks that like to hog the road and go faster than me up the steep incline. It became scary when the rain started to pour down and as I drove along at 40 miles an hour I literally couldn't see anything. What made it worse were the semi-trucks. I was going too slowly for them. They couldn't pass me, so they would just honk. I wanted to get off the highway so bad but every exit sign that I could make out said, "no services". I was really afraid that I was going to crash into something because it was raining so hard on that dark, slippery mountain road. I felt I had to keep driving though because there was nowhere to pull over and if I did pull over I was afraid that someone would hit me. So to prevent myself from panicking I repeated, "Jesus, help me" for about 45 minutes straight until I finally saw an exit sign that displayed the hotel symbol! I remember when I got out of my car I was so thankful for that small family owned hotel nestled in the middle of the mountains. I was shaking when I went to go check in but no one noticed. The next morning I took off for the last 7 hours of my trip to Portland and driving away from the hotel it started to snow. However, being the kook that I am I actually said out loud in my car, "ha, bring it on, I've just been through the mountains in a rainstorm!!!" The snow turned out to be no problem and I made it safely to Portland.

By the way, everything went well with that busy week I told you about on March 28th. Thanks for praying for me. I was really freaked out about speaking at the Wednesday chapel but I think it worked out well. If I do say so myself. :-0