Monday, September 4th, 2006
was the day I was to drive back to St. Olaf for the start of junior year. Both
my parents had come to help me load the Jeep (she wasn't Gracie yet) for the
trip. It was, shall we say, a rather emotional day. For I didn't want to return
to school, [“http://amidthenoiseandhaste2.blogspot.com/2006/09/school-starting-soon.html”]
not after what had transpired over the summer. I wanted to stay home, maybe
take the semester off; anything but return to school. I thought I was
done at St. Olaf.
On Thursday, August 24th,
2006, the town of Northfield was hit by a hailstorm so massive, rumors were
that those working on the Hill on that particular day were ordered into the
basement of whatever building they were in. Many of my peers' cars were totaled.
There was on instance where a hailstone had not only shattered the rear window
of a car, but forced itself all the way into the speaker underneath the rear
dashboard. Now that was powerful. When I did return to the campus, I was
able to see for the first time the extent of the damage that this particular
storm had caused. [“http://amidthenoiseandhaste2.blogspot.com/2006/09/hailstorms-fire-and-facebook.html”]
And I was quite shocked, even in expecting to see what I saw.
I was supposed to have lived
in Ytterboe Hall (a dorm made up of pods, basically) junior year. I was set to
join a "God Pod" (as a few of my friends who were in it liked to call
it), in which I would have spent a lot of time studying Scripture and playing
Dance Dance Revolution (or DDR for short), and I would have lived next door to
two of the "four friends" that I talked about in this post. [“http://amidthenoiseandhaste2.blogspot.com/2010/05/stone-from-memory-lane-end-of-junior.html”]
Except, the person I was
supposed to have roomed with was my roommate over the previous summer, in which
things started going awry about a month in. It wouldn't really do me any good
to go into specifics, largely because this is something that's been put to bed
for a few years now, but I will say the experience made me realize that there's
a huge diversity among people who are (or claim to be) Christian. I'd grown up
somehow thinking that everyone was like the Episcopals, and the differences
were mostly in Sunday morning worship/Eucharist/Mass/etc. None of this
political crap, for instance, where people claim God supports one particular
American political party over another.
The experience had gotten so
bad between my roommate and I (we'd get into arguments over each other and how
the other needed to change), that I grabbed another room to stay in for the
remainder of the summer. [“http://amidthenoiseandhaste2.blogspot.com/2006/08/about-me-huh.html”]
Of course, it meant I would be on my own for the following school year, so
Ytterboe was out.
I'd realized what a bad
influence my ex-roommate had been on me, so for the rest of the time the both
of us were in school I tried to avoid him. I wasn't going to do so completely,
but I also didn't want to deal with him or any of that crap resurfacing. But
then I knew I had to do something else: forgive him. It sure as hell wasn't
easy, but I knew God didn't want me hanging on to these thoughts for the rest
of my life. So I forgave him, and understood that it was in the past.
A couple years later he
tried to rope me into a pyramid scheme. At the time I wasn't sure what was
going on (he was trying to offer me a job with some sketchy online company
which supposedly had his name on it), but another friend of mine happened to be
right next to me, and he warned me of it as soon as I got off the phone. At
that point I realized that even though I'd forgiven my ex-roommate for the crap
he'd pulled, I wasn't going to be dragged down into this ever-continuing cycle.
So I removed all contact from him, removed him from my phone, removed him as a
Facebook friend... just cut the cord.
And if there had ever been
any doubts about it for me, all I needed to do was look up Matthew 5:29, NIV: [If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is
better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be
thrown into hell.] [“http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5:29&version=NIV”]
Technically this particular passage is referring to adultery, but it applies
here as well. I mean, joining a pyramid scheme in the search of wealth is kind
of like committing adultery on God. As this passage from Luke 16:13 (NLT) says:
[No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and
love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot
serve both God and money.] [“http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2016:13&version=NLT”]
Back to the hailstorm. My
ex-roommate's car wasn't spared. One of things that had bugged me was his lack
of regard to safety at times while driving, especially when he was trying to
show off. I was almost pissed at his car, and a sticker on the side that
said "Fired Up For Jesus!" that showed itself in time to be quite
hypocritical. But I guess God too was pissed, because he sent the hailstorm and
completely totaled it. (tongue-in-cheek-face)
As for junior year, well...
on the evening of September 4th, a friend who would become my roommate after
college called me to tell me "welcome home... for the next nine months,
anyway." If I recall correctly, we met up at the Rueb N' Stein for dinner
shortly thereafter ... I met the third of the "four friends"
(chronologically speaking) over the second half of the summer when the roommate
troubles were at its peak, and the fourth at the Episcopal church in town a
couple months later. And as I would soon realize, this particular school year
would become the best I'd ever had ... This is testimony that God restores,
more fully and completely than ever before.