The Storm

Hello world!

I'm going to write some more for my Faith project, as I plan to show my work in Young Women's Excellence next month. I hope I get it finished, or at least half!

I am going to go further back than before, all the way to sometime in 1st or 2nd grade. It's one of the only experiences I can remember well from so long ago. I was either 6- or 7-years old, but let's just go with 7.

It happened while riding the bus to school in the morning in Indiana.

I've always been more of the kind of kid to sit alone more often than not just because I want to. I love window seats, because I can stare out to the world and just think about different things... I remember that I always sat near the front, where all the younger kids sat, and every once in a while I ended up next to some girl a grade lower, and I'd try helping her with her homework or play some game that had to do with drawing boxes around dots against her. I also sometimes would play "Miss Mary Mack" against the back of the seat in front of me. The older kids in the back were always really loud, basically shouting some of the time. I didn't really mind, usually, since I can be pretty good at ignoring crowd noise. They all loved to sing those songs used to annoy others, especially "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves! I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, and this is how it goes! 1, 2, 3!" They would repeat that over and over, louder and faster, and it was so fun I sometimes joined them, even if none of them would know I did. If I could do that on the bus now without getting punched, I would gladly do it, because I really associate the song with good memories.

It rains a lot more in Indiana than in Utah, let me tell you. I don't remember if I disliked precipation then as much as I do now, but I remember that all the grass and trees were bright green and beautiful because of it. I only mention this because this experience happens during a storm.

Yeah. Unless I'm remembering wrong, there was a thunderstorm happening on my way to school.

I don't get freaked by big storms unless they seem much too close to my location. If the lightning and thunder are drawing nearer, and I fear for my safety, I'll worry. Imagine how scary it was for Past Me, one of the youngest students, on a school bus, driving around when the rain was pouring down hard and the lightning was so bright and constant and the thunder was louder than the kids in the back! I seriously thought that the bus could end up tipping over from the weather's assault on us! Or maybe crash! Or get hit by lightning!

I felt so terrified.

I started crying and curling up into a ball in fear, sitting by myself on the seat near the front of the bus where no one bothered me. Not even my sister, because she always sat with her friends somewhere in the middle of the bus. It wasn't her fault, though, that she wasn't anywhere in this story- if I wasn't hugging myself, I could've ran to the back or called for her. But I was so scared of moving, or making anyone else moving, that I stayed by myself.

I then suddenly thought of praying. I sniffled, and folded my arms around my knees, tilted my head down, and tried to pray. I begged for the storm to go away, and for me to calm down. I waited a few minutes. More tears fell, and the older kids continued yelling as if nothing was happening, not helping the situation at all.

I tried again. I repeated my prayer over and over in my head, trying to say it out loud, but was more mouthing out the words than whispering. The noise inside and outside was deafening, and I pressed my hands over my ears to try to focus on my desperate, infinite praying. Every time the thunder boomed again I twitched violently and another tear fell down. I mentally yelled "SHUT UP ALREADY!" at the kids in the back, constantly. I spent more time with my eyes squeezed shut and my hands blocking the sound than not by that point. I reworded my faintly whispered prayers multiple times, not even caring if the storm really went away at all by now, just hoping I wouldn't be so scared of it.

I finally resigned myself once again to looking out the window, not really taking in anything out there. We were finally arriving to the school. It was then when I suddenly realized something.

The thunder stopped.

The lightning stopped.

The rain wasn't pelting the roof so harshly anymore.

The storm was ending. By now, it was just rain. The kind of rain that I was perfectly used to seeing.

And I felt okay.

He answered my prayer. My prayer was answered! He really was listening to my pleas!

The bus stopped, and I grabbed my backpack as I squeezed myself into the line that formed in the aisle to escape the yellow contraption. Everyone ran out of the bus to the doors into the school as fast as possible without running over one another or tripping to not get too wet by the rain that was calming down slowly. I quickly dried as I walked through the building to the 1st and 2nd grade wing. I wiped any moisture left on my face and smiled to myself.

The rest of the day was normal.

Praying is one of the things I appreciate the most now. I think about this experience every time it is mentioned in church. I have told the short version to my Sunday School teachers and wrote it for an assignment in 5th grade. (Can't remember why I had to write it for Humanities... I just remember that I did.) I feel like I have told it to too many and that I should probably try to use other experiences instead, but this is one of the most important ones to me. I gained a huge testimony of the power of prayer, and nothing else compares to it.

I also love the Primary song "A Child's Prayer." It's so pretty and means a lot to me.

God listened to 7-year-old me. If you ask something of him sincerely- even just to know if He is real- he will listen and answer. Whether you consider yourself religious or not, we all need to ask for His help every once in a while. Have you tried?