In the Silence of a Nebraska Field.

Study/Reading Days have passed without so much studying or reading. This past weekend, my old roommate and I ventured out of the city and into the less-marked corn fields of IA. We stayed with my family for a night, and then decided to venture further west and see Chander's parents in the even less-marked fields of Firth, Nebraska.

Disclaimer: I have only driven through NE on my way to the grander of Colorado, so everything I say from here on about the state of Nebraska may be shed in that light.

Nebraska is one of those states you forget to mention when running through a list of our fifty. It's the one that, when you're stuck at 48 states and can't figure out which ones you're missing, and when you finally look at a map, it may still take you ten or fifteen minutes to notice your mistake. Nebraska just isn't that striking.

However, there is within Nebraska this little town called Firth. And within that little town of 500 people there is a little house called the Mulder home. And even though Firth has fewer residents in it than there are women in my dorm building, this little town has a true gem in the Mulder household.

I went to Nebraska assuming I would accomplish so much homework because, let's face it, there's nothing else to do there. But I found that in Nebraska backyards I meet with my Savior in a long and wholesome way. With a pond at my toes and a blanket on my shoulders, I met with the Lover of my soul in a way that I have been missing in the noise and crowd of the city. For weeks I have felt like the blind man on the road who kept calling out to Jesus through the crowd, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" But no matter how loudly I called, there was just so much going on, so many silencing voices, so many feet confusing my own. And in a rare moment of spiritual awareness, He came and asked me, "What do you want?"

"You," is the heart-throbbing answer of my honest self.

And in the silence of a Nebraska field He gave me my request. He gave me Himself.