Sunset Chasing

How God showed me His love during a stressful summer.

Story Tags

dating, relationships, death, doubt, depression, overwhelmed

Explore the Story

• Finding True Love
• Craving Acceptance
• Twists and Turns
• Where's God in suffering?
• Forgive and forget?
• Identity Crisis
• The Hole in Our Heart

Summers are supposed to be fun, right? Well, I remember one summer that was not exactly a summer I would put on a top ten list of the best summers I've ever had. The summer started out with my great-grandmother, whom I was very close to, passing away. Not long after her death, another one of my grandmothers became deathly ill. I tried to throw myself into my school work, but I didn't find relief there because I was taking some of the most stressful classes I have ever taken. Along with those stresses, I was having relationship touble with a guy I was dating, and in the end, we ended up breaking up. Just to name a few...

With everything being so crazy and stressful, I found God hard to find. I didn't understand why things were happening the way they were, and I felt like I didn't have an escape.

I have been known for supressing my emotions and not dealing with them, but by the end of the summer they came too close to the surface to ignore. I also came to the realization that I had to do some things that I didn't want to do, one of which included having a conversation with my boyfriend that I knew would probably end with us breaking up.

One night God had a plan for me that included healing the pain and hurt of the that summer and showing me how much He loves me.

Since I was feeling low, I called over a best friend, who was also having a rough summer, and we tried to blow off some steam by playing basketball in the hot, humid, August weather. As we were playing, we noticed an incredible sunset. Without a second thought, we knew it was sunset chasing time. We had chased sunsets before, but I had no idea that this sunset chase would be one that I would never forget.

We jumped in my friend's Ford Bronco, and began driving toward the sunset. With the windows down and the CD player blasting, we both screamed as loud as we could to let off some stress. We had no idea where we were going or where we would end up, but we didn't care--we just followed the setting sun. We ended up on a highway that pointed directly toward the stunning sunset. On our left we could see beautiful cloud formations, and to our right we watched a huge thundercloud develop. The entire thundercloud was was colored pink from the light of the sunset. We were completely surrounded by God's beauty, and slowly the hurt and pain began to melt away and peace began to replace it. We drove for about 80 miles, and we ended up in a little town in a county we had never heard of.

The sun had completely set at this point, and we came to a dead end in the road. Thinking the best was behind us, a sense of saddness began to creep into my heart because I knew that was the end of the trip. We turned around and began heading back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light. It took me a second to realize what it was--lightning. I watched as the entire thunderhead was illuminated with every strike of pink lightning. God knows that there is one thing that I love to watch even more than sunsets, and that is thunderstorms. While I was watching the storm in awe, God impressed three words on my heart over and over again--"I love you." I felt His love so strongly that I could hardly speak, and my friends will tell you that I am not often speachless.

We watched the storm all the way until we saw a sign with out hometown on it. We were almost home, and I said to my friend, "Well, it's back to reality now," and she looked at me and said that I was wrong and that what we had just experienced was reality.

At that moment I was reminded that God's love does not come and go. It is always there. It doesn't take a special "road trip" to feel His love. The reality is that we can live in His love all of the time, not the other way around. Sometimes I still get caught up in life and I forget to live in His love, but the great thing is that God is always there just waiting for a chance to show us His love.