Prologue:

 I remember being the girl who would ache simply hearing of all the places her friends had been to. It was always a topic I enjoyed hearing about. From Puerto Rico to the Philippines, I would grill my friends and even people I had barely met about their experiences out of state. I wasn't a big talker, but if someone had been to a place more interesting than Texas I was eager to listen to them and prod them for more information. One day, I'll cross the ocean. One day I'll get out of here. That was my dream for a long time.. For some reason, anywhere seemed better than where I was. It wasn't that I absolutely hated my life, even though I know that is how it sounds,  I just longed for this world to finally open up for me. 

 Let's get to the basics. I hated Texas. What?! A born and bred Texan who hates her home state? Every Texan I had ever met bragged about being born here. They'd say "born and bred Texan" like it was some sort of rare jewel they got to carry around with them. I didn't get it. Where I live we have cows. We have fields. We have little clumps of trees that are too meager to call forests. Mostly we just have a whole lot of flat nothingness for miles. We have broiling summers, skimpy winters, and weather that is so bi-polar we're almost afraid to go outside at times. Sure the people are very nice (it is the South). Sure our flag has a big white star smack in the middle of it so we can call this place "the Lone Star State". Yeah, we've got Tony Romo, The Mavericks, and the Stars. Texas has some interesting history too -from the Alamo to the Kennedy assassination- but I used to only see this place as a trap.

 At about eighteen years old I had almost given up on my dream. I was working at Walmart and going to school at a community college right in my home town. Life was baring down on my back, and I felt confused and once again trapped. School wasn't really such a negative experience, in fact I liked school. I got good grades and my teachers seemed to like me alot, but as I dove through basic after basic I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Was this all going to turn into anything? I hated my job, where I honestly felt robotic having to put on a smile every single day and watch my hands work as my mind wandered to other places (I was a cashier, so you get the jist). While Walmart was horrible, I still got to make friends while there, friends I actually really liked to hang around. These friends put more time and effort into hanging out with me than I'd ever experienced. They loved being around me for reasons I found hard to understand. I was kind of a shy kid, although I hated admitting it. I was cautious about inserting my own opinions or interjections, afraid that my words would be judged. Even as shy and reserved as I was, though, I also cared deeply for their attention. I didn't like the quiet, socially-awkward image I portrayed as a homeschooler who hadn't a clue about anything. I needed to fit into this world, and as a girl that, yes, was sheltered from alot of the outside world, I had to go to new lengths.

  So I began to drink. The taste of alcohol made me curl my lips back just a bit. I didn't enjoy it, unless it was well-masked by some fruity flavor. I tried to learn how to smoke but for a while I couldn't seem to suck the foul cloud into my lungs. At a certain point I did get the whole method down, but I still hated the way my mouth tasted afterwords. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel like these things are part of some sort of "evil in the sight of God", I'll admit, I liked the feeling of it for a while, minus the less-than-appealing taste it left in my mouth, but I was doing it all for the wrong reasons. I enjoyed watching my good-girl image sink away and become almost forgotten. I think I hated being looked at as a goody-goody the most because I knew I wasn't anything close to that. I had  dark, hidden secrets that I have lived with for the better part of my life. I had sins that I felt I would never be free of because I had struggled with them for so long. I was no good girl. I was undeserving of such a title. So I did my best to shed this innocent persona people seemed to identify with me. I soon got invited to parties. I soon found myself swaying with intoxication for the first time in my life. I did a couple of crazy things and blamed it on the alcohol. At one point, at a party that was particularly memorable, I remember throwing up into the sink several times and then passing out on a couch. I woke up the next morning staring at the ceiling. My head beat like a drum, my eyelids were heavy and only half open. Is this what I want? Is this the life I've chosen? It wasn't a sudden change of heart, but I began to think more on what exactly I was living for.
   
 It was soon after this that my Aunt, Jenny Speed (who was really my great-aunt, but she was young enough to be my actual aunt), invited me to one of her conferences. She and her husband often traveled the globe counseling married couples and singles alike in these conference events. This conference would take place in Indianapolis and I would get in free, I just had to pay for my plane ticket. I was hesitant at first, knowing it was a Christian singles event, and I didn’t really feel I was good material for such a gathering. However, I decided I’d rather not pass up the chance to go fly to Indiana, and my plane would have a layover in Denver, Colorado- which was a place I’d often dreamed of visiting. Plus I loved my great aunt and her whole family. I'd get the chance to see them, and seeing them could sometimes be a rare opportunity in itself. I might not have the grandest time at this conference, but I wasn't passing up this chance to get out of Texas.So I agreed. I never expected anything from this trip. Without knowing it though, the moment I stepped onto that plane, I was walking into one of God’s perfect plans.

 I boarded the plane to Denver, and watched as the flat Texas landscape was swallowed into heavy white clouds. “You live in Texas?” A voice shook my thoughts back to the plane. I turned to the man who was sitting beside me. He had a friendly smile that stretched out upon his wide face. His eyes smiled at me too and creased at the sides, shining with an indisputable joy resonating from them.

  “Yes. I was born in Texas. Lived there my whole life.” I bit back on the last words. “You?” I asked. From there began a whole conversation. He told me how he was born in Chicago, and had moved to Texas not too long ago by choice. He began to share his recent life with me, and also a few things from his past. I joined into the conversion and at some point, found myself sharing about all that had been going on in the past few years. He had already shared his faith with me, he was a Christian, and yet he too struggled with some of the things I was going through. He showed me a book he was reading, Not a Fan, and offered to read something from it to me. I nodded and listened as he began reading the story of Mary Magdalene, but told in a whole new light.

  I began to see the whole scene laid out before me. I saw her. I was watching her walk through the courtyard, to where Jesus sat with Simon the tax collector, and I could almost hear the heaviness of each footstep. I saw the scoffers, the religious leaders who looked upon her with disgust for who she was, a prostitute. They knew of her sins. The whole town likely knew who she was and what she’d done, but none of that mattered to her. She had to see this great teacher they talked about. She had to know if what they said was true. Then she saw Jesus. His eyes looked at her, and there was no judgment or repulsion. He looked at her with love. He did not see only her sin, he saw who she really was. He saw her heart, and it was a beautiful thing. I had read this story and heard it dozens upon dozens of times. This time I felt real tears warming my cheeks. They slid down and I did not stop them. I hated crying in front of strangers, but I couldn’t stop. Mary Magdalene had come to be forgiven, to know if the love of the Father could be real for her. Even after her life of sinning. Jesus laid his hand gently upon her shoulder after she had finished washing his feet with her perfume, tears, and hair. “Sister, your sins are forgiven. Go, and sin no more.” I heard the words rush at me. They were real. They were for me.

  I had read that story dozens of times and sure, there were times I had felt my heart warm for Mary as she wept at the feet of Jesus, but it never had been anything like this. Something was different. Suddenly The Word was alive and breathing in my chest. The words were sticking to me, the picture that was painted in my head of Jesus’ hand on Mary as she knelt in her tears of repentance was still in front of me. I remember looking back out the window and at the earth- that was now far enough below us to reveal its subtle curvature. It was beautiful as the sun slowly kissed the colors of the atmosphere and turned the velvet clouds to molten gold. His love was as real and as beautiful as what I was looking at right now, and as I closed my eyes I let all drain away and I thanked him, for redemption.

My story’s just beginning...