This has been one of the longest weeks of my life. It all began last Monday night, when I was driving my '88 Corolla back from Portland to Salem. I was halfway when the annoying rattle in my car suddenly became pieces falling out of my hood on to the freeway. There was so much smoke coming out of my hood, I thought the car was going to explode, and there was a good chance I could die. I ended up having to pull over and walk three-quarters of a mile to the nearest gas station and use the pay phone. The next morning Meineke told me that a loose rod had poked a hole in my engine block. Which is kind of like poking a hole in your heart, if you were a car.

That was Monday. Tuesday night one of my classmates was absent -- her grandpa had killed himself early Sunday morning. And to top things off, this was only shortly after her family found out their grandma, his wife, is dying from cancer.

Then someone mentioned that the middle school principal of the local Christian school had had a heart attack the day before and collapsed on the spot. He was helping with a school fundraiser, filming a promo video.

Wednesday another of my classmates shared that her aunt was dying fast -- of cancer. Another added that her mentor had passed away a couple weeks ago from cancer.

Thursday at lunch, a friend asked me to pray for some friends of his -- suffering from cancer. That night when I went into work, everyone was angry with me because they thought I came in late. Really my boss had forgotten to write down that he'd scheduled me for the wrong time. Still it was my fault, of course.

Friday . . . I don't even remember Friday. Class, class, class, work, work, work, work, work . . . play guitar in the PC late at night to relieve the stress.

Saturday three of us decided to go up to the memorial service for our friend's grandpa. I got hives on the 4-1/2 hour drive -- go figure! I've gotten hives once in my life, only in high school.

I have never seen so many people at a memorial service. It had to be 300, at least. And when one man asked everyone how many had been in the Roberts' home - nearly all the hands in the room shot up. Hundreds of them. After that I understood how great this man had been. I couldn't even imagine how hard it was for her family, to be so close to him and lose him suddenly like that.

On Sunday, the three of us wanted to do something nice for our friend, so we thought we'd try and help her buy a dress for the upcoming formal. So we went around to as many people as we could think of -- I thought we'd get maybe half of what we needed -- but we got the entire amount! It was neat to see how many girls gave so eagerly and generously, literally emptying piggy banks and wallets.

I spent the afternoon catching up on sleep.

By Monday morning (today) our fundraising was complete and we bought the dress. When we presented it to her that night -- oh man, the look on her face! Haha. I was so glad we got to help a friend.

Tonight in drama class was our monologue revision. I did mine, one from a family drama/comedy called Painting Churches, about a woman with eccentric parents, trying to win their approval. I think it went okay. People were laughing at the appropriate times, anyway. I kind of like this acting thing. I was really scared of it at first, but . . . I really like it.

And that was the end of it. I don't quite know why it felt so good at that moment, or why performing that assignment was the culmination of -- something.

My journal entries this week centered mostly around the question of bad things happening to good people. It's an easy enough question to answer in theology class. But when it's people you actually know, your good friend, you . . . it's a lot harder to answer. The past few weeks I've been struggling with thinking I can take care of myself; that I know what I want and that I will get it the way I want to get it. Of course it takes a week like this to bring me to my knees. And of course it's only then that I can really see God's goodness and beauty.

Who am I anyway? Not much, really. My car, my job, my life is not under my control. Death surrounds me, and I can't do anything about it. I have no other choice than to put my little hand in a much bigger one and say, "Lead me."