Dear John.

This week I started class again. English, STATS, Humanities, Balancing Work and Family, Arts Symposium, and Consumer in the Market. Yeah...welcome back right? Ah.

Well let me tell you a few things. First, I love to read.

I love it.

I could read all day and deep into the night until my eyelids closed. If I could..that is. That's my problem. When I start a book, there is this part of me that wakes up and never wants to go back to sleep. I can't think straight. I can't focus on...well anything. Sometimes I find myself searching for the characters as I walk through the library, or using phrases straight out of the book at the grocery store or talking with my neighbors.

I am that captivated. It's almost annoying. But not quite.

Which.... is the bad part. Because I can't read. I just mentioned 6 other things that make it impossible for me to read. Well the book of my choice. My humanities chapters or English readings aren't exactly the fascinating and engulfing books I dream about.

However, this week- I could. And I did. I read. I picked up a cheap paperback copy of a book at Sam's Club, and I fell in love.

With reading.

All over again.

I was launched into a world where love happens, and is pure and real. A world filled with gentlemen, and walks on the beach. But also a world filled with real problems, with war, with sadness. Even death. A world of pain, of sorrow, of aching. Aching from the pain of missing someone you are deeply in love with. Fear that someone's life could end with one wrong pull of a trigger. Worry that that someone could be the one you love.

A world of utter confusion making perfect sense.

It's called Dear John. (Now being made into a motion picture)

It's by one of my favorite authors. Nicholas Sparks.

It was unpredictable, heart breaking at times, and healing at others. That's why I love to read. It took me somewhere else. Somewhere that reminded me there are bigger problems in the world. Bigger than getting a class dropped, or not having my book in time. I was no where near Logan. No where near Utah State. School.

I was walking in the sand on Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. I was sitting on the pier watching the sun set, and noticing all the vacationers around me. I was deep in thought. I was in Germany running drills and loading guns just in case the Russians decided to attack. I was reminded of the terror that struck the nation as 9/11 changed our lives forever.

I was caught in a bittersweet yet amazing story of how "love can transform us in ways we never could have imagined"

For 2 days. And then I was done. But that's another reason I love reading. It changes me. Transforms not only the characters in the book, but it transforms me. And after closing the last crisp page of the epilogue, I layed awake in wonder. In realization.

My heart ached.

And that night I prayed for my cousin- a Sniper fighting in Iraq. And for his fiance who I'm sure worries about his safety Every. Single. Night. I prayed he would be safe when he went back to fight, to serve our country. I prayed he would be brave, and be smart.

But most of all I prayed he would feel love. And know that somewhere in a little town in Logan, someone loves him. And is praying for him. Because that someone is me.

And I will continue to pray for him. Every. Single. Night.

All because of one cheap paperback book from Sam's Club.

A book I will never forget.

"Dear John," the letter read. And with those two words, a heart was broken, and two lives changed forever. "