One Week To Survive

Thanksgiving has passed and yet I remain thankful. Holidays have never been a time of joy for me. They bring frustration and the reminder of the brokenness of my family. Now in the midst of school, work and all that life brings, I have become fully aware of what I have. The semester is slowly coming to a close and those projects that once daunted me, are now behind me. It is not fully over yet as I step back and reflect, I see the miraculous feats I have overcome.

By far, this semester was the hardest I have gone through and yet, because of it I have learned so much. I can only hope that the wisdom and knowledge that has been passed down to me from those smarter than myself, will stick.

Fortune has smiled upon me this year or perhaps even before. The people placed in my life are beyond extraordinary. I have three of the most wonderful roommates. I will admit at times I want to drive them to a remote field, leave them and drive back, but I wll never stop loving them. Despite all of my eccentricities and obnoxious ways, they still stick with me. No fights have erupted, few tears have been shed. Between four girls, not much more could be asked for.

Semester marks the end of something and the beginning of another for me. I will become a junior in January and as excited as I am about graduating early, it scares me. My decisions have been made, goals set and in the works yet I still feel a sense of apprehension. The cause is something I have yet to pinpoint. Until I know otherwise, I shall continue on the path laid out in front of me. Not knowing where it leads, I shall follow blindly in faith. In the end, I may be rewarded.

More and more I have become aware that I've become a workaholic. I love being there and look forward to it throughout my day. It is not so much the work that drives me but the people there. To say I do not enjoy what I do would not be true. I love everything about it. Sometimes I wonder if there is something else in store for me. Only patience and time will reveal that.

We are swiftly entering into another holiday season. Along with the festivities once again comes the hardship of dealing with my family. I love them all very much and I suppose that is why I still put up with it all. Every family gathering I sit and am made fun of by my brother, sister and soon to be brother-in-law. Their words and actions hurt more than they understand. They will never know or understand.

Amidst the mess and chaos, one song has calmed and soothed my weary spirit. I don't know why or how but the song "Holy Holy Holy" by Sufjan Stevens has meant a lot in my life these past few days. Its simplicity and beauty inspire within me a sort of awe.

For the first time this semester, I truly believe I will make it. One week remains. I shall conquer.

A Soul Saving Love

This morning I woke up and decided, rather than getting out of bed, I would read. Right now I'm reading a book called "Searching For God Knows What" by Donald Miller. I read his book Blue Like Jazz and loved it so I decided this book might be worth my time. I'm only on the third chapter, but it was this chapter that made me realize something very important.

In this chapter, Miller explains how he decided to renounce God. He flat out told God that He does not exist. While he thought this would gain him a sort of freedom it didn't. You see, Miller was looking for an "identity" at the time. And this is what I first connected with him on.

Many of us find our identity in God. Or at least, the idea of God gives us purpose. I think most people need a way to rationalize the world around them. We need a way to explain why there are trees, people and catastrophic events. Whether it is good or bad, we credit it, or blame it upon God. It brings us comfort to know that there is some magnificent outside force controlling everything. But this is where the problem begins.

We acknowledge this God but we acknowledge Him only to serve our own selfish purposes. We see Him as what Miller liked to describe as "an impersonal god, a god of rules and lists and formulas." The problem with this is that we were created as relational beings.

But this goes back to the idea of searching for an identity. We all have this desire to know who and what we are. We look for confirmation from the people around us. Miller explained that he had always been smart. For him, that was his identity. So when he attended a lecture where the speaker recited poetry and caused every girl in the room to fall in love with him, that is where he decided to seek his identity. He began memorizing poetry and reading. All of this was so that people would think of him as cultured and smart. He explains that he did like reading and he loved the poetry, but the problem was, he was finding his identity through what others were telling him.

Like Miller, I think a lot of us look for our worth in others. We need affirmation and encouragement from those around us. For me this struck a cord. Not one I'm particularly proud of. Too frequently I find my "identity" of sorts through my accomplishments. I've always been the smart one in my family. I got the good grades and did the best in school. My friends know I'm smart and I do well in school. I've found more and more, that I don't try for myself, or for God. I try for the confirmation I receive when I succeed.

While it is nice to have those around you think well of you and to affirm you, I find that that affirmation is never enough. I always need more of it. I guess you could say it's an insecurity of mine. I need to feel important and needed, otherwise I lose my purpose in a way.

Miller connected the two ideas of the need for an identity and the concept of a relational God. Rather than looking at all of the formulas, lists and rules of God, what if we looked past that to the more obvious message of the Bible? I think the motivation behind our theology often times is relational.

My need and the brokenness inside me that causes me to want to be smart in the eyes of others are all driven by relational motives. I want and need other people to value me. But the gospel of Jesus is relevant to that exact need. It just never occurred to me before. Miller stated that "Jesus was always, and I mean always, talking about love, about people, about relationship, and He never once broke anything into lists or formulas." By dissecting and analyzing the Bible, we are missing its blatant message. It is not a self-help guide as we often use it. But rather, it is an invitation. An invitation to know God.

If the gospel of Jesus is relational; that is, if our brokenness will be fixed, not by our understanding of theology, but by God telling us who we are, then this would require a kind of intimacy of which heaven only knows.

This is the way Miller said to think about it: "imagine, a being as great as God's, with feet like trees, and a voice like rushing wind, telling you that you are His cherished creation." This is rather exciting when you really stop to think about it. Earthly love, or rather the stuff I was trying to get by sounding smart, is temporal and slight so that it has to be given again and again in order for us to feel any sense of security; but God's love, God's voice and presence, would instill our souls with such affirmation we would need nothing more and would cause us to love other people so much we would be willing to die for them. And perhaps, that is what the apostles stumbled upon.

All of this is to say; I realized that what I'm looking for is more than just the love of my friends and the importance they give me. I need God's love and confirmation. Without it, I amount to shallow and confused being. How to seek that confirmation is definitely not something that is easy, or that I honestly know how to do. But it is something I hope to be able to discover. And it's also something I hope my friends have already discovered or will come to discover.

It Always Falls to Pieces

Have you ever felt so sure that something was supposed to happen but it never seemed to work out? I hate it. I know it, why doesn't everyone else? Maybe I've just been very wrong for a long time. What I thought God was telling me maybe wasn't what He actually said. But why? Why would all of this happen?

I keep allowing myself to get very hurt. Each time is harder than the last time. And every time, I tell myself I'm done. It won't ever happen again. But then I find myself back here once again. And why? Why do I always end up here? If this is what God wants to happen, why is it so hard? And why does it hurt so much? And if it's what God wants to happen, then why am I the only one that seems to realize it?

I want to give up entirely, but at the same time, I don't know if I should. If I give up, I feel as though I'm ignoring God, but if I don't, I just end up in tears with a broken heart once again.

I feel like I'm being used and walked over. I shouldn't feel this way. Maybe I just want what shouldn't be too badly and that's blinding me from the truth. But even when I prayed against it all, I ended up in the same place. I wanted so badly for all the feelings to go away. For me to be okay, for that overwhelming feeling that this was what God wanted to completely disappear. But it never did. I also prayed that God would give me the answer in a different way. And when I thought that's what happened, a day later it all fell apart again.

It could just be bad timing or perhaps not the right timing. But when will it be? Why won't he just pray about it? And why do I have to be the one who's hurt so badly because he won't pray?
And why can't I hate him?

When it first started, I was furious. I hated him, but even more, I hated myself for letting it happen again. And then I cried. And I prayed. And then I cried even more. But in the midst of my crying I realized something. The person I was mad at the most was God. Why, when I tried so hard to follow God's direction did I end up with my heart in pieces?

And now what do I do? I still feel that that's what's supposed to happen. I believe with all my heart that's where God has been and is still leading me. But I don't want to go. The only thing that following that path has ever brought me is pain. And I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to cry anymore. I can't do all of this forever. But as long as I feel that that's what God wants, how do I stop?

He told me to wait. I have waited. And while waiting got me so much farther than I thought it would, it still hasn't gotten me all the way. I just want to know if I'll ever get there. If I knew what was going to happen, I could endure what's happening now a whole lot better. But if it never does, then I just put in a lot of effort for nothing.

It'd be so much easier if I could just hate him. But for some reason, I can't.

Why Do Things Never Make Sense?

I ask but I do not hear. I seek yet I do not find. I keep asking God for answers. I keep asking for help and for guidance. What do I do, what do I say? I don’t know. I can’t hear His answers, and I do not know if it is because I cannot hear them, or if I will not hear them. I want to know why. I want to know the reasons why I am friends with him. Why was I made to care about him. Why do I feel such a desire to help him. I think I mistook my own feelings. I did like him at one point. But now, what I thought was feelings for him was really something else.
I won’t let go of him and I’m scared to lose him. But why am I so scared of it. I tell myself it is one of many possible reasons. I don’t want to be without him. It would be too hard to be without him. I don’t know what I would do.
I’m an idiot. I don’t need him. I can live without him and I will be fine. I did it before. It just seems hard. Yes, I’m going to get hurt. That’s inevitable. But God would not allow me to go through anything I cannot handle. I got through it once, and I was fine. It took me awhile, but I was fine.
When I am hurt, who do I turn to? When things get hard, who do I turn to? When I am happy, who do I turn to? That’s just the problem. I don’t go to the right person. But what happens when the person I go to gets taken away from me? I run to God. I should have been running to God all along. I don’t trust God. I can’t give my life to Him completely. I say I do, but I reserve a little piece for me. I can’t do that. I have to give all of myself up. But how do I do that?
That’s another thing. He hurt me. He hurt me a great deal. And I wanted to forgive him. But I wanted to forgive him for the wrong reasons. I wasn’t over him. I thought I was. I lied to myself. I told myself it wasn’t true. I didn’t like him. He was just my friend. But why did things bother me so much? If he was just my friend and if I didn’t have feelings for him, why was it different with him. My friends didn’t believe me, but I believed me. Or did I? I knew, but I would not admit it to myself, or anyone else.
I didn’t forgive him. I said I had forgiven him, but I did not fully. I’ve been holding on to the hurt. I’ve been using it against him. I’ve allowed anger to build and I’ve slowly been releasing it. When we fight, I let a little more anger show. Or worse, I suppress it. I pretend it’s not there. I’m mad at him but I will not tell him. I need to let go of it completely. What’s done is done. I can’t forgive him, but then want him to be sorry for it. Whether or not he’s sorry isn’t important. What’s important is that I do in fact forgive. And I need to forget.
How do you forget? How do you let go of hurts? You don’t. But God does. And God helps you see those bad things and those hurts as stepping stones on the way to better things. When it happened, yes it felt like my whole life was falling apart. But it wasn’t. That was just one small thing in a bigger picture. And I learned something from it. I learned to run to God. But I forgot it.
When he started talking to me again, I forgot what I had learned. I started going to him again instead of God.
I want to help him so badly but I can’t. That is another thing I have learned. Nothing I say or do has any impact. I’ve been asking God to use me. To use me to speak to him and to help him. I don’t know what he’s going through, and frankly, I don’t think he does either, but God does. So how can I help him? I can’t. But God can use me to help him if that’s what He wants. I may not understand his methodology but I don’t need to. I need to trust that God is in fact using me. Maybe He’s teaching him something. Maybe He’s teaching me something. Or, maybe He’s teaching us both something. Rather than getting upset, angry and hurt, I need to stop for a minute and seek God.
He is going through something right now and God is working in his life. For awhile, that may mean that I am not to be apart of that. What I need to realize is that that is okay. I’m taking it personal. It means he doesn’t care about me. It means I did something wrong, or there is something wrong with me. I’m making it about me and it’s not. It’s about him. I can’t help him if I’m worried about how it’s going to affect me. That’s a very selfish approach.
Whatever God wants to happen is going to happen. And I can resist that if I want to, or I can accept it and be okay with it. I don’t want to fight it. That’s what I’ve been doing for awhile now and it’s only causing more chaos.
I did things wrong last time. I went to my friends for answers and advice. They were not the ones with the answers. God was the one with the answers. I needed to ask Him. But I was afraid. I was afraid that He would take him away from me. And that’s what He did. Then I got mad at God. In my anger I was blinded. It’s taken me several months to try and understand this, but I think it’s finally starting to register.
He asked for a couple of days to figure things out. I need to give it to him. And I can’t get upset and I can’t fight. In my attempt to stay friends I end up fighting with him. By fighting with him I only push him away. I only make things more complicated. I’m causing part of the problem.
When I was asking God to use me, I was getting in the way. I need to not ask God to use me, but I need to ask that God help him. Maybe I can’t help him. God needs to use someone else at this point to help him. But that can’t happen until I let go.
I’ve felt for awhile now that I should stop talking to him. Not permanently necessarily but at least for a couple days. He needs to figure things out, and I need to let him. I didn’t want to do that though. I wanted to talk to him. But I don’t want to talk to him when he doesn’t want to talk to me. And I don’t want to talk to him when all that happens is both of us get frustrated. It’s not fun and it’s not worth it. He won’t not talk to me, so I need to do it.
I let him run things. I let him walk over me because if I didn’t, I thought he might not talk to me. But I was being stupid and ridiculous. So what if he doesn’t talk to me? That doesn’t mean I don’t care about him. I do, very much so, and I always will. But I should not allow the fact that I care about him to be an excuse for him to treat me badly. It only creates more problems and ends up hurting me.
Why he acts that way to me is not my problem, it’s his. It is his thing to work out, and I need to respect that. I want to fix it. I want to understand and to change it. But I can’t. And I shouldn’t allow it to hurt me as much as it does. It bothers me a lot that he needs to be mean to me, and it shouldn’t. I shouldn’t let it. And I’m not going to.

I’ve been asking for understanding and I think I’ve gotten it. Part of my understanding is realizing that I can’t understand. I don’t know God’s overall plan. I don’t know why things happen and that’s okay.

If I end up losing him it’ll be hard. I won’t like it, and I might be angry about it for awhile. And I’m not going to lie, I’ll miss him. But in time I’ll be okay.
And if we stay friends then that’s fine too. I love him as my friend, and as long as God wants us to be friends, I’ll be happy to remain so.

For the first time in months, I feel a sense of peace about things. I still have a long road ahead of me, but I’m excited and a little bit scared to see where it takes me. But I know I won’t be doing it alone.

What to Do With Suffering?

Lately a lot of my friends have been going through a lot of things. I worry about them constantly and the Bible tells us not to worry, but for me this is extremely hard. I want so badly to help them and yet I can't. Ultimately it is not I who will help them but God. If God chooses to work through me then I am more than willing to allow him.

I've been up for awhile and searching aimlessly through my Bible for a verse to help. I did find a couple that seem to speak to what I am trying to help people with.

Isaiah 40:29-31
"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength."


I think it is important that we place all our trust in the Lord. He is the one who will get us through anything. God tells us to cast all our cares on him for he cares for us (Psalm 55:22) Too many times people forget that they cannot handle anything alone. We fall so that God can pick us back up and remind us of how much we need him.

I also really like Psalm 9:9

"The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble."

There's just something about knowing that God is our refuge. He is our stronghold. We are not our stronghold. On our own we will crumble and fall. We do it over and over. Why is it so hard for us to give things over to God? Why can't we let go? I know this is something I constantly struggle with as well. But I hope and pray that I can help my friends to learn to do it.


I don't know what to tell them when they are suffering. I don't have the words or the wisdom to guide them. But I have something amazing. I have God, and He will help me help those that are suffering. This is my prayer.