I’ve been angry at God for a long time now.
For a few months He gave me the desire of my heart. A community. A straight loving and honest community.
And then it vanished. And I’ve been angry at Him ever since, not understanding why He chose to take away the one thing I wanted more than anything.
It’s been about five months since this happened, and I’ve been struggling to reclaim it ever since. And it hasn’t been working. In big groups, I still feel lonely. Just not at home. And it seems no matter how much I try being in a big group just isn’t what God wants for me right now.
And so within the last two weeks, He’s given me more opportunities for one-on-one friendships, rekindling some from a past that I long since believed were over. The reignition of older, singular friendships just brought to mind one thing: God gives, and He takes away. Sometimes to give better.
So I spent time with these individual friendships and trust God in His will that a community will come along for me when it’s meant to—not on my time, but on His. Which is frustrating, but reassuring as well.
I have to remember that God knows everything because He can see everything—He made everything. I can’t see why I don’t have community, or a husband, or a close circle of friends, but I do know it’s for me. Whatever He’s doing, He’s doing it for my good.
Some thoughts of mine:
· When you’re with a big group of familiar people, you tend to fall into a familiar dynamic. But when you’re pushed outside your limits, you have more room to grow, more freedom, because there’s been no standard set for your behavior yet. So maybe that’s why, in this OYC, God hasn’t given me a set group of friends, because then I’d fall into one character. Being a social butterfly means branching out and experiencing new things with new people, and maybe finding a new you that ties into the you, you are at heart.
· When you’re reunited with people you haven’t seen in a while, you get to see how much you have changed. You remember where you were in life when you saw them last. Sometimes it’s not a great reminder, but reflecting on the bigger picture, when you’ve challenged yourself to change and can measure that change with time as the scale, it’s pretty cool.
· I’m still learning who I am and I have to understand that maybe I haven’t met my community yet. (I’m not saying I haven’t met great people. I’ve met amazing people whose hearts are completely for Christ. It just feels like I don’t really have a place.) Maybe I’m going through some growing stage in preparation of being with a different community. Maybe this is the stage designated for preparation.
· After listening to Bryan preach today, I really have a better understanding of why I’m not married yet. I truly do want a husband whose heart is for the hurting. I want someone passionate about “reaching the least of these,” and, “evangelizing,” and, “discipling.” That’s how I plan to spend my life, and what sense would it make if my husband didn’t share in that same passion? Hopefully, if I will be married, it’s to a man who’s working on those aspects of his life so that when we meet, we can share our lives like that. I don’t want just a “good man,” but a man who will bless me enough I can say, “I am a better person in Christ for marrying that man.”
I want God to do things on my time. I want Him to deliver a community, a roommate, a career, a life passion, a best friend, a husband, a calling—but my watch is broken. If I could, for a second I would think, God, even rewind time for me! I’m about to be 27. Go back ten years, give me a childhood sweetheart, a wedding band, a college degree, a house, a souped-up Camaro, and a bouncing baby boy.
Well, that’s not going to happen.
But, for all it’s worth, because of His time, His choices for my life, I am not indebted to school loans, I don’t have a mortgage I can’t pay, I don’t have a husband I would’ve divorced, I haven’t been tempted to street race, and I don’t have a son for whom I can’t provide.
There’s a lot of things I don’t have, but God’s working it out all in His time. And all I have to do—all I want to do—is trust Him and live in the moment He has given me. Because what I do have now is, admittedly, pretty on point.
