So I came across this verse when I was pinteresting this afternoon. ("Pinteresting" = I was on Pinterest for an undisclosed amount of time browsing through everything that's been posted since the last time I was on Pinterest.) Anyway, the verse was Romans 12:12, "Let your hope make you glad. Be patient in time of trouble and never stop praying." So I looked it up to mark in my Bible, and lo and behold, it's a verse I already had memorized, and one that was going to be read at my wedding. The NIV version is much different though, "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." So anyway, I did some searching and this version I found on Pinterest was the CEV (Contemporary English Version) translation. I made a mental note to check out different translations more often.


...


Patience. Something I've never been good at. What is patience? Webster's defines patience as, "the capacity, habit, or fact of being patient." This definition does nothing for me. However, it defines "patient" as "bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint." Guess what? This girl...is not patient. Unless "calmly" means "like a psycho" and "without complaint" means "crying and begging with God a thousand times every day." 


So I decided to dissect the rest of this verse, and the word "hope" was another that stuck out. Last summer, I got a tattoo based on Hebrews 11:1-Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don't see (NIV). This verse is one I claim to live by, but I've never investigated the word "hope" before. One of Webster's definitions is, "to desire with expectation of attainment." 


Since I'm pessimistic, I don't "hope" very well, apparently. Cause the thins I want, I'm very unsure they will happen. Which makes me think my faith is shaky too. Just some general issues I'm having right now.

Faith Story (ish)

...'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops, what if Your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near?... -"Blessings" by Laura Story

Today in church, we were encouraged to share part of our faith story in some way at least once during the season of Epiphany ("sharing the light") (1/8-2/17). The part of my story I'm sharing is what I'm currently going through, and since I've had several recent requests to "start blogging again," this seemed like a good place to start.


Right now I'm going through the most painful experience of my (perfect) life thus far. Now, before I start in, I want to make the following points blatantly clear: 1) This is an account of my perspective of an event that happened involving myself and another person. 2) What happened is between me and the other person is between me and the other person-you do not need to assume anything-you would only be making an ass of u and me. 3) I do not know the other person's "side of the story." 4) I am not the least bit upset at the other person for anything, nor should anyone else be, unless they know something I don't know.


Background: I became good friends with this guy over the past couple of years, someone I came to see as "my best friend." He became the person I talked to about everything, literally everything. If I'm sad about something I generally shut down, but I was comfortable with sharing things with him. If I was excited about something, I would chatter away and he'd listen, make fun of me, etc. When Josh and I broke up, he was the first person I called, and he had me laughing within a couple minutes. We spent a lot of time together last year, like he moved out of Ames and we still managed to see each other once or twice a week for supper/just to hang out. Even right before Christmas, he stopped by to see me on his way through Ames. Which is why a few days after Christmas, when he told  me, over the phone, I "don't need to call him anymore," I was...shocked. 


I didn't take it very well-I blamed myself but I couldn't figure out what I had done recently to upset him so much as to attempt to terminate our friendship. It would be safe to say I went a little psycho. Couldn't eat some days, couldn't go 3 minutes without thinking back over what I had done wrong and still not coming up with a plausible answer, couldn't be left alone without literally bursting into tears (one of life's interesting "unsolved mysteries"), couldn't sleep at night, kept trying to get him to talk to me. I shut down completely. I let my friends come see me, but only one at a time, and I let them do the talking while I did the sitting in a coma thing. This went on for about a week until one day I just realized that I had, in fact, not intentionally done anything. I've never spoke bad about him behind his back or given anyone reason to think ill of him, I've never spread a rumor about him, never told anyone anything he confided in me, just...nothing. I take my duties as a friend very seriously, and I really do my best to treat others as I would like them to treat me. 


I've talked a tiny bit about what happened with a few friends, and almost all of them have reacted with some sort of negative comment about him. That is not helpful-I understand what they're trying to do, but this isn't a war, I don't need anyone "on my side" and what they're essentially doing is putting down my best friend for no reason, and I'm not okay with that at all. I don't know his side of the story (and neither does anyone else as far as I know), I don't know what he's going through. As much as I am hurt by his refusal to talk to me, he's obviously sore about something too, or he WOULD talk to me-friends don't just quit a working two-way friendship for no reason. While I have never intentionally done something to offend him, I would never deny the possibility that I did do something unintentionally. And I've done my best to make it clear that if I only understood what was wrong, I would do everything I could to fix it. 


Here's where the "faith" part of the story comes in-an account of how my faith in a loving God is shaping my view on the world. I take being a disciple about as seriously as I take being a good friend (okay...I realize I should take it "more seriously" but I'm a Work In Progress). I love like it's nobody's business and I forgive without even meaning to. I actually confided in my pastor a few months ago that I finally understood my spiritual gifts to be "loving" and "forgiving." They just come easily to me. 


Now I want to make this clear-I am not bragging. In fact, I see it as a burden some days-I am that person who cares the most in every single relationship I've ever had, and that makes me someone who gets hurt easy, and often. I'm over-sensitive, and a lot of times, I'm quite ashamed of it, cause, you know, we're supposed to be "tough" in this world, and I am not "tough" on my own (see Phil. 4:13). I cry all the time. It's a recent development, like the past 7 months maybe, and getting worse every day, but seriously...any movie that is slightly sappy has me bawling. UP is the worst. I watched it, not for the first time, last weekend and I was crying and sniffling so bad that my dad could hear me from the other side of  the house and he made fun of me for crying during an animated movie. And that part in the last Harry Potter movie-you know what I mean, the Snape's Memory part...I cried in the (full) movie theater for that one. I am a wuss who gets hurt easy, but I also get over it easy (thankfully my "gifts" go hand in hand). Now I realize there's more to being a disciple than loving and forgiving, but those other aspects take work for me to develop, and I haven't started in on those just yet. 


I think being thankful for trials in life is one of those things I need to work on. For the first couple weeks after my friend stopped talking to me, or whatever happened (cause I still don't understand), I prayed constantly for forgiveness-for him to forgive me and for me to fully forgive him, and of course, for him to "just fucking talk to me!" All I want is some communication to figure out what's going on and if it can be made right or not. I get bitter with God a lot about my suffering and anguish. For one thing, I realize that there are real tragedies in the world, and I'm ashamed that I'm so tore up about this friend, who, for all I know, might be perfectly fine, although I doubt it. For another thing, I'm tired of caring so much sometimes...


But a couple days ago I had kind of a revelation thing. I realized how grateful I am to know what it means to truly care about someone, and to think of others besides myself (Phil. 2:3-4). And I'm reading through Job right now (finishing tonight, although I read it a couple years ago so I know what's gonna happen) and it's helped to put things into perspective. Job is the first book of the Bible I ever read through, and I remember the first time I reached the end. 


Random Tangent/Spoiler alert: I'm going to do a quick interpretation of the book of Job so you understand where I'm going with this: So Job's this righteous dude on Earth, and he's living a real good life, and God likes him (Job 1:8) and Satan's walking around and bumps into God and he's like, "Yeah well Job's only righteous cause You've been protecting him and making him prosperous" and God's like, "Go ahead. He's yours." (Job1-2) And so Satan takes everything away from Job. Job's friends come along and they're like, "Repent!" And Job's like, "I didn't do anything wrong! God, why are you doing this?... I don't understand, but Your ways are higher than mine, so I'm game." And this goes on for a while and then God finally "answers Job out of the storm" (Job 38:1). He's all like, "Where were you when I made the mountains and the seas? Where were you when I made the earth so it fit together perfectly? etc." And Job replies, "I know you're amazing and I'll never be able to understand it all!" (Job 42) And then there's some repenting and such and God gives Job more than he had before and the story has a fairy tale ending.


So as I'm reading through Job over the past week, I'm like, "Oh look, Job didn't do anything wrong, necessarily, and God tested him." Which got me thinking about things... And I think it was on Friday when I was praying and all of a sudden it hit me that I'm thankful for this suffering and distress, this "trial" that I'm going through. Because if it weren't for this, I wouldn't know what emotional distress felt like. The first 20.75 years of my life have been "perfect" and at times, even better than that. And when I was in church this morning, I thanked God for my suffering, for the first time. Now, it was a reluctant "thanks." And there was a sarcastic comment involved (I thought I was being funny, I wish I could remember the comment), but hey, I'm making an effort to be a better disciple. 


Oh and this song likes to come across my radio when it's absolutely the last song I want to hear (ie-when I really "need" to hear the words), but it's pretty sweet so I thought I'd share it.

So...I guess to summarize, God is doing something great in my life right now, even though I don't currently see it. And I know He's doing something great because He shows me. Through the story of Job, which, not ironically, fell into my reading plan right when I needed to hear it. He shows me through this song, among others, which comes on the radio right when I need to hear it, but of course would never look it up myself (because I don't necessarily want to hear it). And no matter how upset I get about things, I could never turn my back on God. I've tried. It doesn't work. I cannot do anything on my own. For example, trying to talk to my friend: not working, as far as I can see. Praying for my friend: working (even though I don't see it yet). I know it works because I've prayed specific things for people before, and eventually, good comes out of the bad. So no matter how stupid I appear to people, I am hopeful. I remain hopeful that a "miracle" will occur one of these days, that a phone call will be returned, that a supper invitation will be extended. And most of all, that I will, eventually, understand what's happening, and why. 


It feels kinda good to get this off my chest.