Turnabout is fair play...

A week and a half ago when I was so sad at God, I said something that I'm sure almost every Christian has said at some point..."I need SOME sign that You're listening and that You care." It was kind of a strange place for me to be at, only because I can usually convince myself that what I know about God is true, and if what I feel contradicts that, then it's not true. But not that day. The whole week had been so spiritually draining that I felt like my faith had no strength left. So I asked, in between moments of being angry and screaming, for some proof.

The answer wasn't the one I expected, or even the one I wanted in that moment. But it does go to show how BIG God is...

I've been praying for my cousin since October. She used to go to Bible camp with me, but I wasn't positive that she was saved. She's one of those cases where you know her life would be SO much better if she just understood how much God loves her. Anyway, my mom called and said that my cousin had been going to a little Baptist church and wanted to talk to us about what getting baptized meant. She had been saved about 3 weeks ago!

It was the best answer I could have gotten...I hadn't been praying for her faithfully, and (this is horrible) I've been so consumed with other things that I'd almost forgotten about her. But God didn't forget. Not only does He hear us, he remembers what we say...even when we don't.

Here's my heart.

Lord, take and seal it,

seal it for Thy courts above.

ooooooo

jealousy.
(An obscure reference to an old Natalie Merchant song)

I’m so jealous.
Which is weird because that’s not like me (at least, I never thought it was). But now, it's affecting me so much that I have a sinking feeling...a physical reaction to the emotion that I'm feeling.

I know that he knows a whole bunch of people. I know that the relationship we have (whatever that might be) is unique to us.

I shouldn't feel like this at all...it's not my place. So why do I?

It rained today and I was sad

(6.9.06)
Not everybody likes rain storms but no one can look at a rainbow and say "ew".
When you're IN the rain, you don't think about how beautiful the rainbow is going to be. You think about how wet and cold you are, and how long it's going to take you to dry out. But in the end, in God's time, it's a beautiful thing.

For the past week I have been praying for something big to happen. I know all about not putting God "in a box", and that His timing is different than ours, but I believe that He wants specific requests. So I was very specific.

I didn't get the answer I wanted.

It actually did rain this evening. When I looked, I didn't see a rainbow.

It was enough to make me depressed and angry...I'm out of ideas. I don't know what to do or say anymore. I talked to my mom and she said that sometimes there is nothing you can do or say except, "I trust You."
My only problem with that is it doesn't seem proactive enough...

"I keep wanting you to be fair, but that's not what You said.
I want certain answers to these prayers, but that's not what You said."

Parallels

Yesterday while I was doing my paperwork I noticed that the program we use to record all our sales wasn't working. It could have been a potentially huge problem later in the day, so I let the theatre manager know...he called and they fixed it but that's not really the point. He told me that the last theatre he worked at in our same company had this problem for weeks at a time. Everyday he would call the people in charge of fixing the program when it didn't work, and they would find out what the problem was and say, "Ok, it's fixed for today." He thought...yeah it's fixed for today, but what about tomorrow?

In a weird way it reminded me of God. The world says, "Give me what will sustain me for weeks or months at a time," but God doesn't work that way. He gives us what we need for today (knowledge, strength, comfort, etc.) so that we learn to depend on him for what we need tomorrow. It makes our faith stronger and makes us love Him more.

Kind of a strange connection I know, but it made sense to me...

ani-ism

this is only
a possibility
in a world of possibilities
obviously
there are many possibilities
ranging from small
to large

before long
there will be short
before short
there was nothing

when there was nothing
there was always
the possibility
of something
becoming
what
it is