Oh, God, where are you now?

Well, I figured that since it is Thanksgiving break, I should make a post since I've been pretty busy with school and life in general. This past weekend was rough for me.

This semester seems to have been the slow eroding of many of the beliefs I have built up around my relationship with God. Then, this weekend was a sort of earthquake that shook them all down. There was no definitive moment when it all came down around my ears, but I do know that it all came down. Perhaps my foundation was shaky. But figuring that out is not as pressing as making my foundation firm in God.

When I was talking to my good friend, Meredith, as I was going through this "earthquake", and image came to mind.

I had built up protection around me. When the earthquake came, it shook everything down. Now, I'm standing in a pile of rubble. The open sky and land stretches out on every side. It's pretty scary after being in enclosed spaces for so long. But, in front of me, down and up a hill, there's a cross. I don't know what lies between me and that cross, but I do know that I have to get to the cross. Meredith asked me who else was there and reminded me that the Lord was beside me. Then we had to work through my issues with trusting God and seeing him as MY father rather than who he really is.

If I see him as MY father, then I see someone who is going to take me halfway and then drop me and expect me to make it on my own. I see someone who stands on the sidelines, half cheering for me when someone reminds him to. Meredith rebuked all of that and told me that he is going to be as close as I'll let him be. I WANT him to be as close as possible, it's just LETTING him that is my problem. I've been working on this. Now, I feel like I hit rock bottom last weekend and now I'm working my way up. There are hills and valleys on the way up, but I feel that I'm always going up.

I am learning that God is with me the whole way. I've started reading "Too Busy NOT To Pray" by Bill Hybels. He talks about how God is like a father in that he wants to give us what is best for us and he always has time for us. Hybels talks about how he is willing to drop everything at work when his children call him. He also talks about how we would not ask someone to do something when we know they cannot. No one asks me to get the troops out of Iraq, because they know that I cannot. If we are asking God for something, why would we believe that he would not do anything about it? Reading this has helped. It has helped to hear from a father who values his children and wants the best for them and works for it.

As this week has gone on, I have found and heard God in unexpected places and saying unexpected things. On Wednesday, I went with most of my family to see the Monet exhibit and that was beautiful. It was amazing to see God's beauty translated into more of his beauty.

It was amazing to see how Monet put his feelings into the paintings. Each painting could and would be completely different from the last one. They could be paintings of the same place or same subject, but look completely different. He would go from bold colors and strong lines to pastels and burry lines and everywhere in between. His depictions of the ocean are amazing! Somehow he is able to capture the movement of the ocean and the crashing waves... I so wish that I could get into his head and see what he saw and how he approached each painting and how he went about each one. It would be sooo fascinating!

Today, I had the distinct feeling God was asking me, "Esther, what do you want?" So, I told him. I want peace. Not a sort of surface peace, but "the peace that transcends all understanding." I don't know if he will give me that right away. But as I let him closer, maybe I'll gain some of that. Meredith told me last night to pray for myself. I feel so selfish, praying for myself. But I guess there are times in life when you need to. And I'm not saying that I never pray for myself. I have prayed for wisdom for years and there are always little things on my mind. But praying JUST for myself seems wrong and self-centered somehow, but perhaps that is the devil trying to gain another foothold.

So, for now, I will read and pray and seek God with my whole heart and he promises that I will find him when I do that.

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13

Tired...

So, last night I was getting ready for bed at 12:45 or so when my phone rang. It was one of my friends. She was having a really bad allergic reaction to something and needed me to go to the hospital with her. So, I got dressed and when she got there I took her to the hospital. They put her in a bed and gave her a shot and some meds and we stayed there for about 5 hours. We finally left at about 5:45am. Every once in a while she would look over and apologize to me. Although I was tired, I was glad to be there. It made me feel like a good friend to be able to take her and be there with her.

A lot of times, I feel like a bad friend because I don't often know what the right thing is to do. But that made me feel good. I had a conversation with one of my friends recently about this. I always feel like I don't have any good advice to offer and I can't ever think of any way to help them aside from praying for them. And, I know that is a help, but I want to be able to DO something for them to help them out of whatever it may be that they are going through. It hurts me to see my friends hurt. I wish that I could take their hurt upon myself instead of having them go through it. But I can't and so I want to do whatever else I can, but I'm don't know what advice to offer and I don't really know what to DO for them so I'm stumped. So, I pray for them, but it doesn't feel like much.

But then, I guess saying that minimizes the power of prayer and the power of God. Saying that makes it seem as if God can't help that person as a result of my petition. I also need to work on my prayer life. I often find myself praying half heartedly. Not as in, I don't want to spend that time praying, but as in, I don't really believe that God will actually answer my prayers. More than that, I don't even really think about whether God will answer them. I sort of throw my requests out into a void and hope that they get to God and maybe He'll look at them before too long. But that's not how we're supposed to pray. We're supposed to pray with hope, thanksgiving, and faith. So, recently my main prayer has been, "Lord, I do believe! Help my unbelief!"

On a completely unrelated note, I wonder what that father would think to know that he has been quoted for thousands of years... That would be weird. On the one hand, it would be kind of unpleasant to know that many people for thousands of years have known of your lack of faith, but at the same time it would be nice to know that there are other people all through time that struggle with the same thing. And...thinking along that line is encouraging for me. He struggled with the same thing that I do. He struggled to believe Jesus' words the same way I struggle to believe that God is listening and wants to help.

But, if I want to help my friends this much, how much more must God want to help us? That is an encouraging thought. For some reason, I don't have a hard time picturing Jesus wanting to help us, but at the same time I have a hard time believing that God wants to help us. It's a good thing that they are the same person. I guess it comes from years of hearing that God was like a father. So, I see him as distant and pretending to care when others are looking, but not really caring. And, I know in my head that this image is wrong, but from so many years of hearing that, my heart still has trouble seeing God as an involved, close, loving and caring Daddy. But I guess a lot of people have that problem. That's a consequence of living in a world of broken relationships.

So, this has been another ride on the Esther-Stream-of-Consciousness. We hope you enjoyed your ride. Come again...

Wandering thoughts

So, time for more self-pity. A friend of mine and I were discussing the talk last night like they told us to and we talked about our fears about why guys don't seem to ever like us. She told me about how Lydia seems to attract all the guys and she doesn't seem to at all. I told her what I was afraid of and what I wondered. "Why don't guys ever like me? Am I ugly? Am I too loud? Am I too quiet? Do I dress wrong? Am I scary to them? What keeps them from ever liking me?"

But I guess we were going down the wrong road. A better question to ask would be, "Why do I need guys to up my self worth?" Shouldn't that be reserved for God and God alone? But how do you achieve that? I've tried and I feel like I got somewhere near it, but I don't know that I'll ever be completely there, but then, that's the point. If we could do anything perfectly it would invalidate Jesus' death and resurrection.

You know, Jesus told us that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains. How small is my faith then? That's pretty humbling. Humbleness is not my forte. I thought it was for a long time, because I would minimize myself and then I would get proud of being humble. CS Lewis talks about that in the Screwtape Letters.

"Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove! I'm being humble.' and almost immediately pride--pride at his own humility--will appear."

But this summer at Rockbridge, God made it clear to me that I was just as proud as the next person, if not more so. He showed me where my pride was located. I still hate to acknowledge it, but I have to, to be able to deal with it. I am proud that I am a Christian. I am proud that I "found" Christ while everybody else is still walking around, lost and broken.

But God has been showing me that I am lost just as much as any other person. I already knew I was broken, but not because of who I was, but because of what had happened to me. But God has been showing me how sinful I am. I don't like seeing it. Who does? CS Lewis, in the Screwtape Letters, when talking about repentance says, "They hate every idea that suggests Him, just as men in financial embarrassment hate the very sight of a bankbook."

For a long time I thought that being humble was, as CS Lewis says, "trying believe those talents [that I have] to be less valuable than he believes them to be." (In case you haven't figured this out, I really like CS Lewis in general, and Screwtape Letters, specifically.) But someone once said, I've forgotten who now, that humility is not thinking less of your self, but rather thinking of yourself less. That is hard to do in a culture that seems to believe the opposite. We are taught to pretend to believe that we are not good at anything, but to be very selfish, self serving people at the same time.

For a long time I struggled with the fact that I don't believe I am good at anything, but God has given me peace in that. I still don't believe I am good at anything, but I know that through that God can shine all the more clearly....when I let Him.... For that reason, I love the story of Gideon defeating the Midianites. God whittles his army down to 300 men. God tells Gideon why He is doing this. "You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her...with the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands." (Jud. 7:2,7) So, although I still mourn not being good at much of anything, I know that through that, God can shine more clearly through me.

"I only know one place I can run to. I want to hide in you. The Way, the Life, the Truth so that I can disappear, and love is all there is to see coming out of me and You become clear as I disappear." ~Disappear by Bebo Norman

Depression or just self pity?

So, it seems like depression is pretty common in college. I mean, I've been told that before, but hearing it from people I respect and look up to makes it more real. This semester I've been wondering off and on if I was depressed. Just so much happened at the start of the semester.

I went straight from camp to school, so I started out school tired. Camp was great and I loved it there, it was just extremely exhausting.

Then my grandma is always getting a little worse and it's hard to see her like that. It's just, I knew her when she was up and moving around and making meals and at her old house in Raleigh and now all she can do is sit in the wheelchair or lay in her bed. On some days she doesn't even know who I am. And I know it's not her fault, but it hurts.

And my best friend at here at school got a boyfriend. Don't get me wrong, he's a great amazing guy and I'm happy for her. I'm just sad in a selfish kind of way. Because it means that I don't get to spend as much time with her as before and I can't really talk to her about guys and how they never like me. I mean, I can, but it's not the same. She can't commiserate with me anymore. She has an amazing guy. Plus she's been asked out before and she's an amazing person. She doesn't know what it's like to have never been on a date...but that's another story...I won't bore you (whoever happens upon this blog...) with that whole "this is me griping" rant.

But, back to my other complaining rant. Also, another close friend is studying abroad this semester and I miss her a lot. I can still talk to her online, but it's not the same as having her right down the road.

Also, this year I have discovered the "cool group" of InterVarsity. Now, in high school, the cool group didn't bother me. I didn't want to be part of that group. I wanted nothing to do with them. But here...suddenly it has become another story and I don't know why. But I know I cannot be part of the cool group. They tolerate me and are nice but don't really want to talk to me. In high school, I didn't care if they didn't want to talk to me. But now I do care and now I've become bitter about it. After being free of bitterness for a while, I don't want to go back to being bitter. I have spent too many of my years here being bitter, I don't want to spend any more time being bitter.

Also, it doesn't help when you like someone who won't ever like you and someone else likes you and you won't ever like them... I don't think I'm going to go into details as probably the only people who will actually read this would be people who are or were in IV at one point and the guy I like is in IV.

So, in conclusion, there are a lot of factors contributing to my depression, which I finally recognized as such, thanks to the seniors who spoke at Chapter Retreat and thanks mostly to God who spoke through them to show me that He's taking care of me. (See Isaiah 43:1-3) I would share more, but it is late and I am tired and I have to drive an hour and a half to see a friend from camp tomorrow, so I am going to hit the hay. I'm sorry to all of you who actually read this whole thing... I feel like it was pretty self centered...but thank you!

Life?

Life is so confusing. You never can really figure it out... I wish I had control over my life. But at the same time I know that God has a better plan in store for me that I could ever dream. And, when God's in control, you don't have to worry. That's pretty neat. I mean, we still have to work and strive to follow God's will in our fallen lives.

(Sidenote:You know, people will talk about "the fallen world around us" all the time, but they don't wanna talk about how we are fallen. It makes us sound like we aren't fallen. But we are. We are as dumb as the next sheep. I know that I struggle with pride about non-Christians. God got me to a place where he could show me that at the beginning of this summer. I am proud of myself for figuring out the right way while so many others can't seem to figure it out. Now, I still don't know what I think of predestination, but if there is predestination, then my pride is just foolishness. Perhaps I was predestined to become a Christian. But in any case, I have to deal with my pride.)

But in all of that, we can have the peace of knowing that God loves us and has a great plan in store for us. And now my brain has shut off for the night...