Phone Contacts

Recently one of my friends was going through my contacts in my phone. "You sure have a lot more adults than kids in high school in your phone" she commented. For some unknown reason, adults trust me with their cell phone numbers and I've accumulated quite a few.

I didn't think much of it at the time but a few weeks later, a different friend and I were comparing the sheer number of contacts we had stored in our phones. Once we established who had more, we moved on to who had more high schoolers, more college students, more adults, and so on. Again, the comment was made that I have more adults's numbers stored in my phone.

That got me thinking. Useless thinking probably, but thinking none the less. It was brought to my attention that I don't have as good of a relationship with my parents as most of my friends do and that made me a little sad and disappointed. But over the past year and half or so, I've come to realize that the caring adults that I call (or Facebook chat!) when I'm upset or disappointed or just need to talk provide a kind of substitute relationship.

While it saddens me to know that my relationship with my family is almost completely superficial, I am grateful for the caring adults who take time out of their busy lives to lend an ear to a troubled high school student.

In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day: Afterthoughts

I recently finished a book (In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day by Mark Batterson) that I've mentioned a couple of times in previous blogs and some of the things that I read were amazing! I decided to post a few of my favorite lines...

"Is there any greater high than doing what no one thinks you can do? Maybe that's why God sometimes invites us to defy impossible odds. Maybe it is one way He can show us His omnipotence. Maybe God allows the odds to be stacked against us so He can reveal more of His glory."

"Too often our prayers revolve around asking God to reduce the odds in our lives. We want everything in our favor. But maybe God wants to stack the odds against us so we can experience a miracle of divine proportions. Maybe faith is trusting God no matterhow impossible the odds are. Maybe our impossible situation are opportunities to experience a new dimension of God's glory."

"God is in the business of recycling our pain and using it for someone else's gain."

Ted Loder's Guerillas of Grace:
How shall I pray?/Are tears prayers, Lord?/Are screams prayers,/or groans/or sighs/or curses?/Can tembling hands be lifted to you,/or clenched fists/or the cold sweat that trickles down my back /or the cramps that knot in my stomach?/Will you acept my prayers, Lord,/
my real prayers,/ rooted in the muck and mud of rock of my life,/and not just the pretty, cut-flower, gracefully arranged/bouquet of words?/Will you accept me me, Lord,/as I really am,/ messed up mixture of glory and grime?

"Sometimes it feels like God in't listening, but He considers ever sigh. Not only that, He is interceding for us day and night. Scripture says that God makes prayers out of our wordless sighs and aching groans." I found this part to be especially encouraging because even we can't seem to form all our thoughts into words and only make sighs and groans, God understands and hears them as prayers.

Midterm Week

It seems as if there is not enough time in a day to get everything that needs to be done, done. I get up before the crack of dawn for school, spend most of the day at school working hard to get good grades, go to track practice, go to work, babysit, make it to church on Wednesday night, go to this party or that social event... the list goes on!

And somewhere in that mess I call my life, I have to make time to spend time with God and find sufficient time to study.

These past few weeks have been hectic and chaotic to say the least. We started midterms last week and they carried over to this week, so I have been trying to get as much studying in as possible. Unfortunenately, I have not been able to get in as much as I wanted and that stresses me out just a tad (or maybe a lot). I can't count the number of times I have wanted to just scream because so much is going on!

Why?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

I have been asking myself and God this question for a couple of weeks now...since a friend of mine was held at gunpoint, since one of my classmate's dad passed away right before Christmas, since Furman denied me for early decision, to mention a few things that caused me to question.

I was searching the internet, flipping my Bible's dictionary-concordance...I desperately wanted to know why God allowed all this bad stuff to happen. I knew it was because He had a plan but it was that plan that had me tied up in knots.

Jerimiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

According to this verse, it says God has plans to 'prosper' me and not to 'harm' me. So why did He let these kinds of things happen?

I finally, little by little, got the answer.

A few days ago, my friend, Mimi, gave me a book to read (In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day) and I'm about halfway through. It talks about thriving and trusting in God even in the worst situation. One chapter touched on the very question that I was bothered by for so long. The author made kind of a side comment about God letting certain--bad--things happen to us so that once we get through whatever hard time it was, God can reveal more of His glory in the end.

Then in Sunday School, M.M. taught and the lesson was titled "Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?" Could he have gotten any closer to the very question I had pondered for weeks? M.M. brought up a good point--if there were no bad times whatsoever, we wouldn't appreciate the good times nearly as much (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

So maybe that's why God let all those things happen right before Christmas, the 'happiest time of year.'

I Left My Heart In Barbados

I couldn't sleep and I had been laying in bed for quite a while when my mind drifted to Barbados. Before I knew it, tears were silently streaming down my face.

I longed for the scorching heat, the cool breeze, the whir of the fans at night, the crickets chirping, the frogs croaking, the sound that others make as they drift off to sleep...I even longed to have to spray my bed down with bug spray every night, to find bugs in my suitcase and clothes, to feel damp (from sweat) when I woke up every morning. I longed to eat the rice and beans, the macaroni pie, the mystery patty, even the flying fish.

I longed to be at Bayley's Primary, to be with the kids, to be with Tyreece, to be playing sticks in the mud, to be talking to the amazing ten and eleven year old girls, to be playing games outside in the swealtering sun with kids of all ages, to be eating cheese wheels (one of the best junk foods I've ever had), to be arguing with Katie about whether it was going to rain or not, to be riding back to the college with Miss Michelle (our bus driver), to be trekking up to the Heineken store to get Powerade and water and really good Bajan oreos...

I longed to be at the college, to be in the building we used for worship, to be congregating with other believers from all over the United States, to be sitting in the grass watching intense games of four square play out, to be playing signs with youth from everywhere, to be socializing with people I had never met before and probably will never meet again, to be walking to the cliff where we prayed as teams, to be taking in the beautiful view from what seemed like the top of the world, to be at Crane Beach, to be building sandcastles, to just sit in the fine white sand with red sparkles and watch the waves roll in one after the other...

My heart yearned to be back in Barbados, serving the Lord and enjoying the camaraderie that I had found while I was there, even after being back in the States for six and half months...