"No one dies in the last gust of the storm" (part 2)

I have a confession to make before I continue. I don't really like watching TV, but there are a few shows I really enjoy, and one of the is a FOX show called "Fringe." Its kind of dumb, and a little campy (a little bit of iffy sci-fi and some overacting), but its very entertaining. The main characters are all likable, and it has a great plot, which is engaging enough to make the show more than mindless escapism. I was watching the most recent episode, and one of the characters was ruminating on his father having gone crazy. "I always looked at my father's mental illness as something he did to us. I never though of it as something that happened to him." Hmmm. I think that fits somewhere in my life.

So what about today?

Today has been a very interesting day. I awoke finally feeling like I wasn't completely under a cloud, but pretty soon I could feel it looming, so I committed myself to a prayer project. I wasn't going to think about Heather at all. I wasn't going to miss her, I wasn't going to work through anything, I wasn't going to figure out if and what God was telling me about how it will turn out. Whenever anything remotely resembling one of those thoughts was in my head I was just going to pray until it was gone. And it kind of worked. There was a somewhat interesting consequence though. Whenever, and I mean every time the thoughts came back, they were always positive. They were always, "Oh, you weren't wrong" "She will be returned" so on and so forth. And then I just prayed those away. I really can't afford to think about it, at all.

And yet I don't feel like I can stop. If God is really telling me what is coming, if He's saying we will be reconciled, or that we won't, there is a reason for it. And I want to be in on it. But right now my eyes are murky and my ears just ring. So I have to ignore it until God gets fed up and clobbers me over the head. Or at least that's what I was thinking.

I am so incredibly thankful for Bonnie. She is an amazing person and has done more than I can say to make me feel a part of the CIL young adult group. And tonight was no different, though there were points that shook me up pretty good. I'll get to all this in a minute, let me walk you through it.

Last night as I was getting out of the car I told Nick that if we didn't meet with Aaron today God really might kill me. So as we were leaving from disc golf he tells me we're meeting Aaron at 5. Now I'd already been feeling like I needed church and worhsip instead of my GodWhy small group tonight, and already being over at CIL made my decision easier.

The meeting with Aaron went really well. I told him about God calling me to Bangladesh, and what we were thinking for the trip, and we also talked to him about the worship service idea. He was really supportive on both accounts but told us to play it cool and take our time with the worship service. After that Nick and I made a "to do" list for Bangladesh and divied some responsibility.

Worship tonight was more subdued than what I've grown accostumed to lately, but that was great, because it got me thinking. It got me thinking of what my best worship times ever were, and I realized a lot of them happened at Lake Champion, surrounded by 50 people I loved with Christ, with just a guitar and maybe a jimbay. No chairs, so you stood or knelt or laid down and cried out. And I got to thinking about the Thursday night times we did in college, and I had this thought. The success of the service we're looking at doing will everything to do with the presence of the Holy Spirt. It will succeed or fail based on God's work, and how much we chase Him in doing our part.

And as soon as that though hit me I began to recall what Bonnie and Rachel had said the night before. They felt like the needed it now. So if the need is there. If there are people who want to worship. If there are people who want that service, and a God who wants it to be, and people who want to bring those things together . . . why wait? Why not do it and let it grow, or stay and thrive, on nothing but God's blessing? Good freaking question.

After the service we were sitting around talking, kind of waiting until everyone got motivated to go hang out elsewhere, and I sit down and chill, and a few people come over, and then get up, and then its just Bonnie and me. And Bonnie tells me she has a confession to make. She's been reading the blog. She said she felt guilty after I'd mentioned no one around here reading it and said if I didn't want her to read it she wouldn't. But I've come to realize this isn't my project. God wants me doing this. So its not up to me who is a part of that.

A few of us go have dinner together, and then Bonnie gives me a ride over to the park to play four square. But we head to the wrong park first and kind of get talking, and then she misses the turn and we keep talking. And she was asking me about things with Heather, and the like. At one point she just has this rush, and as she fights back tears she talks about her and her ex fiancee and how sure she'd been, and this revelation she'd had. It was about how she knows she wasn't wrong, but that there could always be more. That now there was another path. At first she seemed to be saying one just led to the other, but as she talked more it came out as the path being adjusted.

When she first spoke I was really struck. I had this sinking moment where I was thinking, "Alright . . . that's it. God spoke and its done." I mean here this message just comes out of nowhere, to the point that when Bonnie was done she was surprised with herself for having said all of it. And it shook me. But as I thought more about it I had a realization, one of the type that involves something you already knew. God is never surprised. He didn't spew root beer all over when Heather dumped me. "Well crap . . . didn't see that one coming." Before He said "let there be light" He knew how that day would happen. And God's while our choices can equate to a different plan, God never says what will come and then changes it. Now I've come to realized I couldn't have been wrong about Heather. There's no way. There was too much stuff shouting and I was too with Christ too have messed up everything from when we met to when I moved out there. So what does that look like now?

Here's I see it. 1) Nothing's changed, this is just a season of our relationship that will end in reconciliation. 2) Nothing's changed, she was a path to get me somewhere else. This is the least likely because it asserts God essentially lying. It would mean that God says, "Here, this is your intended" knowing it isn't true. 3) Something has indeed changed.

The only times in the Bible God's plan changes is when people are punished for sin. And the only real example I can think of is Moses. Moses was supposed to enter the promised land, but he screwed up, and got kicked out. So . . . has my inheritance been taken away because of my sin? Because of hers? And if any of this is true, does it mean anything has changed?

And does any of this make a difference? No. After going through all that my mind is still pulled in every direction, and is no closer to seeing God in one. That we will be reunited and that will never speak again are both possibilities that I cannot grab to and recognize as truth.

But coming back around full circle, I was discussing what I mentioned earlier with Bonnie. One way or another is looks like God is trying to tell me where this ends up, which means He wants me to be doing something about it. And I was saying at the bottom of it, it really seems God is saying its not over. But that I couldn't give myself to that idea. Bonnie asked me why. I told her because I was scared it was my own desire, but deep down she'd struck a nerve. I can cover it up and say that, if God wants to heal me and move on I don't want to delay that, but what is it really?

I am afraid.

"You have to learn to never be afraid again."

Yeah. I am not there yet.

But how can I be? My assuredness of knowing God's will has been soiled and stolen. If I go against that will, surely there will be consequences. So I'm right to fear. Right?

This is the disaster that is my brain.

So what's the controlling thought?

Do I really trust God? I mean really, really trust?

I'm not worried about money. Sometimes I do, sometimes I cry to God about when He's going to step into that part of my life, but its not a constant worry, its not even common. I trust He will be there. I don't care about my credit score, I don't care about how big everything looms, my God is bigger.

But underneath it I can't shake that feeling . . . like there's something I'm missing. Is it that I'm not hearing Him? Is it that I'm not trusting? Is it that I'm not doing what I know I've been told to? Maybe its my unmedicated OCD. Maybe its not.

Through it all Job did not sin against God and praised His name. Will we be these people? God is great and mighty and good. When the sun rises tomorrow, there will be worship. Are you going to be a part of it?

Update: Another terrible post. Most of the points are not fully flushed out and overall its very disconnected. I want to beat the living bejeebees out of something, maybe I'll go spar tomorrow.