I’m Trying Not to be All Woe is Me

Today I am painfully aware that something is missing from my life. God has done so much over the past 6 months, things I thought were impossible, but there is one thing that is still, seemingly, not any closer to happening. The fact is folks, that while I have a great job, a great relationship with God, and have just discovered amazing new family members, there is still one thing that is missing. I am a 24 year old single man.

 

Every relationship I’ve been in has taught me something about myself that I didn’t know before… So they’ve all been good, or at least had some good results in the end, but I’m getting to that point in life where I really want someone to share EVERYTHING with. God is doing all these exciting things in my life, and there’s no one to tell them about, at least no one who can feel their true impact. I want a partner in my life. I have two friends who are my age and not married, and those two friends are on opposite sides of the “great divide”. One of them is single, and has no intention of even looking for anyone, the other is single and so desperate to find some one sometimes it’s all this person can think about (I’m trying to be vague here so as not to reveal the secret identities of these peopleJ)… I’ve always considered myself somewhere between these two extremes. “I’d really like to have someone, but I’m doing ok alone”… That’s been my attitude in the past… but that is changing. It’s getting harder and harder, as I get older to be “alone”… I know that 24 isn’t that old, but it’s not even the age really, it’s just where I am in my life. I need someone to share my life with.

 

I’m a… different person, everyone knows that, and while I like that about myself most of the time, when I’m trying to find people who I might be compatible with, it tends to complicate things. I am a difficult person to be in a relationship with, I know that about myself, but, the same things that make me difficult are the things that have brought about 90% of the good stuff in my life too.

 

I didn’t date in high school, so I never really learned how to be in a relationship, which is one reason it’s hard to date me… The thing is, I don’t know how to even ask a girl out, or even what kind of girl I’d want to ask out. I guess I always just assumed God would do just put someone in my life, and it would all just “happen”… It isn’t happening J I’ve been praying a lot lately about this particular issue and I don’t seem to be getting anyplace at all. I feel like I am ready to be in a relationship, obviously God feels differently. Either that, or I’m just not doing what I need to be doing to get this thing moving…

 

I guess that’s my major point of confusion… Do I start taking matters into my own hands, and trying to meet people, or do I keep “waiting on God”… I’m not saying that I am thinking of not considering God’s will in a relationship, I’m just saying maybe I need to be more proactive in finding someone…

 

It probably doesn’t help that I don’t think I’m over the last person I dated… Anytime I think of being in a relationship anyone else, somehow I don’t think it can compare to the one I had with her. We didn’t date long, just one summer, but she did more than she’ll ever know in that summer… I don’t think she realized the depth of my feelings for her, because I wasn’t able to show them to her. That, of course, resulted in the end of the relationship, but I still can’t bring myself to let go if it… She was everything I wanted… everything I thought I needed.  

 

So, I’m sure this is as confusing to you as it is to me, but this is one of the times where I just had to write it all out…

 

The long and the short of I guess it this: I want to be with someone, and I don’t know how to get that. Any advice would be helpful J

Seeing is Believing, After All…

Most of you know that for a number of years now I’ve been dealing with some very serious, apparently impossible to diagnose, health problems. I’ll spare you most of the details, but let’s just say I can’t do road trips, or anything else that keeps me away from a bathroom for more than about 20 minutes… If a car ride or anything else is suspected to last longer 20 minutes, I have to starve myself of all fluids for about two hours before… There have also been some lingering, very ambiguous, stomach problems. I’ve had just about every test they can run, had two surgical procedures, as many ER visits as Evil Kenivil, and taken enough drugs to keep just about any pharmacy in business but none of this has taken me any closer to being better. All of these Dr. visits and medicine have done nothing but continue to frustrate me, and put me deeper in debt.

 

I know it sounds like I’m airing my dirty laundry, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to get to. What is my point? I’m getting there, be patient, we’re just getting started here…

 

So, for about 5 years I’ve lived with this, and managed to cope, but lately God has been doing so much in my life, and it’s all been very excited, I’ve certainly learned more about myself, and about Him though everything He’s been doing. About a month ago though I got to thinking, “Ok, God is doing all this stuff I never could have imagined Him doing but I’m still dealing with all these health problems… What gives?” I have known from the very beginning of all of these health issues that there would come a time when God would take them away, so I’ve prayed that a lot over the course of the last 5 years. At times I’ve prayed it so often I’m sure God was tired of hearing it… but things have never gotten any better. In fact, they’ve continued to worsen, which is very disheartening to say the least. On to the point, there is one, I promise. About a month ago I really felt like God was telling me it was time for me to be healed from this stuff, and I started praying really hard for that… Nothing got any better, but I kept hearing that it was time for me to be healed, and thus, kept praying for that. A week ago my body almost quit functioning, and Friday night I ended up in the E.R…. again. All the time, knowing God has told me I’m going to be healed.

 

I still haven’t been. At least it hasn’t manifested yet… and there, friends, is the point. God has already done the work. He has already healed me, that healing just hasn’t manifested in my body yet… It’s strange to think about, but it’s true none the less. God promised He’d do the work, and He did, I just haven’t received the full benefit of it yet. The price Jesus pain was more than enough for the healing of this body, after all, it saved my soul from hell. Maybe there is something more I have to learn through all of this, who knows, I can’t even begin to understand some of the things God does in my life. All I know is that before too long this body will functioning at 100%… How do I know that? because God said it would… He said it to me personally, and He’s said it in his word dozens of time.

This is another example of God giving me a gift, in this case though, I just have to learn how to receive it. It’s another example of believing, then seeing…

Self help is an enigma…

and one I’d rather not here anything more about… I’ve been digging a little more into “Oprah’s Book Club” and the material they… well peddle to be polite. Most of those titles contain some seriously dangerous humanistic theology. The point of this particular musing is not to attack Oprah (although that blog may be coming before too long) but rather to attack the American, or maybe just western, mind-set that ‘we all have the power within ourselves to make all our problems go away’… If we, as a people, were capable of such things don’t you think the way the world works would be a little different? I do.

Until we, as individuals and as a people, acknowledge that we’re not able to make our problems go away, no matter how many self-help books we might have read, our problems will stay right where they are… In the center of our lives. Focusing on an issue, and analyzing it from top to bottom doesn’t make it go away. If I drop a glass and break it I can spend hours reconstructing that event. I can measure the distance from my hand to the floor where the glass broke. I can decipher where ever single piece of that glass went. I can probably even figure out why exactly a dropped the glass, but I can never “un-drop it”. I might learn from that mistake, and be more careful next time I’m holding a glass, but that glass will still be broken. If I want to put that glass back together, I’m going to need some help. I’m going to need super glue, and I’m going to need someone to hold the glass while I piece it back together… and really shorting of melting it down and starting over, that glass will probably never hold water again. The same principle holds true in the issues we face in our daily lives. Our problems are there, and even if we learn all about them, we’re not going to make them go away.. The only real solution for our problem is help from God. He’s the only one that can make the parts of our lives hold water again.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t look into our issues, I think we should. Like I said before, maybe that will help us to not make the same mistakes again… As for solving problematic circumstances that already exists… We’re gonna need help for that…

 

How I Met My (birth) “Mother”…

Ok, so I haven’t exactly met her yet, but I did speak with her on the phone Sunday night. It was an eye opening conversation, and to be honest, maybe a little dissapointing. She was a nice enough lady, but as the converation started I thought to myself “this woman is drunk” and further into the conversation it became evident that she wasn’t drunk, just on phsyciatric drugs. Presummably proscribed to her by her phsyciatrist. She told me about half way through the converation that she had to talk to both her therapist and her phsyciatrist before she felt comfortable calling me back… Which I suppose I understand, seriously, who doesn’t need a therapist…

After hearing a little more about her life, and some more about my brith father I began to feel increasinly grateful that she made the choice she did. Don’t misunderstand me, I have always been thankful for my mom and dad (tim and carolyn) and thankful I was brought up in their home, but talking to my birth mother made things a little more real to me. I mean, what if she had decided to raise me on her own, I can’t imagine where I would be now, I can tell you I wouldn’t be here… I probably wouldn’t be the man of faith that I am, and for sure wouldn’t have the support of the friends and family I have now. It’s a scary thing to me, but it proves God has truly has His hand on my from before I was born.

That concept of God watching over me has always been evident to me, I’ve had too many close calls in life to ignore God’s intervention, but it’s becoming clear to me just how much He loves me. It’s sad maybe, that I didn’t realize that before, considering He sent Jesus to die for me, but late as it may be in coming, I am finally realizing how deep the love of the Father goes. At least I’m begining to realize the depth of that love, I’m not sure even if I lived 1000 years I could understand it all…

God has put so many peices together in the puzzle of my life, and He’s never had to stive to make them fit. He knows where all the pieces should go, and when they should be put in place. I’ve been told that since I was old enough to understand the english laungage, but it’s never been REAL before… At least not real like it is now. It’s a relief to me, to know that my succsess is not soley determined by my own merit, it’s comforting to know that God is the one behind wheel, I’m just reading the map…

That makes things a whole lot easier… See, cause I’d always seen myself in the drivers seat, and God with the map telling me where to go, but that’s not really the way it is… God is piloting my life, and I’m just in the passenger seat trying to figure out where the heck it is we’re going… The great thing about that is, it doesn’t even really matter, we’re going where He says we’re going, and all I have to do is what He says…

So, am I happy I got to talk to my brith mother? Yes, I suppose I am… God has really started opening up my heart with all the things he’s done regaurding my brith family in the last month… He used all of them to teach me things about Himself, and ultimately to teach me to trust Him. Yes, I’m thankful I talked to my birth mother and I’m eternally greatfull to be a part of my brothers’ lives, but most importantly, I am thankful God is teaching me to put my trust in Him, and let go of the wheel…

This is something I should have known already…

You know, I hear people say all the time “You can’t earn salvation” or “you can’t earn the gifts God gives you”, but those statements have never really hit home until recently. Most you know I’ve been under a ton of stress lately, with my uncle passing away, and all hell breaking lose at work I’ve been just about stressed to the max… Throw two brothers that I’d never met until two weeks ago in the mix and you have a guy who could snap at any second

My solution to my problems was to be a better person, to do good things, and stop messing up… I tried really hard (and plan to keep trying, even if I may have a different motive) to not slip and to be a “perfect” person. My mind set was that if I do all these good things, God will help me out. That’s true to some extent, “God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”, but I think I was relying too heavily on my self to provide posative outcomes for the sitations at hand.

I think my cheif concerns were “How am I going to be a brother to kids I’ve never met, and how is their family going to react to me” and “How in the world am I going to get all my work done in time to meet the national deadlines that are coming up”. So, I thought that if I did everything I was supposed to do, and didn’t just “fought through it” that things would turn out like I wanted them to. Essencially, if “I’m a good enough person God will bless me”. That is some wrong theology… God wants to bless me because He loves me, not because I’m a good person who never ever makes mistakes. In fact, He did bless me, with two brothers (and salvation and about a million other things) which was a gift from God just because He loved me… Not because I’d done something amazing to deserve it. So if that is a true statement, then it’s also true that the gifts that God has given me are not going to be taken away.