today, i went to church. as usual, after service, i stayed in the santuary a while to pray. for the past few months, i usually cry pretty heavily during these prayer times. i cry out to God with my petitions and plead for mercy for my life. but today, i was unable to pray. i think my bitterness towards God is growing hard - like a thick callous. i was sitting there, trying to pray, wondering if i should go up to the front to receive prayer, wondering what i would say to them, wondering if the Holy Spirit would swoop in and just suddenly turn off my negative switch. and then an old friend sat next to me.
he asked me how i was doing. i hate that question lately. do i answer truthfully? No, i'm not okay. i'm a little angry at God, and i feel like my life sucks but i know the real answer is my life doesn't suck, but i just can't get my head to convince my heart. or do i lie and say I'm good. how about you? i go through this mental battle a lot. so i answered truthfully bc he's a friend, and i am so sick of lying. so i told him about my stupid woes of hating my job, feeling trapped in a dead end job, feeling hopeless about finding a new job, and just overall feeling like God won't answer my prayers. and he, of course, tried to encourage me, that he knows how i feel, that God has purpose for all things, etc, etc. i could feel my heart hardening to his words. yeah yeah yeah, i know the speech. i just can't get myself to get on board with this right now.
and then he started telling me about how he constantly reminds himself to be thankful. and he thinks about all the times that God rescued him out of bad times. and again, my bitter heart was like yeah yeah yeah, i am blessed, i know. but then he started saying how he'll never forget the time when the police knocked on his door and told him he needed to vacate his apt immediately bc he was being evicted. and i was like, wait... what?! and as i listened to him talk about this story of how God rescued him from being evicted, i sat there shamefully thinking about how much of a stupid baby i must sound like to him.
here i am complaining about my job that i hate but pays me well. i complain that i feel like it is a dead end job - and yet it is the most stable job i could ever have, and i'm basically never going to get fired bc it's too necessary of a position while others face fear of layoffs all the time. i complain how i feel like everyone else has so much more of an easy life than i do, and yet i have never once not had more than enough to pay my rent. i have always had security and a place to live.
sy constantly tells me how i am not actually suffering in my life, and that i need to think about people less fortunate than me, rather than those who are more fortunate than me. and while i always knew his words to be true, they never hit me deep until it was someone i actually knew. my friend could have just as easily been me. but it never has been. i have been spared of that.
1. i have a very secure job that pays me well enough to live quite comfortably.
2. i have a tight knit group of friends who i love and they love me.
3. i have a family in which we really haven't experienced anything crazy healthwise and we are all relatively happy.
4. i have a wonderful boyfriend who loves me and treats me well.
i thought about his suggestion that i think about the times God rescued me.
i remembered the time when i was a teacher and i was under so much persecution that i lost 10 lbs and my body started to fail me and i had to go to so many doctors to try to fix it. but God rescued me from that. i ended up not needing to do any of the medical procedures i had scheduled bc i was cured.
i remembered the time after the breakup, when i felt like a zombie and had lost all hope that i'd ever find love again. and look at the happy and healthy relationship i am in now!
i remembered how my parents up until 4 months ago, literally had a million dollars in debt, and now they are debt free!
God has taken care of me all these years. He won't fail to take care of me now. today, i am thankful for so many things. i hope i can feel this way for a long time.
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