For those of you who don't know, I'm engaged. My fiance is graduating tomorrow and moving three hundred miles away to start a career and set up a home for us. We plan to get married three semesters from now, when I'm finished with my bachelor's degree. This means our relationship is going to undergo quite a bit of change. Right now, he's my 'battle buddy.' If life is a battle, then he's right next to me through all of it, helping me handle things and supporting me when things get tough. When one of us has too much to handle, the other takes care of the little things in order to help the other person through their tough time. We do pretty much everything together-- homework, laundry, dinner, youth group, church etc. We share life with each other. And in two weeks, that connection will change.
And I'm freaked out about it. It's hard to know that you were going from having a battle buddy to being alone again. It's even harder to know that you're going to have to continue doing the life that you were doing together all by yourself. I've been praying about it, asking God for help and comfort, and it really didn't seem like he heard me. I've been afraid that the relationship that I have will just fall apart if we can't share day to day life anymore.
Then on Saturday night (Sunday morning?) I was trying to go to bed. It was 2:30 in the morning, so you'd think I'd fall right asleep. Instead, I laid there for awhile, turning a lot of stuff over in my mind. I kept feeling like I needed to go for a walk, but it was 2:30am. That's crazy talk! I don't wander around at night anymore. But then it was 3am and I still felt compelled. So I put on my rain gear and I went up to the water tower where I always go to pray. As I was praying, I felt like God was telling me, "So. You have faith to walk out of your house at 3am and wander around in the dark, but you don't have faith that the relationship I gave to you will work out? You trust me with your life and not with your relationship?"
It's true. It feels like I can trust God easily with the big things, when I feel God calling me to do something, I do it. Take a walk in the middle of the night, have a conversation with this person, take this job,give this person your bible, etc. Things that I have little investment in. Sometimes they require a lot of faith. And I jump without even thinking about it. It's a no brainer moment for me.
And then I have things I really don't have faith about. Things like relationships, roommates, school. I have little to no faith that God will take care of those things the same way that he will protect me on a late, dark night. And I don't know why. Sometimes I blame it on seeing God the same way I do my father-- that God cares about the same stuff Dad does, and doesn't care about the same stuff Dad doesn't really care about. But other times I think it's because I have a huge investment in things like my relationship, school, etc. I really care about those things. And because I really care about those things, I don't want to let them go. However, who ever loves his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for God's sake will find it.
So perhaps I need to start giving over those high-investment areas and having faith that God, who is even better than my earthly father, wants to give good gifts to his children, and has good plans ahead of me. Yes, I may not know how or what or when or why, but maybe I should start having faith and believing Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11.
"For I know the plans I have for you, sayeth the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11
"All things work out for the good of those who love God and who are called according to His purpose." -Romans 8:28
No comments:
Post a Comment