Surrender is so hard

I'm blurgging today. Whatever that means.

I have no idea whatever I've written before that might relate to this BUT (sigh) here is something.

February 16 this year was a really cool day for me I guess you could say. It was the Saturday of snocamp with my church. That day I had the chance to talk with my pastor and my friend Morgan about a lot just us. Before the weekend had even begun and I was still considering going I had clearly heard God saying I want you to go even if it costs you, so I went. And always just looking for someone to be a real friend for me. Later on that day at the evening secession there was one of those times when the opportunity comes up where you can just unload whatever's going on to the people around you. And I was hesitant at first to join into the huddle of girls that were hugging and crying and talking and stuff. But after a couple minutes I came over to them and wrapped my arms around them and I didn't mean to, and it was really unnatural for me, but I started crying too.

My friend Morgan was in the group, and even though she had and still does have stuff going on in her life, she was more there as a leader for us. Then the difference between me and the other two girls there was that they were talking about what they were crying about, whereas I was crying without a verbal explanation. What really the truth is that I was looking for a friend like always. And every time I get close to someone I hope that they'll be real and last. Morgan kept hugging me afterwards and it felt soo good and even though I didn't tell her what was going on right then and there I did tell her that I wanted to show her something later on and pray with. Now that I think about it I wish I had said everything and prayed with her right there.

Since then a few things have changed, the Bible study that we were both at at the time wasn't the place where she needed to be (she was the leader of it). The following week she came and instead of following our lousy curriculum, she opened up more than she even had on that weekend. It was good and it gave me hope that group could get to a better place. That was the last week she went though and nothing really came of it. As a side note, I'm not upset at her in anyway to make things clear. Right now the group's not in a great place and it could use some prayer, maybe I'll make a specific request at the end of this...

But anyways, since snocamp I have never really prayed with her the way I want to, although I did show her what I wanted to show her, which was a drawing I drew after an important phone call I made to her in November (I have blogged about that for sure before). I'll post that up here when I bring my sketchbook home. Even then, I don't think she understood how much it really actually meant.

Honestly though, and this is what hurts the most, it never feels like she goes out her way to be my friend. And I love her soo much! I pray for her and her family whenever I get the chance. Now it's come to the point where I just can't ignore that God's telling me to let her go. At least for now, I have to put it all in God's hands and trust him.

And when I pray I just feel like saying "but God you don't know how much I love her and how much I need a real friend". But of course he does and it's hard to trust and surrender it all. I'm definitely not going to stop loving her but what it will mean is I won't be able to expect anything from her anymore. God knows everything about me he knows all my needs and the thing I need most is to find out more of the love he has for me and let him be my best friend. And these words are so true:

"You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be your name"

A new chapter maybe, but I hate it when chapters come to an end. I still hope that things get better one day. And hopefully it won't be too long before I meet a whole-book kind of person in my life, it would be nice at least.

Back to my small group, well it's just gotten smaller again. Last year the group was growing like crazy, now I'm the only core member left, except for Hope whose house it's at (love her :P, she reads this blog by the way, so I clearly trust her). Lauren, who's been with us since the beginning of this year, didn't come last night and when I asked her where she was today she said she wasn't coming anymore, I have no idea why... My prayer request is that God would bring growth to the group again. And also that in lives of the people who go, it would be evident that God lives in us and that the following year God would bring a leader of his choice to make things new again!

Please pray and thanks for keeping interest in my life...
graffitigirl

ADD ON MAY 7:


I heard this song today and this is what it reminded me of. By the way, it hasn't gotten any easier yet... it's almost harder cause I'm praying for her more now. This kind of reminds me of something I read in my Bible a little while ago, God was telling one of the prophets (Jeremiah perhaps) to stop praying for Israel because he was hard set against them for their sins and that he had made up his mind to scatter them. The interesting thing is that he kept praying anyways... and God also did scatter them. Just some food for thought.

Monday Night at the Hub

I had a great night tonight. Today's a Monday so I met with the people who are going to Thunderbay with me. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned them at least once before. Tonight we were talking about journaling.

1 Study Notes (Bible)
2 Prayer Journals
3 God Stories

They asked if any of us journaled, and I could say yes because of this blog, although I never actually mentioned it specifically. Prayer journals are cool, I might start one. Talking to God on paper. But the other side of that is that it does take a lot of time, worth it though but still time consuming. Cool things can come of them and the thing about it is that they're so personal and real. Honest too. We were talking about why we wouldn't let people read them and that was one of the reasons. Another reason that I didn't mention at the time was that I would hate to have someone read my deepest most personal thoughts and then knowing those things, have that relationship whereever it is left stagnant or have nothing change. Know what I mean? They would know so much about you and that be it, I don't know if that makes sense. I don't have the right words to say what I mean. We also talked about why we would want to read someone else's and the one reason that I think is most true for me is I would want to know what people think of me, and also just to know what's really going on in my life.

We talked about dreams and I got to tell the one that you guys just got the chance to read now. My friend Jodi guessed that it was Jesus before I even said so! He definitely wasn't trying to hide who he was, that's for sure.

God stories. Everyone get writing what God's doing in your life! I bet one day they'll affect or change someone else in someway. I want to do this more, and I'm not gonna lie I wanna see more of Jesus working in my life!

What we did tonight that was cool. We got to write letters to God and we sealed them and they said that we would would send them to us not for our next birthday but the one after that. That would be my 18th. The whole time I wrote I was just wondering what God show me about the letter in a year's plus time. I tried just writing about what's going on in my life now as a prayer. But even after I had finished I was still thinking of things I could've put in there that I didn't. But I'm excited about that because it's cool. FYI My birthday's the 24th of June, don't forget it.

A Question of What Self-Worth Is

It feels like I've got a million friends that have never understood me. It's not a question of who I am anymore, but more why no one can see through me, why no one sees me the way I see myself... or rather the way God sees me. Well, I guess no one will ever see the way He does.

Here it is: Africa 2007, one thing I was really looking forward to, was getting close to some people on my team and really being good friends with them, while serving God and just hanging out, stuff like that. Well that never really happened for me. I mean, sure there's stories of some of the things we did together and all, but if there's nothing more than stories in our friendship than what's it worth, y'know. It seemed like the sarcastic comments never ended on the trip. None of them were supposed to mean anything, but I was hurt anyways, mostly by Morgan. I've got nothing against her and I'm not mad at her at all. Maybe it was wrong to expect great friendships to come of the missions trip. And just all the little things that happened that really shouldn't matter, like how everybody fell in love with Adam's funny personality and when he wasn't around said things like "I'm glad he's on our team, I wasn't expecting him to be such a great guy to have around", I just wonder if anybody thought anything like that about me when I wasn't around. I will never regret going to Africa, especially not because of that, but that expectation was deffinitely blown...

Away from Africa now, I just feel like my quietness has built a wall around me and I'm trapped, and seperated from everybody else. Maybe it's my unwillingness to share what I'm really feeling that's making me feel so lonely, maybe real friends would pop out of nowhere if I only made myself more "readable", but I honestly have no idea how to do that. I really just want even one real friend (aside from Jesus) who I can rely on, go over to their house to hang with and pray too, just to do whatever. A best friend, someone I can be myself around. The closest person to that I've had is Lisa. She'd always be willing to hang out, just us two, not needing anybody else to have fun and always willing to listen to what I had to say. I don't spend hours and hours and hours making graffiti things as wedding gifts for just anybody. She's really special to me and I'm going to keep our friendship as strong as possible even now that she's living in Saskatshewan, but let's just say hanging out really isn't a possiblility anymore.

Aside from all those exhausted words, I guess what I need to do is face my fear of rejection, and take a risk, try to be more of a friend to other people to get more friends . That probably makes me sound a whole lot less friendlier than I really am and it's deffinitely a lot easier said than done, as they say, that's for sure. And I really have no idea whether that's really what I need to do or not. I'm just praying that something changes along the way, maybe me, maybe the people around me. The words from Jarsofclay's song Good Monsters, are true though, "Nothing ever changes, nothing ever changes... by itself". This is no conclusion at all by the way, I have no idea what will happen next and it's deffinitely all in God's hands. I'm hoping that the way I'm seen is someone worth loving and someone worth getting to know and someone worth being friends with and being honest with and eveything like that too, because that's what I am.