If you asked me a few months ago, I would say I had been an adult for a while now and was probably getting really good at it, thank you very much. Plus, this summer, I will be celebrating 21 years of giving my life to Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit (with the gift of speaking in tongues!). Which means I'm also an adult Christian, right? Wrong.
It seems to me like life lately has been a game of the more you know, the less you understand. Or the less you know, really. And in the middle of figuring out life and relationships and friendships and hair and workout regimens and diet cleanses, my faith has been tested beyond anything I could ever have imagined I would be able to survive. Picture a mustard seed in a tin can attached to the bumper of a Just Married truck heading out on a cross-country mountain trip. Or maybe my faith is a Martini, alternating between shaken and stirred. In any case, it has been a sometimes fun ride. At times I have wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. And I have.
I've cried in a ball on my bed, I've sat down and cried in the shower, hopelessly exhausted and beaten down, I've cried in the restrooms at work (and realized too late that my makeup kit was far away), I've cried my eyes out privately in frustration or anger or prayer, or in the middle of thousands of people in worship. I've cried for myself and I've cried for others. Most times recognizing that God was much bigger and in charge of whatever was happening to me or a friend or colleague, or really just because of how helpless I felt.
Surprisingly, a lot of times I have been able to brush myself off and keep going. I push through in praise or just dig deep in scriptures that I find a place to stand again, and I am able to keep going for just a little while longer.
But other times, those other times, I really just can't. That's when I feel like I need someone to carry a message to God. To tell him that my angst and frustration and despair is not because of anything he's done or hasn't done. That I'm not doubting the hope he ignited in my heart on the first day of 2016. That I know he can heal my friend's grandmother or take her to heaven so her family can begin to grieve after two years of waiting by her deathbed. That I know I will find a job that allows me to live a balanced life in the city I love. Or in another city or country that I will learn to love. That I know that when the time comes and my lease runs out in this valley of indecision, that there will be another place waiting for me to live in. That I know that one day I won't have to carry this constant guilt of canceling plans on friends every time one more thing comes up at work. That I know that my best friends in the world will find the jobs they so desperately need and deserve in this city. That I have not given up on him and his promises to me and my family and friends.
I really need him to know. Because at these times, I am just a girl on her own in the middle of crises. A girl surrounded by love but at the same time dealing with real problems that no one else can carry, problems that one day seem so tiny and the next, almost seem to overwhelm me. And the days that I really struggle to keep myself or anyone else afloat now far outnumber the days I feel like I am on top of the world.
While I wait, I know that God has all of this on his mind. And he cares much more than I know about every detail of my life and the ones I care about. Like the Psalmist, I have never even heard of another God like him, so frightening is his love and power over the whole world. So tell him I have not given up on him. But I am just a girl, maybe finally learning what it is like to be a woman...
