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Wait for it, wait for iiiiihhhhhhttttttt…..

13 Monday Aug 2012

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I got a word from God during the first month I moved to the state I am living in. He told me to wait. That’s it. He said “Wait for him.” I decided after a few months that I had waited and now I was done. I got involved with someone, promptly lost my head, bruised our hearts and ruined a friendship. I was disobedient, and have learned a lot in the process about humility and forgiveness. After that calamity ended I found myself thrown into a season of change that left me no room for even thinking about relationships, which has been a blessing.

Recently I started feeling the impatience trying to sneak back in. It feels like the emotional version of when a person has physical nervous tension, always fidgeting, unable to be still. I prayed about it, vacillating between requesting patience and begging for satisfaction. Somehow I managed to keep my mind from running too far ahead of me, but I still couldn’t get it to sit still on the matter. And, of course, there were the dreams.

I had 3 dreams about specific situations. I had 2 a while back, and I couldn’t understand what they meant. I got royally unsure of their meaning, thought my heart was running around while I was asleep and making up plans that would never really happen but would lead me to a great deal of disappointment. I hated having these dreams. I listened to people I trust and processed a fair amount about the way God gives dreams and reasons or meanings behind them. I thoroughly believed that my mind was out of control, processing things behind my back, and unsure of where God was in all of this.

I also, every once in a while, prayed God would give me another dream so that I could see how the story played out.

One day, my first dream became a bit more real. It wasn’t exact, the details were hard to remember from the dreams themselves, but the correlation of the event, people, emotions, and everything was absolutely uncanny. Did I realize that at the time? Yes and no. I still was in a veiled state. Then, the second dream became a bit more real. Again, a large amount of correlation was there. I started to get nervous about the meaning of all this, at the time I couldn’t see the way things were lining up and I didn’t feel secure or stable at all emotionally when it came to the situation. I prayed hard for peace about it and for the people involved.

Last week I had the 3rd dream and the very next day the dam of understanding broke. During a conversation I accidentally processed things and realized I understood what I had understood in the dream. The message of the dreams, the reason I had them and the reason they have been unfolding in a very real way is for God to reiterate his point.

“Wait. Wait for me to show you what I want to show you. Wait for me to walk you through the situation I’ve prepared you for, wait for me to give you understanding of these things. Now that I’ve shown you some of the story, now that you see what I have as a plan unfolding and specifically designed for this part of your life, wait. Be patient. Guard your heart and do what I tell you.”

While I have been able to process these things, the 3rd dream still hasn’t played out yet completely. But I have an overwhelming peace about it happening, or not. If it does play out, I feel prepared, if it doesn’t I still will be able to wait.

Why is this something I feel ok posting about? Because this process of waiting on God is difficult, and it’s tiresome, and I get bored and I think I know better… But I don’t. And God knows how to give me just enough to remain faithful, and just enough to continue following the plans He has for me. And because I want these things to encourage those of you who may feel that God doesn’t speak to them, or doesn’t give them any sort of understanding about the future. Sometimes he speaks to us in strange ways; this is the first time I’ve been able to hear him loud and clear through a dream. Usually it’s different. But my point is that no matter what situation you are in and no matter what you think you know, you have no idea. There is a really powerful God up there that can speak to you in ways you can’t imagine. Just request it, and wait for it.

What I’ve Learned About Life From School Thus Far.

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

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  1. I’ve developed this technique that I use whenever I want someone to continue doing something, it is being super positive about whatever it is that I want him or her to do continually.  The only problem is that when it comes to doing this to guys it involves complimenting them in a way that makes me sound like a horny grandmother. A kid at school gets his awful perm cut off and my response is “You look so handsome!  I didn’t know you were so handsome before!” and “Look, he’s got a good smile!  I couldn’t see it past that awful jerry curl.”  I know that those aren’t the best examples, but considering the fact that I mean these compliments in platonic ways and they can be taken in any way, shape or form… Yeah.  I’m not going to stop doing it anytime soon.  Too much fun.
  2. Each and every Gran in existence has the right idea about things.  Why not get your hair set once or twice a week?  All that gel adds volume, and you get to have a great Do for days.  That and layering on the lipstick, which should smell just like lipstick, and you have instant class.
  3. I need breakfast and coffee every morning before school or else I could become demon possessed.  I went crazy on Monday, quite a sight from what I understand, because of a lack of breakfast sandwich and iced coffee with caramel and cream.  Funny, my ex’s dad thought that Harry Potter would be the way I would get myself a demon, but it turns out it’s caffine deprivation.
  4. Everyone is insecure in some way.  That manifests in different forms: fear of everything, a need to be better than, a need to be desirable to the opposite gender, questioning one’s own abilities or even the simple waffling of the mind.  It’s something that backs so many actions that I can’t get mad at people when I look at their real incentives.
  5. Loyalty is hard to come by.  This isn’t entirely new to me, as I learned what loyalty is by being the opposite of the definition.  My best friend in the entire world taught me where the lines were because I kept on crossing them.  At this point I’m still learning continually how to be as loyal as she is, but I can see clearly how it isn’t played out with everyone and how it affects the trust that you thought was built in a friendship.
  6. Everyone has an agenda, and if you’re not a part of it you’re in the way.
  7. Ecclesiastes 3:15 – “That which is now already has been, and that which is to be already has been; and God seeks that which has passed by [so that history repeats itself].”  Everything that is in the world of fashion, the world of beauty, is an altered image of something we have already seen.  That’s the way it goes.  What is new is just something that is old filtered through a new lens.  An understanding of this is what helps enable you to create new things.

Happy Easter.

07 Saturday Apr 2012

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Last year the message of Easter for me was to let go.

Last year I heard clearly that I needed to release the un-forgiveness I’d been harboring, and to set myself free from it’s chains.

Last year what I did was let myself become open to the opportunities before me.

Last year I was ready to fall in love.

Last year I was sure that there would be good things to come of my decisions.

This year I’m alone.  I’m not allowing myself the terror of considering romance again; it’s disappointing.  And I’m figuring out how God used the past year to draw me closer to Him.  He did, that is for sure.  He used my joy and my pain, and I know that without placing myself in His hands before everything else I would be devastated.

There is still hope.  God can use what turned out to be a variety pack of emotions and grab-bag of mistakes and sin for His good.  And Christ doesn’t have to die again to save me, he’s covered me completely for the rest of eternity.  He loves the mess he has saved.

Sticks & Stones

27 Tuesday Mar 2012

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According to the Jersey Shore nick name generator my nick name is The Incident. Very few people understand how extremely true to the bone that nick name is until they date me. I understand that I’m not always an easy person to deal with. I have ups and downs, good days and bad days, and I love people and I hate people and I repent and try to love people again. Without God I’d be straight up depressive trouble most days, and an addicted mess on the other days. Hence my deep gratitude for grace.

“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth”  – Isaiah 54:4

With every drop of blood that was shed at the cross another chance for life was given to us, and not because we deserve it in any way. The legalistic, moralistic ways of the world like to do their best to pervert the truth, which is that there are some people that you don’t like that will get saved and we’re called to love them.  I like the way the woman who writes for Grace is for Sinners puts it:

“God’s grace is sufficient. You don’t get to pick your terms and sometimes this journey feels backward and forward at the same time. When you have to rely on grace, it’s a hard walk of faith to travel the territories run by a force working against you. But who can be against you when God is for you? People will look at your journey and wonder why you’re traveling there, why you’re keeping company with the other side. They’ll discredit you, slander you, and try to stop you all the while thinking they’re doing God a favor.”  (Grace is for Sinners)

Sometimes I see this happening in real life, where people believe that they have the ability to pick and chose who would be a good follower of Christ based on their standards or opinions.  I pray that I don’t do that.  I pray that I am able to follow Jesus without stopping to turn around and judge fellow Christians as if I have a right to.  As if I have been so redeemed that I can set some sort of standard for holiness.  No matter what is going on in my life, no matter where I am or what I’m dealing with, I can only hold tightly to the truth: that I am the worst of all sinners but He loves me anyway.

My Do Nothing to Do Anything Productive Ratio is Sad.

02 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Dirty's Reports, Human Interest

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I’ve been putting off posting since Monday because dearest Tink got engaged but made those who knew promise not to tell until she announced it officially (via Facebook, of course).  I’m so happy for her, and not surprised, and really glad to be a part of all the joy.

Another reason I couldn’t write or post this week is because I let myself be absolutely miserable the entire day on Tuesday and it took a few days to kick back into gear.  I just mourned the parts of my life that are going away, and the absences they accentuate.  Not only is one of my dearest friends getting married but I won’t be able to spend as much time with her to help plan, and I just moved and I had a great weekend with my BFF and now we’re separated again and school is starting on Monday and I’ll have to wake up soooooooo early and I’m single.  I was so pathetic.  I didn’t think of killing myself, but I did consider my funeral and what it’d be like if I died soon.  Dramatic, I know.  It’s really difficult to think clearly when in a haze of strong and deadly emotions.  Being lonely is the worst!

I realized that I’ve reached a new low.  It’s not just because I walked around boston in the cold rain so much that I may have pulled my hip muscle, and it’s not because I have been comparing and relating my life to the lives of lead characters from romantic comedies.  It’s not even the fact that I was deciding if my life was 27 Dresses or The Wedding Planner… It’s that The Wedding Planner won.

Both movies are soft core porn for women’s hearts, with similar stories and outcomes.  But the little things, the details of the women’s lives… that’s where I would say I’m more JLO than Heigl.  For instance, Heigl has a snarky BFF she works with who is always a little hung over and going for every guy in the room.  JLO has her dad’s friends that she grew up playing scrabble with who are all over the age of 60 and a work friend that she only sees at work (played, incidentally, by the same girl who is Heigl’s snarky BFF).

I firmly believe, were I in her position, I would be the 30-something who goes home to an empty house to watch Antiques Road Show, especially if my ex-fiancé had left me for his high school girlfriend who had thrown me a bridal shower.  That is way too much of a betrayal to trust other women over.

JLO says in The Wedding Planner “You know those who can’t do, teach?  Those who can’t wed…plan.”  I like that this is self-depreciating yet still says that she knows her shit, and well enough to make a good living from it.  Heigl?  She just loves weddings.  She wants to be a part of all the moments, and I think it’s selfish of her to do that, especially since she doesn’t seem to have friendships with women outside of the period of time in which they are engaged.  At least JLO is smart enough to let the people who have real relationships get their moments without her butting in with her epic curves.  She just creates the prettiness and takes home a paycheck, knowing she helped their day be unforgettable in the best way.  I consider myself a little more like a behind-the-scenes helper as well, not a bridesmaid who hogs the spotlight by always helping.

Another thing I like about JLO’s character is that she is willing to do the right thing even when it’s obviously the wrong thing for her.  She was willing to marry the guy her dad tried to set her up with because she was unwilling to be a home wrecker, no matter what could have happened without his girlfriend knowing.  She doesn’t get the guy in trouble, because she knows that he’s right when he calls her out on being bitter.  Heigl refuses to listen to everyone who calls her wedding obsession a little bonkers, and consequently puts herself into stressful situations where she ends up doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, like busting up her little sister’s engagement because she has feelings for the guy.  Some would call these character flaws relatable, but I call them an excuse for women to try doing mean and catty things while still ending up with a fairy tale ending.

But one of the biggest issues I have with myself getting so carried away into this comparison, not that it stopped me from writing it up, is that I’m not ever going to be these women.  And that’s because I have God.  I don’t need to idolize a moment of happiness, turn it into a career.  I can be free to live in the moments of joy through the closeness and love I have with Christ.

I continually go back to Psalm 131 these days to remind myself that I don’t want to think about things too big for me, like who I’ll spend the rest of my life with.  I can quiet my soul and dwell on the hope I have in the Lord.  I like how the amplified text says “Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me [ceased from fretting].” I think that my tendencies to worry about these things are absolutely a sign of immaturity, and my clinging to romantic stories is like a child clinging to its mother.

I’d like to see the Christian romantic comedy, where’s THAT one?  You know, the one where the guy is the girl’s friend’s ex-boyfriend so she won’t give him a chance.  The one where being in a physical relationship can be understood as playing with fire, but told in a relatable and funny way, because it is funny sometimes!  The story where the boy meets the girl at a mission’s retreat and instead of asking her out they fast and pray together to seek God’s will for their relationship.  Or I’d love to see the story that shows how a promising relationship doesn’t work out, but the girl has a knight in shining armor protecting her heart the entire time because she trusts that Christ has a good plan for her.  One where the Bible is presented as the ultimate romance novel, and the girl sees from a perspective that saves her from wallowing in self pity (most of the time) because she honestly loves God more than her own idea of a husband.

I think Focus Features will call me about this one.  They did the new Pride and Prejudice.  Or Summit Entertainment.  They did Twilight, I know they love this kind of thing.