Missing People

So, loneliness is kind of on my mind right now, but I don't really have a point to make at all. But I'm going to ramble on for my own benefit and try to make sense of things. Feel free to read along :)

Do you ever get really ridiculously lonely sometimes? Even when you're with a bunch of people or hanging out with your closest friends? I don't like feeling that way. I wonder why it happens.

I have a theory though. For me, usually when I feel like that, it's because I'm seriously missing one of my best friends. It's crazy. This friend has been gone a TON in the past year or so, so I'm partially used to him not being around, like way more used to it than I'd like to be. But every so often, if I haven't heard from him in a while, or if I just get off the phone with him, sometimes...there's that little nagging feeling of 'he shouldn't be that far away, he should be hanging out with us here'.

Why is it that I can be totally fine with him not being around for like 95% of the time, and then the other random 5% I get hit with intense missing syndrome?

Why is there such a need for people to be with other people?

I guess God designed us that way. My thought is the reason He puts something so complex as relationships into our lives is to show us, in the best way we can understand, how much He wants and we need for us to have a relationship with Him. If we didn't know what it is to need somebody else, how would we recognize the even deeper longing and desire and need that we have for a relationship with our Creator?

Maybe when a person who is an integral part of our lives goes away for a while, us missing them is a way to remind us that God wants to be there for us in that time. I mean, not only just for that time, but even more so; kind of like how you always want to be there for your best friend, but when they're upset or hurting you want to be there for them even more.

So I guess missing people is a good thing. It makes us appreciate the time we have with them even more. Plus, it's a good time to think about how much our Father wants to just hang out with us.

So even though I don't like it when my friends go away....if they didn't, how would I ever know just how much they fill my life and make me happy?

SCOTLANDDD

Sooo I leave for the U.K. three weeks from today exactly. I'm so pumped!!! Anddd so nervous at the same time haha. Last time I went I wasn't exactly the best at getting places by myself. When I couldn't find a taxi (and being me, I didn't think to ASK anybody) I decided to walk home. 15 miles. In the rain. In January. I made it 13 miles before I gave up and used the emergency cell phone. Another incident occured when the bus me and my friend were on decided to turn out to be the wrong bus and went 4 hours in the wrong direction. At least the bus company people took pity on the two stupid American tourists and gave us free bus tickets to the right location. So you can see why I would be a bit nervous to go again.

This is the first time that I will be legitly away from home. Travelling by myself for the first time, trying to navigate airports and busses and getting paperwork situated and all sorts of fun things that come along with visiting Scotland for two months. But I think that this whole thing can be used for good.

I'm really pumped to see how I'll handle this. I know I have two paths that I can go down. One, rely on my own wisdom and strength and see how well I muddle through things. Or two, put the two months and all the situations that will occur into God's hands, and watch things go well. I know from experience that letting God take the wheel is the best option; when He drives, He takes all sorts of short-cuts, long-cuts, and scenic detours that you never thought of or knew were there. It may take longer, and the drive might seem a bit more out-there, but in the end it was a wayyy better ride than it would've been had God been riding in the back seat.

What I find interesting though, is how even though I know which option is better, I still have trouble choosing it. Even though I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has my best interest at heart, more often than not I sit in the driver's seat and go down the roads that I think look good. Sometimes I'm lucky and I can hear the directions that God's shouting at me from the back seat. But most of the time I'm too busy listening to loud music, checking my hair in my rear-view mirror, calling my friends, and looking at a bad map, and I don't pay attention to what He's telling me. Why do I do that??

It's definitely something that I'm trying to work on. And I think that this trip is going to be a perfect time to really lean on God and let Him show me all the cool things that He wants for me. I can't wait to see how He's going to grow and shape me more into His image and into the image of the woman that I'm meant to be. I'm excited to see how listening to Him is going to pull me closer to Him, and how He's going to use me to (hopefully) touch the lives of the people that I'm going to meet. God is so cool! All I need to do is give up the wheel, let Him drive, and watch where He takes me. Plus, if I'm not driving, that frees me up to play with the radio. :)

Furious Love

So a while ago I realised that I had never really read much of the Bible before, and I wanted to fix that. One of my friends suggested a daily plan of reading one chapter of Proverbs, at least one chapter of Psalms, and then a chapter of whatever other book I wanted to read. I've been following this guide for about 5 weeks now, and I gotta say that I wish I had started it a while ago.

I love Psalms, and just reading over and over again about God's great love. The more I read and study, the more I am able to grasp that this love is for me. Me! It's hard to wrap my mind around the idea that the Creator of the entire universe loves me that much.
This past Sunday, Valentine's Day, I went with my family and some people from their church to see this documentary called 'Furious Love'. The creators of the film were there, as well as one or two of the people that they had interviewed; and the place was packed. The whole concept of the movie was to see if God's love could really reach into the darkest spots in our world and transform lives. And boy, can it.

I didn't really know what to expect before the film started. All I had been told was that this guy had tried to prove that Christianity was false or something like that, and had ended up becoming a Christian, and then had moved on to start asking the hard questions about his faith. So I really didn't know what the documentary would contain.

The creator, Darren Wilson, went to a bunch of different places looking to see if God's love could change the darkness into light. They traveled to places like Thailand, Africa, and even Salem, Massachusetts. I saw footage of people manifesting demons, witches, lady-boys, and New Agers, all receiving love and prayer. And their lives were changed!

I'm not going to go into too much detail, because if I've sparked your interest I think you should see the movie for yourself and not have me ruin it by explaining it badly. But my point is, after seeing this movie, I am even more convinced of my Heavenly Father's great, unending, unquenchable, life-changing, furious love for me. He can reach His light into the most pitch-black places that we can imagine, even places that on the outside look legit but on the inside are NOT legit, and He can touch people's hearts, heal them, love on them.

One of the most basic things in life is love. Pure love. And people crave it. To me it seems odd that even though being loved is what we all strive for, we are somewhat reluctant to give it out. When we see beggars on the street, we walk past them, thinking 'they'll just use my money for drugs', instead of buying them a meal and asking them how they are. When we meet a person of a different faith, we try to convert them by attacking their beliefs, instead of conversing with them as a person. Why are Christians known for what they stand against, instead of being known as a people who unconditionally love all that they come in contact with? I think it's because we ourselves don't fully grasp the love that Christ has for us.

We need to realize God's furious love for ourselves before we can give it out to others. We need to know, to experience, that we are the most important thing in the world to our Father. We are His children, and we are furiously loved.