Life coming at me

Man, Satan has been bringing out the heavy guns these past few days.

I wrote in my last post that I had decided about a church. When I called Wes, I left a voicemail, and he called me back. He did not seem particularly supportive of my decision and projected a sort of "I couldn't care less if you leave" attitude. He also told me that his advice for me would be "Next time you start something, finish it." Well, that pretty much made me feel like crap. I attempted to explain that this was a really tough decision for me, but I'm not sure that he cared.

So then on Friday night I ended up sitting at home alone, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I was already kind of down about the whole church thing. So, of course, Satan conveniently brought to mind the fact that nobody was calling me to invite me to hang out. Sometimes it really seems like I'm always the one doing the calling and inviting. To top this off, Josh and Rebecca were having a date night, but they came to our house, so then I couldn't even sit at home and watch TV without feeling like a third wheel. I left and got some food, and they left pretty soon after I got back.

Saturday we invited people over for Jessica's birthday party and to watch the game. Saturday was a better day for the most part, but Saturday night rolled around and it seemed that nobody wanted to hang out again. Mary and I ended up going to watch Batman Begins at the $1.50 theater. I went to bed around 11:30 because I had to be at church early, but I couldn't sleep because our idiot neighbors were being loud. They finally got quiet around 1:30 or 2, and I was able to go to sleep.

Sunday rolled around, and I went to church early because I led worship. Rob just kind of said thanks to me for leading worship and didn't really say anything nice about it, so I started feeling kind of upset about that. Last night it seemed like anything and everything bugged me. We went to Arby's after Bible study, and it was just me, Josh and Rebecca (again the whole third wheel thing -- and it's not their fault, but I can't help but feel that way sometimes). I felt like they didn't really want to be there with me. Kosta and Ragan came and then decided to leave. Then I mentioned something to Rebecca about chores around the house, and she made a comment about how she and Jessica talked about it last weekend while I was gone and what they thought we should do, which made me feel like they were talking about me while I was gone, even though I KNOW that's not the case. When I got home, I tried to be productive and write my talk for the retreat that I'm working, but I couldn't come up with anything. So I just decided that I would go to bed.

Thankfully, before I went to bed, I picked up Captivating and read a chapter. When I was reading, God reminded me that all of these things that seemed so awful about the weekend were really attacks from Satan. I do have friends that care about me and love me, and I am a good person. I'm also walking in His will, and that bothers Satan. I've realized that finishing what I started doesn't necessarily mean coming to an end point by human standards; it means stopping something when God says stop. It's over when He says it's over, and He told me very clearly that it was time to move on. That doesn't necessarily mean it's not a painful process, but it helps. I'm praying that I can forgive Wes for what I saw as a hurtful comment and attitude.

Today I woke up feeling fresh and much better about everything. I had a productive morning (finally put together notebooks for all my classes so I don't have a billion papers flying around everywhere -- I also did laundry, took the garbage to the curb, straightened my room, put the dishes that were in the sink in the dishwasher and cleaned out the litter box). Then I ate lunch, took a shower, met the girl that bought my Arkansas ticket (yea for $40!) and came to work.

Tonight I'm going to keep busy with class from 7-9, then homework. Hopefully it won't take too long!!