Oi.
Sometimes I like to pretend that I am more British than my several generations removed allow. When such an urge comes upon me, I like to use words such as "Oi." That being said, I also like to say "Huzzah" when cheering. I suppose this means I am simply odd.
The reason for the "Oi" was simply my way of describing this passed week. It has gone well, and I think I will enjoy my courses, but it has still been a week. That being said, I think the tangent about being British will work as a nice little path as I discuss hanging out with a good friend of mine. His name is Clive, though I prefer to call him Jack, but you may know him as C.S. Lewis.
For my birthday my cousin gave me a collection of Lewis' works as I have always wanted to read his writings. I grew up on The Chronicles of Narnia and loved any quotations of his I read. So I have spent the last... two weeks or so engrossed in this collection. I am currently reading The Problem of Pain and last night had somewhat of a revelation. I want to share with you a passage from it. He is talking about suffering experienced by "good" people.
"Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for the moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover... I call this Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up 'our own' when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer. He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had."
I was floored upon reading this. Especially considering how it tied into another quotation a friend shared with me, from George Macdonald. It says:
"My fit wages may be pain, sorrow, humiliation of soul: I stretch out my hands to receive them. Thy reward will be to lift me out of the mire of self-love, and bring me nearer to thyself and thy children: welcome, divinest of good things!"
I am fairly certain God has been trying to tell me something.
Last night I crawled into bed and couldn't fall asleep right away. So I started praying. I had already had one breakdown on God earlier in the day (I blame the stress of school), and while this was not a breakdown, it was the culmination of several weeks (perhaps even months) and thoughts and feelings. I began to hand everything over to God. My hopes, my dreams, my fears, my expectations... everything. I handed over the things I was scared to hand over.
I don't want to only turn to God when my life is in shambles. I have been in that place before, and while He got me through it, I want to walk with Him in the good and not just the bad. Whatever He has for me, even if it be pain or sorrow, I want to accept it because He knows that the things I hold onto will not be enough for me. He knows that He is the only one who can satisfy.
Sometimes I lose sight of this.
Often times I lose sight of this.
My life is not my own.
While I think this lesson is important for everyone, I think that as singles it is especially so. Especially as Christian singles. Sometimes we lose hope. People tell us to pray, to "just be content with God and then He'll bring you your special someone," and that "you are amazing; God will bring that person soon." But for often than naught those words and phrases ring hollow.
Lord, remind me of Your truth. That the things I place my hope in are not enough to make me blessed, or to make me happy. Only You can do that, Father.
Such is the life of a Christian single.
Sometimes I like to pretend that I am more British than my several generations removed allow. When such an urge comes upon me, I like to use words such as "Oi." That being said, I also like to say "Huzzah" when cheering. I suppose this means I am simply odd.
The reason for the "Oi" was simply my way of describing this passed week. It has gone well, and I think I will enjoy my courses, but it has still been a week. That being said, I think the tangent about being British will work as a nice little path as I discuss hanging out with a good friend of mine. His name is Clive, though I prefer to call him Jack, but you may know him as C.S. Lewis.
For my birthday my cousin gave me a collection of Lewis' works as I have always wanted to read his writings. I grew up on The Chronicles of Narnia and loved any quotations of his I read. So I have spent the last... two weeks or so engrossed in this collection. I am currently reading The Problem of Pain and last night had somewhat of a revelation. I want to share with you a passage from it. He is talking about suffering experienced by "good" people.
"Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for the moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover... I call this Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up 'our own' when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer. He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had."
I was floored upon reading this. Especially considering how it tied into another quotation a friend shared with me, from George Macdonald. It says:
"My fit wages may be pain, sorrow, humiliation of soul: I stretch out my hands to receive them. Thy reward will be to lift me out of the mire of self-love, and bring me nearer to thyself and thy children: welcome, divinest of good things!"
I am fairly certain God has been trying to tell me something.
Last night I crawled into bed and couldn't fall asleep right away. So I started praying. I had already had one breakdown on God earlier in the day (I blame the stress of school), and while this was not a breakdown, it was the culmination of several weeks (perhaps even months) and thoughts and feelings. I began to hand everything over to God. My hopes, my dreams, my fears, my expectations... everything. I handed over the things I was scared to hand over.
I don't want to only turn to God when my life is in shambles. I have been in that place before, and while He got me through it, I want to walk with Him in the good and not just the bad. Whatever He has for me, even if it be pain or sorrow, I want to accept it because He knows that the things I hold onto will not be enough for me. He knows that He is the only one who can satisfy.
Sometimes I lose sight of this.
Often times I lose sight of this.
My life is not my own.
While I think this lesson is important for everyone, I think that as singles it is especially so. Especially as Christian singles. Sometimes we lose hope. People tell us to pray, to "just be content with God and then He'll bring you your special someone," and that "you are amazing; God will bring that person soon." But for often than naught those words and phrases ring hollow.
Lord, remind me of Your truth. That the things I place my hope in are not enough to make me blessed, or to make me happy. Only You can do that, Father.
Such is the life of a Christian single.
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