All at Once
So. This Picture has nothing to do with the post, but I refuse to waste it, now...
I really want to be selfish. It's true, I really want to be mean and spiteful and full of hate, anger; I could go so EMO right now it's not even funny. Unfortunately though, in this situation It just wouldn't be right.
So this post is about my sister, first a congratulations, because she is getting married. I really hope that my sister respects me and doesn't read this because despite the fact I know where her blog is, I won't read it. It's something personal, and a side of my sister that isn't for me to see. Knowing this, you have to know that despite me not reading the rough equivalent of her open paged journal, I still do know something. I know when she has trouble, I can tell. I know when she feels ganged up on, and when people think everyone is against her. I know everyone of her little ticks she does when she's aggravated and I can call it to the second when she'll break down.
Truth is her and me are both painfully alike in that aspect. We each have different insecurities, we both had different problems growing up, but we are both very visual. Creatively and annoyingly we tell our problems before people can even ask. We tell it by our pained expressions, our upset looks, our posture, our silence. Who needs words with all of this glaring you smack in the face. The worst part though is that when it comes to confrontations, we have somehow managed to be opposite types. If someone really does bother me, I will go up to their face at any point and tell them the best way I can that they need to do something about it. My sister, when she's mad she goes away. She retreats until she knows what she wants to say. I process things aloud, sometimes while walking around. She processes things internally. Now---put these two in a room and let them disagree---GO! Many of our friends can attest to this monstrous and immature display.
Despite our fighting sometimes we still can't really understand each other. Currently this is the situation.
My sister is getting married. My sister is getting married! You have no idea how happy I am for her; despite this though I have a predicament. I don't think my sister is quite ready personally to join with another in holy matrimony. She knows she has issues, but I just don't know if she's open to seeing them all. Her roommates can seem them, her family can see them, but why is she is blatantly unaware. When I look at how her and Mike get along I trust they want god to be a big part of their relationship, but I also think that they're strong emotional attraction has but a bias on their views of each other. I know I seem skeptical. Maybe that's another big character flaw on my part, or maybe I'm just being a brother. I just had to ask myself, Is this the best thing for her at this time, or will she need more time?
Bring in more to this equation my sister has set the date for her wedding in March. When she is married she will know her fiance Mike for one whole year. One whole year. What do I know really, what experience do I have in dating and relationships? The real answer is none, which further adds to a malicious motive some may skew me towards. Truth is by my sister having a wedding it further puts me in a financial straight shot situation of not knowing what to do. I want to go to a school in January. I need my parents to help me with that. Key Words: I want. What I want doesn't really matter at this point, except for the fact that I want my sister to be happy.
" 9known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything." 2 Corinthians 6:3-10 (NIV)
This is phrasing that was quoted through somewhere, I'm not sure where, but I remembered it involved patience. I remember that it talks about dying, where at times it's honestly what I felt was happening to me. I could relate to that feeling of dying, of part of you thoroughly wasting away with every heaving step. Yet we live on. It seems I've been saying I'm sorry a lot lately. Now though, I need to say again...but to god. I keep telling myself that I'm ready. I keep telling people around me that I have changed and grown enough that I can do this again. I keep remembering things that made me so sad to see, like when I was in Manitoba. I was so sad to be there and not have that connection everyone else had. I was jealous they had the freedom to move on while I had still more work to do. I was jealous of a connection I lacked amongst them. At the very same time I was ridiculously happy, I saw them moving on with their lives and I saw that they were affected. It's frakking beautiful. However there is nothing I can particularly do now except hold on and wait. I love god, but dang him for making me wait.
It better be worth it.
So. Back to my sister to end this annoyingly hovering and long long entry full of depressing typed diarhea spewed on to the page. My struggle with her is that, I wish I could be more happy for her. So to do that, I'll pretty much have to wait a little longer for my stuff to happen, at least until god tells me something else. I want her to have the best wedding she can, because you only do get one...if you do it right and make it count. So my parents shouldn't have to worry about my school and the wedding at the same time. It's annoyingly easier, which makes it harder for me to do.
Now. Someone please, knit me a sweater, it's COLD.
"Dear, dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!" 2 Corinthians 6:11-13 (the Message)
7 comments:
Hi, I have been wandering through my walk in life too, 'cept I have been doing it 40 years longer. Liked your content maybe it shouldn't have but it made me smile.
...*gasp*ed. I'm slightly shocked you've stumbled upon my blog but all the while flattered. It's encouraging to make someone smile every once in a while.
How dare you "cat lady" me when you have six! XD
And now I'll read your post ;)
Ok, I'm done. So I don't know if you know or not, but my discipler/mentor/friend Brittany and I have been mutually struggling though the idea of finishing up at Wright State and moving on to our next stage of life -- alone. For us, it's pretty difficult, because God has given each of us a desire to get married, but no prospects (Imagine wanting to go that DTS and having ALL of them closed.). Meanwhile we each have a roomate who is getting married in the next year.
While Heather and Andy's relationship is healthy and they've each exhibited huge amounts of patience and a willingness to wait on the Lord, It's still tough for Brit. I was struggling even more, because I was holding Kat and Mike up to the Heather-and-Andy maturity level - and I wasn't seeing it. I could see the need for them to be married (Kat and Mike) mostly because neither one of them has been very careful since last year about guarding their hearts. Some of the things they talk over are important to talk about before they are married, but when they go into Kat's room and close the door... or turn on the fan so we can't hear them talk, I get nervous -- not because I'm afraid that they'll "fall in sin" physically, but because there's a different kind of conversation that goes on behind closed doors and under the cover of a fan, that may not go on otherwise. When you're building a close emotional bond like that, it's easy for one thing to lead to another and another -- without really getting to know the reality of the person that you're with. You know how you talk one-on-one, but how will you mutually deal with a difficult situation. How will you react when you have to spend time apart? Where is the spiritual maturity in constantly retreating to each other when problems arise? Aren't there some very specific areas which should be dealt with with specifically male and female mentorship? And the most difficult question for me: If THIS is the level of spiritual maturity it takes for God to bring someone a husband... Why am I not married?
Then Brit and I sat down and had a heart to heart. Well, or we stood. Outside the bank actually. Before it opened at 9:00 in the morning. I'd had to kick Mike out past the apartment agreed time yet again and I was annoyed. "It's not MY responsibility!, I shouldn't HAVE to be their babysitter! Mike should be able to step up as the man and say, 'Hey, it's time for me to go!' I'm tired! I have classes! I need to go to bed!"
So Brit shared with me something that the Lord shared with her. There's no "spiritual age" you have to attain to get married. Just like there's no spiritual age you have to reach to accept Christ, or to recieve the baptism of the holy spirit, or anything else that God gives us. Marriage isn't a right and it isn't an entitlement. And like most gifts, God gives it to us when we're ready for it, whether we think we are, or other people think we are or not. So maturity doesn't come before marriage.
Does maturity come with marriage? Probably not. Actually, most deffinitely not. And I'm deffinitely sure that Kat and Mike will have altercations in their marriage, like every other newlywed couple. But that's OK, because they'll learn from them and grow in God and grow in each other -- if they know that they are the ones that God has planned for them to spend the rest of their lives with -- and I'd agree that that's the case, after much prayer. Then I don't see any reason for them to wait just to fullfill some kind of temporal quota. The end of single life isn't something that you earn or work hard for, it's just another step on the road of reaching what God has planned for you. :)
(Now if I can break the glass ceiling on that concept between my head knowledge and my heart knowledge, I'll be set.) ;)
I'm really sorry, Josh, but I don't know how to knit. Maybe a crocheted afghan?
I like that passage from 2 Cor. Sometimes the Message words things in a hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-2x4 kind of way. Let me go deal with the swelling and cuncusion now. I didn't really have anything else to say anyway...I've said it all already. ;hogaya;eroh;au *passes out on keyboard*
josh!
i finally found your blog. i added you to my list
what are you up too?
Hey :D I hope you don't mind that I posted some of your pictures on facebook... And erm, that I plan to post more next time I theif Kat's computer ;D since I know that you will never put any of them up in a million, billion, kajillion years (times infinity). (and I gave you credit and stuff, so no one will be all "ooh! Who eez zeez arteest? Ve must kidnap zem and make zem our photography zlave!" and then shanghai me into their picture-taking service) So um yeah. :D Now go forth and read my (un)witty captions!
(and update you blog, foo'!)
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