Calling

This week has been strange. After a bad weekend of not making hardly any tips, I at least got to go thrifting with my campaigner girls and chill at the new Skinny Minniz, which is pretty legit by the way. It might be one of my new favorite places. Anyway, that lifted my spirits, but then Tuesday I was late for work. I looked at my schedule wrong and was 45 minutes late. That's the same day that one of my young life girls texted me with some hard stuff. Some stuff that made me cry and made my stomach hurt. And then tonight, after making the lowest amount of money I've ever made on a Wednesday night, I find out that my best friend had a head-on collision that it is a miracle she survived from. I'm still thanking God that she is okay.

A few minutes ago I was thinking about all this, and I thought to myself, "Why is all of this happening? Is there a reason?" Then it hit me. I'm giving the talk tomorrow at young life club. Not just any talk, the need talk. It's been on my mind since last Thursday. This is the first time that God has let me know way in advance what passage in scripture I am going to use, which tells me that their are kids who are coming whom he wants to hear it.

It's so funny because even though these things were probably meant to hinder me or make me feel down and out, they've encouraged me. They've encouraged me because I know that good things are coming.

On a different note, I spent some sweet time with the Lord today. I read a passage from 1 Samuel Chapter 3, and I want to share about what I read there. Basically Samuel is lying in the temple in a dimly lit room feeling pretty sleepy. The bible says his, "eyes were becoming so weak, he could barely see." I love that.

Anyway, so God comes and literally calls saying, "Samuel!" Samuel thinks that it is this guy Eli calling to him from the other room so he runs to him. Eli tells him it wasn't him, so he goes back to lie down again. This happens two more times before Eli realizes that God is calling Samuel, so he says, "Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel goes back to lie down again. And this is my favorite part. It says, "The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, 'Samuel! Samuel!'"

This literally made me laugh out loud as I sat in my car at the Maryville Sonic. I.Love.That. I just imagine God coming and standing in the room all four times that he called him, and every time Samuel ran from the room, God just choking back his laughter from the shadows thinking, "He has no idea I'm standing here!' It made me have flashbacks to being a kid and playing hide and seek. I remember burrowing into a closet or under the bed and watching the seeker run by me and seriously convulsing with silent laughter as they would run by.

But then I thought, no...no. God wouldn't laugh as Samuel ran by. He would get restless. He would sigh and then pace the room, like a lover waits on the woman he loves to answer his call...to notice him, to listen to him. Like a man who longs to run away with the woman he loves and marry her and share his secrets with her.

And then I thought, but that's still not it. He's like the father calling to his son...calling to his son and wanting him to answer him the first time he calls. He's like the father wondering why it took three whole times for his son to answer his call.

I wrote all of these down in my journal, and then it occurred to me. You are all of those things...You are the laughing child wanting us to come play with you, to go on an adventure with you. You are the lover who wants us to marry you, to be intimate with you. And you are the father, who wants to guide us, direct us, and discipline us. You are all of those things, all of those things I love. 

I love how God can take a single line of scripture and tell me so much about himself through it. It makes my heart feel light.