Life lessons – The Fantasy Nook

Sunday Stories: First to Stop Applauding

Introduction

The scene is a political rally for Stalin in the Soviet Union. A tribute to Stalin is called, and a standing ovation is given for a man who isn’t even present. Three minutes turns into five, and on it goes. No one dares to stop applauding even if they do not agree with the regime and even if they’re so exhausted they want to drop. Enthusiasm wanes as the applause goes on, stretching out to eight minutes. Everyone knows the police are watching, and even if they drop dead, they won’t stop clapping.

At eleven minutes in, a paper factory directory on the platform does what not even the leaders have dared do. He stops clapping and sits down. The false enthusiasm in the rest of the crowd disappears, and to a man, they too stop and sit. Russian Author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who saw much of this first hand, describes this very scene and concludes it on this note:

The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night, the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him:
“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”
The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn

An Applause Mentality and Leftist Culture

So why start off with that quote from Solzhenitsyn and the story he told? Because our culture is much like the men watching for who would stop applauding first to find the independent ones and shut them down. How, you ask?

Well, we don’t arrest independent thinkers, yet, in this country. But what we have seen in the liberal/progressivist mentality is a shift from simply requesting that dissenting voices be silent to demanding that dissenters applaud even the most abhorrent acts known to man. I point out the liberals and their agenda (on a government scale, certainly, but also on a personal scale at times) because they are usually the ones who scream the loudest in this country. They’ve got a peculiar mob mentality and seem to think that if they shout louder than anyone else, they’ll be right.

It’s a very odd phenomenon that I’ve observed in person as well as secondhand, and I rarely see that in conservatives. Sure, conservatives have their issues, but shutting down free speech, mob mentality toward the opposition, and demanding that the opposition applaud what they’re doing aren’t usually among them. On average, conservatives tend to be the types who do what they believe is best and right and don’t care if it’s going to cause them trouble. (Note that this isn’t true of government officials, typically, even in the right wing/conservative group, but when it comes to behaviors seen in the voting demographic, this tends to be how things work.)

Now, it used to be that it was enough if we simply didn’t speak up loudly in opposition to liberal agendas on hot button issues such as education, abortion, racial issues, or LGBTQ+. No longer is tolerance enough. Today’s culture (or at least the loudest ones in it) demand that we also approve. We can’t stay quiet and just avoid voicing dissent to get by and avoid persecution anymore.

Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in those individuals who say such things as “All whites are racist devils from birth” or “It’s great that you whites supported us, but that doesn’t get you out of paying for what your ancestors did” or “You support pro-life? Then you’re anti-women, sexist, and straight up backwards-minded”. These are things I’ve actually seen and heard people say!

If we need any further evidence that ours is an applause culture, we need look no further than these examples or the current chaos going on over black rights, defunding the police, and silencing anyone who disagrees. Even blacks are not exempt from the wrath of people in the BLM movement, for example, if they choose to speak up and dissent. One black veteran, who spoke out against the mentality and culture in black communities that has led to the violence we’re seeing now, was injured in a hit and run shortly after by protesters who didn’t like what he’d said. Another black man who dissented and spoke out against them for their behavior was shot in the head and died for daring to speak out. That doesn’t even begin to include the number of black cops who have died trying to defend innocents from angry mobs who only showed up to kill, loot, and destroy.

Other Examples

In case what I gave earlier wasn’t enough, let’s look at some other examples.

Anyone who’s not willing to applaud BLM and the rioting going on right now? Well, we’ve already seen what happened to individuals from the black community itself who disagreed. But if you’re white? How can you be so racist? That’s the outcry. You aren’t supporting us? Your silence on it doesn’t exonerate you. It means you support our oppression and hate us like the racist bigots you are. At one time, silence on the issue wouldn’t be an indicator of wanting oppression to continue. It would’ve meant the person didn’t agree with some subset of what was being said or simply had no opinion on the issue.

Christian artists who run their own businesses? It used to be enough for you to just be quiet about your beliefs regarding the LGBTQ+ community. You weren’t targeted by the hateful segment of the community (and to be clear, not everyone in the community is hateful. I’ve known some really awesome people who were a part of the community. I didn’t approve of their lifestyle, but they remain some of the kindest, nicest people I’ve ever known.), and you weren’t forced to create works of art celebrating a lifestyle you had a religious and conscionable objection to. But not anymore. Show your support and celebrate their lifestyle or end up in court and lose your own lifestyle because you wouldn’t applaud like everyone else.

What about pro-lifers? You aren’t willing to openly show your support for those who want to help women murder their own babies in the womb? You dare to tell those women, however gently or kindly, that there’s another option? You want to take away the choice to murder a baby and leave them with only three options (contraception, abstinence, or pregnancy)? Then you’re against women and want to force them to carry a baby against their will. Being quietly pro-life will no longer protect you from the social suicide of having an opinion that isn’t socially accepted.

What about those who want to raise their own children and teach them without government interference? According to an article published in Harvard’s journal and written by a Harvard lawyer/professor, you’re a nutcase and your children will be white supremacists (never mind the fact that there’s a sizable community of black and Hispanic homeschoolers too). If they don’t show immediate signs of white supremacy, then they’re just ticking time bombs. Worse still, they’re probably going to end up being religious (because that’s such a bad thing in a country that has historically prized freedom of religion).

Furthermore, you’re abusing your child because you might not be educated enough to provide them quality education. (Statistics actually show that homeschoolers generally outperform public and private schoolers on standardized tests, which are the generally accepted method of testing how well-educated and intelligent a given student is compared to the rest of the student population from any given demographic.) Society looks down on homeschooled kids. While they can generally get into colleges with their standardized achievement test scores, some colleges have more rigorous and difficult enrollment requirements for homeschoolers specifically. We have to jump through more hoops simply because our parents dared to educate us at home even if we’ve proven we’re just as well-educated and smart as any of our peers in a government run school.

What if you dare to stop applauding?

No matter how polite you are in daring to sit down, society will decry you. They can’t handle any voices that don’t fit the narrative that liberal government and media have established. There’s no room in our system for voices that disagree. We’re too advanced and intelligent for that, and anyone who doesn’t agree with the generally accepted beliefs that the majority (or the loudest voices) promotes is backwards and, possibly, a danger to society.

If you’re a public figure, you’ll find your character will be demeaned and your goals, however honorable, decried simply because you were the one who dared have them. Heaven help you if you’re a conservative Christian who refuses to comply. You’re going to be socially crucified.

The Leftist mentality can tolerate no independent thinkers if the conclusion is one that doesn’t fit with their narrative and their goals. While not every individual who is a Democrat or liberal is like this (I’ve known my fair share of those who are more polite than some conservatives and Republicans I know), the overall mindset promoted and pushed by the Leftist, liberal agenda is one of intolerance toward anyone who doesn’t conform and applaud for their ways and their agendas.

As I said earlier, I’ve been on the receiving end of their intolerant, hateful attitude toward anyone who disagrees more than once. As an author who is Christian and also unafraid to speak my mind, I’ve personally experienced the backlash from a mob of Leftist liberals who didn’t like the fact that I didn’t support everything they thought I should. I’ve been called a racist, labeled as un-Christian because I wouldn’t approve of the things God has clearly denounced as sinful and wicked, called unintelligent and told I’m living in a fantasy world when I presented stats and facts that contradicted what was being claimed, mocked because of being a homeschooler, accused of being bigoted because I didn’t agree with murder in the name of “justice”, and looked down on as naive just because I was Christian. People make judgments about me all the time because of my background without even knowing me and, often, without actually listening to anything I’ve said. The list goes on.

If I’ve learned anything about society during my childhood and teen years, it’s that no matter how hard someone tries to fit in and do what they’re told to, think what they’re told to, and say what they’re told to, it will never be enough. More will always be demanded, especially in a society rushing headlong into insanity and depravity. I learned early on not to bother trying to fit in. I learned that doing the right thing was always more important than the socially acceptable thing. I learned that while there is a kind way to tell someone they’re believing a load of lies, it isn’t kind or loving to allow someone to believe lies to their own detriment. I experienced the hatred society had for people like me firsthand growing up.

My first exposure to the ugliness of racism was on the playground when I asked a few black kids to play, thinking they might want to be included because most kids do, and I was told “White kids don’t play with black kids.” They said that with as much disdain and harshness as little kids can muster. But they learned it from somewhere. I ran into that attitude frequently from blacks around me, just as much as I ran into blacks who were some of the sweetest, kindest people I knew. And I learned from that. I learned that ugliness exists in humanity regardless of color or “race”. I learned that two people who look very similar can be totally opposite in their behaviors, thought patterns, and treatment of others around them. Selfish, rude, bigoted behavior can exist on any level in any person regardless of race, sexual orientation, or religion because people are people no matter what shape or color they may come in.

Is my viewpoint popular? No. Do I know exactly what it’s like to live in the culture that blacks live in where kids often get picked on for wanting to learn because it’s more cool to skip class instead (something I’ve heard a few blacks say lately)? No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what discrimination and disdain for someone else on the basis of something they can’t change looks like. I do know that first hand, and it makes me sad that anyone would have to experience that today. Equally, it makes me very, very angry when I see anyone treating someone as if they’re a lesser human being for any reason, regardless of what that reason is, because I know what it’s like to be the one frowned upon, disapproved of, and shunned just because I didn’t fit the system’s narrative.

Why Christians Need to Stop Applauding Today’s Culture and Society

The most obvious reason to stop applauding is that we’re being asked to applaud out-and-out wickedness. I’ll be the first in line to applaud things like putting a corrupt cop in jail for unnecessary force that led to anyone’s death, arresting those who allow hatred of another to cloud their vision to the point that they commit murder, or giving the death sentence to a serial rapist. I’d also be the first in line, however, to demand that abortions stop because they are taking the lives of babies, and we are not given the permission to take the life of anyone except in very specific instances, none of which include killing infants who haven’t done anything wrong. I’ll be the first in line to applaud dealing with clear cases of injustice in our world that lead to the mistreatment of those around me even if I disagree with those people’s lifestyles or moral choices because injustice is injustice and that person has an inalienable right to the same freedoms I enjoy regardless of what I think of them personally.

But I will never applaud for those who want anarchy, for those who hate another just because they’re a different color (and to clarify, that means both black and white groups because both do this and have done it in the past), for those blaming an entire skin color group for their problems as if every individual in that group is to blame by virtue of the skin tone they were born with, for those who ignore the facts and the truth in favor of emotion and pure evil, for those who want to kill defenseless babies, for those who want to subvert or outright destroy the concept that marriage is between one man and one woman as God ordained it, or for those who advocate murdering those who did nothing wrong. That’s a group that stands for sin and injustice, not for good and justice, and for those people I refuse to applaud.

And make no mistake about this. No Christian who is going to stand by Scripture and God would or should support those things. Beyond that, a Christian living in the light of God’s Word will not applaud anything that Word says is evil or sinful. As such, though we are called to love those who do sinful things, we must be the first to stop clapping for what they’re doing, even if the system demands our applause. If refusing to applaud gains us persecution in any form, so be it. We obey God first and our authorities in so far as they do not demand we do something directly against God’s commands.

We are called to be salt and light to a dying world. Light should hold no darkness or untruth in it, nor should it applaud those things. We are called to love those around us. But love does not stand aside and stay silent as those it is directed toward run to their ultimate demise. It stands in the way, earnestly pleads with the erring one, and speaks truth even at its own expense.

Doing what we’ve been called to do means facing suffering and persecution. We need to do it anyway.

So I’m sitting down. I will be the first to stop clapping for the evils our society is promoting, even if I choose not to clap and no one follows suit. If that means arrest, social suicide, or actual death in order to stand by my God and what is true, right, and pure, so be it. To go against God and conscience to stand for evil and sin is neither safe nor wise.

Conclusion

To my brothers and sisters in Christ… Please stop applauding what is going on in today’s society. The looting, burning, rioting, killing of innocents, abortion of our own children, and destruction of the Biblical principles our country stood on for more than a century after its founding are sickening to God. He makes it clear that murder, hatred, destruction of others, theft, and insubordination to authority (except in the case where demanded to go against God Himself, who is the ultimate authority) are unacceptable. They are sin.

We must be the light to a dying world, or we must bear a guilt and shame far greater than anything that could be laid at our feet by the world for not having the “politically correct” actions and words. Our shame should be rooted in our applause for the world’s insanity in the first place. Our ancestors may have applauded slavery in their time, and that was to their shame. We now applaud further evils in the name of reversing the evil that our ancestors (in some of our cases, anyway) created by applauding the evils of their day. If we should need to apologize for anything to the world around us, it should be for living in a way that told them God was a joke and His Word a lie. It should be for not loving them enough to sit down and stop applauding for their wickedness. It should be for not caring enough to stand up for the truth and to plead with them earnestly to repent before it’s too late. Those are the things we need to apologize for if we claim to believe in God and His Word but then applaud the world because in doing that, we have defied our Lord’s commands and made Him a liar to a lost and dying world.

So Christians, let’s be the first to stop clapping for everything that should make us weep for the atrocities being committed. That is our moral duty and our God-given responsibility if we’re going to be salt and light as we’ve been called to be. It’s time we took it seriously.

Sunday Stories: A Drastic Change

Featured Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Today’s post will be a bit longer mainly because the time in my life I’m about to share with you was so significant and also stretched over a longer period. But I’ll do my best to keep things condensed as much as possible. Those of you who have been following this section of the blog probably remember that the first post in this newer section was about the lessons I learned from the situation with my Mom. You’ll probably remember that I had fallen into serious depression and addictive behavior patterns that created all kinds of issues.

My First Year in College

By the time I reached my first year in college, I was a mess. I’m sure that, to most, it looked like I had it all together. I doubt anyone would’ve looked at me and thought, that girl has serious trust issues, crippling depression, and addictive behavior patterns that will probably land her in a world of trouble. Of course, no one knew me well enough to see that. They may have known I was unhappy, if I let it show in public, but the closest anyone came to recognizing there was an issue was my mother, and that was only because we fought all the time.

By the time I got to college, my relationship with my mother was starting to mend but still tenuous, and I was harboring a massive load of resentment toward my dad for not being there for me when everything went wrong with my mom, but I didn’t even recognize that I resented him because I’d spent so long punishing myself and my mother, taking that resentment out on us both (but mostly on her) instead of the person I put on a pedestal and believed was too perfect to be blamed for anything.

None of us deserved anything that I’d been dishing out on us in that time. My father had done his best to be there for all of us while also being there for my mom and working. My mother tried her best after the fact to reconnect and give me back what I’d lost. And me? I was lost, drowning in the aftermath I didn’t know how to cope with and making it worse because I had zero self-confidence in facing my emotions.

I brought this with me to school, spending all but the last week or two of school without friends. No one stayed around for long, and in part, I think this was because I was searching for something no one around me at the time knew how to provide, something even I didn’t really know I was looking for or needed.

The Beginnings of a Change

In the last two weeks of the semester, all of that changed. Not immediately, of course, but it started there and continued on from that point. The only person I’d managed to make any significant connection with (and the only person who cared enough to constantly introduce me to people) was an outgoing, sociable pastoral major. (I’ve chosen letters to represent the individuals I’m going to talk about to protect their privacy and identities.) Let’s call this guy D.

He introduced me to so many people during the few weeks at the beginning of our friendship that I’d begun to lose count. I was also fairly… Well, shy isn’t exactly the word. I was reserved and extremely cautious around guys due to some less than wonderful experiences during community college years. Nothing too bad, but just enough to make me distrusting and ill-inclined to let them get too close to start off. Which makes what happened at the end of that first semester even more startling.

I’ll never forget the night D asked me to meet him at the campus Sports Center to hang out and meet another friend of his (whom he said rarely left the dorms and was a double major in math and engineering). I don’t know what made me do it. Maybe it was that I was lonely and had nothing better to do. Maybe it was that I kind of liked D a bit at the time and thought any opportunity to see more sides of him was too good to pass up. My curiosity always has been what’s gotten me into the most trouble. Well, that and running my mouth too much. But whatever the reason, I agreed.

An Intriguing Individual

His friend was interesting. That’s the best way I can put it. I was more focused on the new guy I’d just met than I was on D, and I was also a lot more open than I usually was. We’d met to play a few games of checkers (it was the only game in the Sports Center that allowed for more than brief snatches of conversation between taking turns at a game or flying around the ice rink), and right away, D’s friend L made a point of letting me know he was just okay at checkers. I didn’t really believe him because, after all, it’s best not to underestimate an opponent, no matter what they say. Turns out that was a smart move. We played two games, each of us winning one, before we decided to head over to the commons area and just hang out to chat.

By this time, I was really intrigued by L. He wasn’t what I expected (though, honestly, I have no clue what I was expecting…), and he had this way of seeing through people. The most interesting thing was watching as he and D took turns analyzing each other. They took the time to go through everything from how they knew what mood the other person was in to what they’d figured out about the person just based on their observations.

Then they drew me in. I didn’t know either of them well, and I’d only just met L, so an hour or two wasn’t much time to use to analyze. Lucky for me, I was bothering to pay attention because they’d grabbed my attention. So, I got involved in the conversation and offered them what I knew. The rest of the night passed in a bit of a blur, but by the time curfew rolled around, I was more comfortable with L than anyone else I’d met and known for weeks.

An Unexpected Question and an Unexpected Friend

The thing that really did it, though, was the question. He waited for D and another friend who had joined us in the Commons area to go before asking, something I didn’t think much about at the time but very much appreciated later. Then he asked me: Why do you always wear a mask?

I remember standing there, my heart pounding. I wasn’t expecting the question, and not even friends I’d had for months ever asked that. Whether because they didn’t see it or because they felt it would be rude to ask, I don’t know. But L asked it as if it was the most natural question to ask a person you’d known for just a few hours.

I considered trying to regain the upper hand in the conversation by refusing to answer. It wasn’t long until curfew, so if I’d refused to answer, I could’ve bowed out politely. But I didn’t. I don’t know if he even noticed the pause or the internal struggle, but I calmed down not long after and just answered him. I actually felt relieved. When the first moment of fear and surprise passed, I didn’t feel anything except relief and, for some reason, a sense that I could trust him with the answer.

That night, if I’d refused to answer, I don’t know where our friendship would be. Maybe he would’ve decided it wasn’t worth trying to figure out what was wrong and why I spent my time hiding from everyone. Or, maybe the fact that I wouldn’t say would’ve made it him that much more curious. Either way, that night was the start of more than I ever would’ve imagined.

Gifts I Didn’t Know I wanted

After that, we spent a lot of time together. He was determined to help me face what I didn’t want to look at, and he was determined to engage me intellectually. I enjoyed the talks. Our earlier conversations were difficult because he was still learning how to approach me, how to handle the situation. But he kept trying, and while it took me some time (and some prodding from family and friends when his approach was doing more harm than good) to learn to communicate what I needed and what I didn’t like, we figured it out. The two of us become extremely close, and by God’s grace, I believe, he brought me out of the darkness I was living in and helped me to both find the light and understand myself better.

He gave me some of the greatest gifts I’d received in a very long time: a listening ear, unconditional love and acceptance, and the ability to feel safe not being in control. Those days we spent together at school were some of the brightest moments in my life despite the pain I sometimes had to face. But he was there with me every step of the way, offering his strength when I didn’t have any, giving his insight when I couldn’t understand the things I felt, and then letting go when he saw I was able to walk on my own. When I regained my footing, I was able to also offer him support and acceptance when he struggled, and the relationship became stronger for it. He was the protective older brother I’d never had and hadn’t ever admitted I wanted.

Refining Fire

As beautiful as those days were, what really made our relationship what it is today was the hardship that it went through. We parted ways at the end of spring semester after knowing each other for only a semester and a few weeks, and both us went home. We called and Skyped over the summer, but toward the end, something changed, and we talked less often. When I got back to school, more than a little had changed.

He was distant. When we’d parted, the two of us were so close that we were hardly ever apart. But when I came back, it felt as if some part of him had left. I did everything I could think of to fix it. I’m afraid I made it worse instead of better.

Neither of us did a good job of communicating the issue, and matters were only made worse by the fact that one or two of our close friends had begun to nag about whether or not we were an item. We weren’t, but some of those friends began to tell L that I was lying about how I really felt. Things between us got so bad that, if a mutual friend hadn’t intervened, we might’ve lost our friendship entirely. I didn’t want it, but my attempts to bridge the gap and fix things made him feel suffocated and pushed him away.

He left that semester, right after we reconciled, and he never came back to school. For a while, we didn’t talk, and during the time that we weren’t really in touch while he was in boot camp and I busy with school, I got involved with a mutual friend. In all honesty, I felt lost after he left. He had helped me to embrace my emotions, my past, and the part of me that felt most content when someone else I trusted took control so I could just be me. With that gone, I didn’t know how to cope. The only person I felt comfortable sharing anything at all with was gone, and in my desperation to find solid ground again, I made some very foolish decisions. But those decisions and what they led to are a conversation for another day.

Reconnecting

We did reconnect the summer after he left right before school began, and it felt as if no time at all had passed. Both of us had things we were dealing with. He had new adjustments in life. I was navigating a messy breakup that had left me feeling more lost and terrified than ever. But God brought both of us through it. He and I got to talk each other through some of the tail end of those changes and difficulties, just as we’d done so often in previous difficulties.

But the distance and the struggles both were helpful. They prepared me to handle the breakup, at least in avoiding becoming bitter over how I was treated. I’d already learned how to deal with emotional pain inflicted, albeit by accident, by someone I loved. So when my ex inflicted it because he only cared about what he wanted, I navigated that without becoming angry or bitter. (It wasn’t much help when it came to watching my ex hurt mutual friends too, but something’s better than nothing!)

I learned so many things from this relationship, and I continue to learn things. I learned how to love someone with no regard for myself, how to communicate, that it was safe not to be in control so long as the person who had it was trustworthy, and so much more. L taught me so much about myself, about the world around me, about people, and about helping others.

The Most Important Things I’ve Learned

At one point, L told me that he felt I no longer needed him during that time of difficulty. He couldn’t understand why I would want him to stay back then. I don’t know if he understands it now. But however illogical it might have seemed, he at least accepts that I wanted him to stay. Sometimes, we have to remember that not everything in life makes logical sense. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn’t.

Our friendship has lasted four years so far, longer than any friendship I’ve had since I was a child. I don’t know where God will take us both next, but I do know this. We’ve learned a lot from each other and will continue to learn if the friendship continues on.

But the most important lesson I learned? God never brings anyone into our lives by mistake. Every relationship has its share of problems and struggles, but when God brings a person into your life, it’s always for a reason, and there’s always something you can learn. Never take for granted the people who love you or what they have to teach you. Conversely, never take lightly those who bring difficulty into life. They’re also there for a reason, and sometimes, even though they may bring pain, that pain is exactly what you need to grow and to heal.

Sunday Stories: Calm In The Storm

Featured Ariel Paiement

Introduction

With everything going on due to the Coronavirus, there has been yet another opportunity for me to learn to trust God. It’s a stressful time for most people, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stressed at all. While I’m not particularly worried about my job security like some are right now, I’m adjusting to a new situation in life. For the first time in years, everyone is home. It’s not just me, my parents, and a few of my younger siblings. It’s all eight of us, and that hasn’t been the case since I was eighteen and graduated from high school.

It might not seem like that much to complain about considering what everyone else is dealing with, and admittedly, it’s not. But with everyone home, tempers run high, and people get stressed. Working from home, while it has its perks, isn’t as wonderful when you have everyone at home making noise or interrupting you to do things during work hours. And in all of that, there’s the temptation to lash out, get angry, and lose it on the people around you, especially when you can’t go anywhere.

Learning to Trust in the Storm

I’m not the most patient person in the world, so this has definitely been a learning situation and a trust situation to boot. I’m having to learn to trust that God can help me stay calm and patient with people around me. Those who know me more personally know that along with not being very patient, I also am not very trusting. I struggle with trusting people, and I struggle with trusting God. While I’ve learned to trust Him on some things, it’s an ongoing process with each new thing, it seems like. (Apparently, I’m not a very fast learner or the concept is just not quite computing.)

But, as difficult as it can be, I appreciate the opportunities to learn to trust. Maybe not at the exact moment I’m being tested, but afterwards, I do. A few months ago, it was trusting God while I was looking for a job. I determined that I wasn’t going to stress about it because stressing meant I wasn’t trusting God. I also determined that, aside from those family members who already knew and were praying for me, I wasn’t going to ask for prayer. Probably sounds a bit weird, but in my head, I needed to go through the struggle alone. It wasn’t something that I felt I should share because it felt like it was between me and God. I needed to go to Him on my own without relying on others’ prayers for me. Normally, I wouldn’t do that with something. I’m all for asking for prayer when I’m struggling through something hard, but that was one learning experience I just felt needed to happen alone.

And God got me through it. He helped me to grow, and He showed me that there wasn’t a need to worry. That was the least stressful job hunt I have ever gone through even though I only ever heard back from one company on an interview months after I started looking.

Now I’m in another situation to learn to trust God. To trust Him to provide, aid, and bolster. Being stuck at home every day with no ability to leave unless I absolutely have to in order to get meds or shop makes me feel claustrophobic and trapped. It would be easy for me to get worried, frazzled, and scared like so many people have. It would be easy to look at everything going on around me and wonder what I’m supposed to do with everything going to pieces around me.

Instead, I’ve chosen something else. I’ve chosen to trust God. To believe that He will get me through this and help me to respond in a way that honors and glorifies Him in spite of what’s going on. I have chosen to remember the God that I serve and who He is.

Psalm 46 – A Very Present Help In Trouble

The Scripture that has been most on my mind of late has been Psalm 46. I learned this through a song by Judy Rogers called Refuge. (If you’ve never heard it, you should go listen to it. It’s a perfect reminder for the times we’re living in, in my opinion.) I’ve put the Psalm below (KJV version), and I’ll explain why it’s been such a help during this time of storm in a moment.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore, will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.

Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early.

The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved; he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth.

He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Why Look to These Verses?

These verses have been an amazing comfort to me because they remind me of a few things about God. First and foremost, He is in control. He could stop the virus, but He has chosen not to. Granted, I wouldn’t say the virus itself is a good thing, but God has already been using it for good. In China, there are already stories of how local and government authorities have received the word of God from Christians they would ordinarily persecute because those Christians were willing to serve God and risk their own lives to help others. We don’t see that in America and, in fact, the prevailing attitude among many Christians I’ve seen talking on Facebook posts has been that we need to take care of the temple God has given us.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t, but ultimately, if God is glorified by us being tortured, persecuted, killed, or getting sick and dying helping others, then we are actually a hindrance to His work and His glory by trying to take care of ourselves. So often, that is an excuse to allow fear in situations like this to keep us from doing what we know God would want us to do. Obviously, right now, many of us are in states with shelter in place regulations. We can’t go out on the streets to pass out Bibles and face masks like the Chinese Christians did, and if we were to disobey our local authorities in this matter, it wouldn’t be very God honoring. Not to mention there would be very little point in doing so because who would be around to see it in many cases? But the point is that many of us in America are so wracked by fear and a me-first mentality that we can’t even fathom the idea of risking life and limb to trust God and do what He asks even if it’s dangerous.

So the first thing I see is that God is in control and is using this for His glory. Just as it says in the tenth line of the Psalm, Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. He is doing just that. He is exalting His name through this virus in spite of the fear and the attitude of distrust many Christians in many countries, including our own, have displayed. That alone should be a comfort because we know that even what others view as evil can be turned for good in an amazing, miraculous way.

But the second thing I see from this is that we have an amazing God who is our refuge and our strength. I don’t need to be afraid because He is in control and He is my refuge. No matter what happens–even if I get sick and die–He is working everything out for His glory and my good. Ultimately, if my death brings Him glory, who am I to argue? I am given the greatest gift I could be given in that moment because I am dying to give Him the glory and I know I’ll go to be with Him. Paul says in Philippians 1:20-21 “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

It is an honor and a privilege to live for Christ and nothing but gain to die for Him too. So if I know He is in control, that even death is a gain, and that He is my refuge, why would I fear? Why wouldn’t I trust? Sometimes, I look at myself and am amazed that I have such an easy time trusting on the big things and such a hard time with smaller things. But I’m human, and that’s one of my particular shortcomings. Nonetheless, I’m grateful for His calling and His faithfulness to work in me the good work He chose to begin. And in this area of trust, He continues to give me chances to grow.

Struggling with Trust

Maybe you’re also struggling with trust. Maybe you look around you and see everyone panicking, and you too feel a little twinge of fear, an urge to take things beyond what is wise or full of temperance and moderation. It’s easy to see everyone else freaking out and feel like we should too, isn’t it? But if you’re in Christ, if you know Him as your Master and your Savior, you too can hold onto the promises made throughout Scripture. You can say along with Paul that to live is Christ and to die is gain. You can hold onto the promise in 2 Timothy 1:7 where Paul writes to Timothy that “God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Take it from your own experience and from someone else who has been in plenty of storms where she chose not to trust God. It’s so much better to let Him have control. In the end, He does whether you admit it or not. The only thing you do by trying to wrest it from His grasp is stress yourself out, scare yourself, and add additional pressure into your life that doesn’t need to be there. If you’re doing this, trust me, you’re not alone. I’ve done it. I’m very prone to doing it. But if I can learn to let Him take charge without being afraid and stressed out, so can you.

The takeaway today is this. If you’re His child today and you’re stressing out or scared about what might happen due to the current world events or what has already happened because of this virus, stop. Take a deep breath and go to Him with your fears and concerns. You may have something He wants you to do, but I can guarantee that if you don’t stop and pray first, you are going to take on a whole lot of things He doesn’t want you to do, and you may even miss doing what He does want you doing.

So pray. Ask Him to take away your fear and replace it with His peace that passes all understanding. Let Him in. He cares for you, and even when things are hard, He wants to work in your life and will work things out for your good whether you understand how it’s to your good or not. Trust Him. He knows more than you ever could. As the Psalm I quoted here said, He is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. That hasn’t changed. It never will. And so, you are able to also say you don’t fear even if the earth is destroyed, the mountains thrown into the sea, and the waters roar and are troubled.

Sunday Stories: Unexpected Hardships

Featured Ariel Paiement

If you’re getting the idea by now that much of what I’ve learned has been through suffering, adversity, and seeing how wrong things go around me when people make bad decisions, you’d have the right idea. Today’s lesson I’m sharing about is no different.

Where it all began

I was beginning my junior year of high school and starting out on my journey as a dual credit student in the year 2014. For those who don’t know, dual credit is when a high school student takes college level classes for credit both in high school and towards college later on. I was majoring in business and was there to not only finish out my high school education but also to earn my associate’s degree. But the journey to that goal was anything but easy.

Class work wasn’t as hard as I expected, but I had more responsibility because I’d started working a job that required a lot of long, difficult hours. I wasn’t full-time, but with full-time school and a job that could give me upwards of 30 hours a week, I didn’t exactly have much free time or room to rest. This was fine by me as I frequently did more in a day than most people would consider normal. Granted, I spent most of that time in less physical labor than I was doing at work, but that was fine. I knew how to work hard and had grown up doing a lot of different manual labor tasks around the house.

At this time in my life, I was very withdrawn, however. I had serious social anxiety, and I still remember that my dad’s advice to me my first day of school was: “Don’t hide in a corner. Make friends and avoid doing what you usually do because it makes you look like a snob who doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

Maybe not the nicest way of saying it, but honestly, it’s what people usually thought. They assumed my reservations about interacting with people was just me being stuck up. Whether it was or not really didn’t matter.

My point in saying all of this is to lay the stage for you. At sixteen, I was doing far more than most high school students would be doing. I thought I could handle it no matter how stressful it was. I was wrong.

My entire first year of college, I had one cold or virus after another. I still had to go to work, though, because how else would I pay the tuition fees? So, I ended up hyped up on cold and flu medications constantly. Had I known how badly all of the stress would start to damage my body, I might have taken it easy, but I’ve never been particularly good about knowing my limits. I’m stubborn, and in my mind, the sky is the limit. If no one steps in and pulls me back down to ground me in reality, my ambitions, passions, and to-do lists can quickly start to drown me and I don’t even really understand why it’s a problem. Unfortunately, by the time someone did this for me in high school, it was too late.

I already had fairly extreme depression and serious anxiety due to still having unresolved issues with my mom and the aftershocks of her surgery, but with all the added stress on top of it, I began to break down mentally, emotionally, and physically. I passed classes with flying colors and was one of the harder workers at work, but inside? Everything was crumbling to pieces, spiraling out of control, and heading toward a crash. But I kept going.

Maybe a semester into my first year of dual credit enrollment, I started experiencing terrible abdominal pain. Usually, it was just a sharp or dull pain in one side or another, and I’d ignore it because what else was I to do? I had work and school, and in my mind, I had no time to lie in bed. I did enough of that on the days when my depression was so bad that I did almost nothing productive unless it wasn’t optional. In my mind, the abdominal pain was probably just my body’s response to all the meds.

So, I stopped taking them for a while and suffered with the symptoms of the cold or whatever viral infections I’d caught during that year. I’d work anyway as long as I could still talk to the customers ordering food from me, and I tried to soldier on.

The pains got worse, and I started to have bad attacks where I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and crying because the pain was so crippling. The first time it happened, my parents thought my appendix might be rupturing because of the severity and the location of the pain. It wasn’t, but so far as the doctors could tell, nothing was wrong with me. I went through xrays in those first two years when we went in, but they found nothing.

So, I went on with life. I sucked it up and learned to deal with the pain. There were days I was hurting so much I couldn’t go to school or work, and there were days where I would work anyway and people would worry because I looked so sick. But I pushed on, trying to ignore the questions that rose in my head. Questions like: why is God letting this happen? Am I being punished for something I did? What did I do to deserve this? Is this ever going to end, or am I stuck with it for the rest of my life?

I’m Sick? Like, Chronically Ill Sick?

The doctor we were seeing at the time diagnosed me with IBS, irritable bowel syndrome. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s a chronic condition that results in a lot of bloating, cramping, gas, and general abdominal discomfort. Most people end up having issues with having normal bowel movements too. I’ll leave it at that and spare you any graphic explanations. Needless to say, it isn’t life threatening, but they don’t know what causes it and have no cure. I was devastated. She gave me a laxative to help with my constipation and recommended I avoid foods that upset my stomach. She didn’t do any other tests to rule anything else out, and nothing she gave me actually worked.

That was toward the beginning of the ordeal. I refused to go see her after the second time of being given the same solutions that didn’t work. So, I suffered for the next two years while I finished my degree. The summer before I went off to Florida to start my bachelor’s degree, we switched doctors. My parents were worried, scared a bit, and couldn’t stand seeing me in such constant pain with no answers. So, they found a doctor who would do tests.

That whole summer, I went through test after test with every one of them coming back with no answers as to what was wrong with me. I got more and more angry, depressed, and confused with every negative test result they did. Did I want to have some debilitating illness? No. But I wanted answers, and to me, it seemed God was refusing them. How could He let this happen and then give me so little consolation? I couldn’t understand it.

During that summer, I spent whatever time I wasn’t working sleeping and trying to ignore the pain. I didn’t do much of anything, and I spent very little time with people. I was too short-tempered to handle anything, really, and my family wasn’t patient with it for the most part. My mom and dad were supportive, but my siblings either didn’t understand or didn’t care that the constant pain made me crankier than usual. I tried to put on a brave face and act like it was all okay, but I couldn’t.

Answers at last

Finally, after all the testing, the diagnosis was handed down. I did have IBS after all, and it wasn’t going to just disappear. I wasn’t going to die, but I was going to have to live with an illness that would cause my abdominal/intestinal muscles to spasm for no reason, resulting in sometimes crippling pain. I lost it.

When I heard that I really did have IBS and that there was no medication that could do anything to solve it, I shut down. I couldn’t process everything I was feeling, and I didn’t understand how God could allow it. I wanted to trust He had a good reason, but at that point in my life, my trust in Him was seriously failing. After everything with my mom, I was hurting, angry, and feeling betrayed even nearly seven years after it happened. I never would’ve admitted it, but I didn’t trust God at all. I didn’t know what He was doing, but it sure looked like He was trying to wreck my life, as awful as that sounded. I held on and stubbornly refused to admit that, instead choosing to make my head believe that He had a good reason even if it was painful then. My heart, however, knew that it wasn’t real faith, and it didn’t get on bored.

Walking through the storm with God

I’m so glad God didn’t leave me there. He could’ve, but He didn’t. The years that followed at Pensacola Christian College were hard. I had no choice but to attend class even when sick because of the attendance policies. Even though I needed more sick days to give my body the breaks it needed at times, I couldn’t take them unless I wanted to lose an entire letter grade or, if I had two weeks of absences in a class in a semester, fail the class entirely. It didn’t matter how well I did at teaching myself the subject or succeeding even if I missed class, I would fail if I let my health keep me from physically being there. Many classes and church services (or other required events), I barely knew what was going on because my mind was so clouded with pain and trying not to be a distraction to those around me that I didn’t really hear anything going on around me.

But despite all the dietary restrictions, hardships caused by the strict rules they set (which for any other student without a chronic illness would really not have been that bad, to be honest), and my own broken, battered heart, God did work. He taught me that even though life is pain, it can still be joyous anyway. He taught me that others could benefit from my suffering if I was willing to take a step of faith in Him and keep a positive attitude with a willingness to share. It was hard to do that. I’m not an optimist by nature. If anything, I’m a realist who borders on pessimism in some cases. But if I hadn’t chosen to desperately cling to the Scriptures that say He plans everything and works it all out to the good of those who love Him, I would’ve lost my mind, I think. The stress I endured and the guilt I felt on days where I couldn’t attend events and knew I’d get a mark on my record for it or would have to attend the recording later was nearly unbearable, and if I hadn’t chosen to believe, regardless of my emotional state, that God had a good purpose, I wouldn’t have made it.

Gradually, God brought people alongside who, though they could do nothing to solve my physical ailments, were a support system I desperately needed. He brought me healing emotionally and mentally in many, many ways through those people so that, even though He didn’t take away my physical thorn in the flesh, He did show His mercy, power, and love in my life. He grew my faith through the trial, and because of what I go through on a daily basis, He is able to reach people through me that He could never reach otherwise.

In the same way that He used what happened to my mother, and to me as a result, to help those suffering around me, He also used my illness to bring hope, encouragement, and joy to others in similar situations or to those who had family suffering the same way. My illness, as hard as it is to bear some days, is a living testimony to His goodness. I know. That sounds really weird. How can He be good if He lets me suffer?

I struggled with that question constantly at the beginning.

Until I realized, it isn’t about me. It’s about His glory and His honor. In His sovereign wisdom, He knew many things I didn’t about the results of this illness, and He knows there are many more things I will likely learn as the result of being sick. Could He miraculously heal me? Sure. Has He chosen to? In spite of my pleas at the beginning for that, no. And I’ve benefited more from seeing Him work in spite of my weakness than I ever would’ve if He’d healed me nearly six years ago so that I could go on to pursue everything I wanted to with no hindrances. My character has been forged in fire because of this illness. I’ve learned lessons I never would’ve without it. I’ve watched God humble me because of it, and I needed that. I needed to recognize my place and my purpose, and I couldn’t do that without this illness. My own pride would have prevented it.

So, God in His infinite wisdom gave me IBS. Do I still hope that someday it’ll go away? Yes. I worry sometimes about the future because I know an illness like mine will make being a mother and a good wife very difficult, and I hate that. I want a family, and I want to give them all of me and my attention. I can’t do that on days when my illness takes over and lays me out on the bed wishing I could just die in a hole somewhere because I’m in so much pain. My mind and my body aren’t capable of giving people around me my attention or my love in those instances, and I hate that. But I also know this. Someday, if God chooses to bless me with a husband and kids, He’s going to get me through it. He’s never, ever going to make me face a trial that He is not going to walk me through. Sure, He might give me a trial I can’t handle. But never one that He can’t handle or doesn’t intend to handle as long as I choose to give Him control and walk step-by-step with Him. It might be a rocky road sometimes, but what’s on the other side will be worth it in the end.

Sunday Stories

Featured Ariel Paiement

This is a new section on the blog that I wanted to start. Sometimes, I think the blog focuses a lot on the aspects of writing and editing or on what I’m working on, but there’s not a lot of personal stuff to it. Obviously, there’s a fine line between sharing and over-sharing, but I personally really like it when I see stories and personal notes from the authors of blogs I follow or books I like to read. It makes it feel like I know them just a bit better and have a more personal investment in their work. It also makes it easier to recommend them, at least for me, because I can tell friends or parents I talk to that the author’s philosophies, outlook on life, and personality are also commendable.

So, I’m going to start sharing things I’ve learned through life’s experiences so far and things that I’m learning now. For those who aren’t Christians, I’m not going to discourage you from reading, but you should know that this part of the blog will be much more obvious in its Christian roots because I am a Christian, and the lessons I have learned are ones learned through hardships God took me through to teach me things I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. If that’s something that’s offensive and bothersome, just skip over these posts when you see them and keep reading what you already do. I won’t be offended by it. But if you do decide to join me, then welcome, and thank you for doing so!

Today’s Sunday Story comes from a lesson I learned about loneliness in my first semester of college at Pensacola Christian College in Florida.

~~~

They say your college years are the best years of your life. Mine have been both the best and worst years so far. I know, a strange statement to make, but a true one for reasons that will, I think, become apparent as I share more of the things I learned during my college years.

I won’t deny that I have an overall negative opinion of my alma mater itself. At this point in my life, I still haven’t fully sorted through all of the emotions, positive or negative, that I went through while there. I’m a bit of a slow learner when it comes to emotional things, and my final year and a half at PCC was filled with many negative emotions, some directed at the school and some toward myself. But that’s a story for another Sunday and isn’t really the point of this post. My only reason for mentioning it is to be up front about the fact that I most definitely have a bias against the institution but that, because God richly blessed me with friends from the student body who could facilitate growth even when the school failed to do so, my view can’t be entirely negative of my time spent there, at the very least.

My first semester was mostly bleak, especially in the beginning. I had no friends, and those I tried to make would agree to plans enthusiastically only to leave me alone when the time for our plans rolled around. This meant many meals spent eating alone, but it also created a fair share of problems since the school had a “no-going-off-campus-alone” rule at the beginning of my time there.

The rule itself wasn’t bad since our area was more than a little dangerous and had gangs who operated near the school and targeted our female students. The school tried to make it easy to find people to go with for the weekends since they ran buses that went to Walmart, the mall, and one other local shopping destination. Unfortunately, the rule regarding going off alone also applied to the weekend shopping trips and the bus, which I initially didn’t even realize. (The rules regarding bus use were more than a little vague in that area.)

Furthermore, I could only go with girls, so my pool of people to choose from was relatively limited. I tended to have very little luck connecting with girls my age despite repeated attempts. This was by no means the school’s fault, but it did make things difficult for me. As a result, when people cancelled plans every time we had them (and that semester, there wasn’t a single weekend that the people I made plans with didn’t cancel on me last minute), I was forced to either cancel plans to avoid breaking the rules or go alone even if it broke rules.

For most students, this wasn’t an issue. They could either not go that week or had no problem finding friends to go whether it was last minute or not. In my case, I couldn’t choose not to go because I had to buy food I could actually eat regularly without making myself sick and needed to buy my own toiletries. One of my roommates had a car, but neither of them liked me or was keen on lending me anything if I wasn’t able to get to the store, so I relied heavily on making time on a weekend to go. So, I spent much of that semester discouraged and struggling because I couldn’t manage to find anyone to go anywhere with me or do anything, even on campus.

It took me a long while to give up on it. I admit that I gave up in despair and for all the wrong reasons, but once I gave up, God finally got through to me, and I began to learn one of the first lessons the people there taught me, though I’m sure it wasn’t their intention to teach me this lesson. Loneliness, as uncomfortable as it is, is not the end of the world and is often a tool God uses to draw us to Himself. In this case, it did just that.

Later on, I did make friends, and some of them are ones I’m still in touch with, my best friend included. I made them at the very end of that first semester, but not until I learned to do two things. First, to accept the hollowness a lack of human companionship left in me. Second, to bring it to and give it over to God so that He could fill it with a thankfulness for the One who never leaves and for the person of God Himself.

I still struggle in this area sometimes, but this lesson had to be learned and has stuck with me. It is one of the few things the school itself ended up having a big part in teaching me, on a spiritual level at least, because in some ways, their rules made my lack of friendship more apparent every time I had no choice but to go on the bus alone to get things that couldn’t hold off for an uncertain “I’d love to go with you next week” from those I thought were friends.

I had many nerve-wracking, guilt-ridden trips to Walmart then with plenty of time to consider the fact that, unless I wanted to go without toilet paper or food I could eat safely for another week or more, I had to break the rules. I spent those rides terrified I’d get in trouble for being on my own, ashamed because I knew I was breaking rules, angry because I wanted to follow the rules (even if I hadn’t known about some of them until I got on campus) but couldn’t because others didn’t follow through week after week, and lonely because everyone else had a group while I was alone. Not a “good” experience, certainly. By the end of that semester, I had come to dread Walmart trips and hate the health issues that made trips necessary every other week, even if I had to break rules to go. But the acute emotional distress did force me to choose how to respond and to find a solution.

So, I eventually chose to stop looking for friends. A strange decision, I know, but it was the only one that seemed remotely reasonable at that point. I told God that, as sad as I felt about the prospect of being friendless for three years in a place I was already beginning to feel alone and out-of-place in, I was going to accept it if He didn’t choose to give me any friends.

After all, I’d already chosen to obey His leading in coming to a school that I never would have attended on my own because of the rules they did make clear, and that hadn’t even covered the ones that were tacked on or made themselves manifest after I first arrived that weren’t even in the student handbook or the differing applications of the student leaders in charge of enforcing them. But I was living with all of it, even if I wasn’t thrilled about it, and I was doing it because I strongly believed it was where I belonged even if I never fit in with more than a handful of people there.

So, if I could do that, then I could surely survive three years with no friends if it was what God called me to. To me, at that point, I was mostly just resigned and a little relieved I could stop putting all my efforts into developing friendships that never went anywhere. There was, at that time, no excitement about trusting God with the situation, but only a hopeless prayer of unhappy resignation to the loneliness if that was what had to be for His plans to be worked out in my life. (Had I known back then what I would find by doing this, I might have had more enthusiasm and less of a depressed, if I have to attitude, but hindsight is 20-20, as they say.)

Over the next month, bus rides got easier. Oh, the guilt and frustration over the fact that I had to break rules to get what I needed was still there. I couldn’t get around that without just eating foods that made me sick until I could buy non-perishables and whatever I could store out of the fridge for a week or so until I could shop again. But those trips never allowed me to buy enough to tide me over until the next trip, and I didn’t have a way to extend shelf-life on the fresh foods or fruits I needed to eat more of. I made it through, though, and I dealt with the consequences of my choice with a good attitude. I knew I was breaking policies, and while I felt bad about doing it, I knew I was still responsible for it if I got caught. I accepted that risk and the guilt that was a consequence of breaking rules I felt should be followed.

Some would have told me at the time (and later a few guy friends did tell me this) that I should have kept the rules even if it meant suffering health-wise because it was wrong to break a rule you knew about. That’s one of those things I still don’t know how to feel about.

I’m not a rule breaker, and breaking rules is something I hate doing. But there were many times where I didn’t know how rules should be interpreted or what they applied to because every resident assistant did things differently. I often felt guilty for breaking rules, even if I didn’t know about them beforehand because they weren’t in the version of the Pathway I’d been given prior to updates. I learned to accept and expect the guilt. As I said, my head got tangled up and confused on the issue, and in the end, whether it was right or wrong, I chose to do what was best for my health so I could focus on classes, even if it meant breaking a rule.

When it came to the bus situation, however guilty I may have felt, the loneliness itself eased up as a week or so passed in this state of isolation and prayer. I wasn’t angry at people for ditching me because I expected them not to show and leave me in a bind, and I didn’t care if we were able to hang out or not, so I wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t happen. Maybe that’s pessimistic of me, but I felt no real antipathy toward anyone for it. I just saw things for what they were and didn’t expect things to change.

Eventually, though, things did change. I didn’t expect them to, and I didn’t notice right away that, while no one else around me was changing, I was changing. It took time, but I grew to find walking, eating, studying, and living life with just me and God to be a joy instead of a burden. My problems weren’t solved, and I had a lot of growing ahead, but I was at peace about the journey ahead and the steps behind.

In the end, the lesson I learned from the struggle wasn’t an easy one, and I didn’t like the experience that had to happen for me to learn it. I wouldn’t tell you the experience was positive because that would be a categorical lie. But what I could tell you is this. The experience was painful and what was going on was negative, yes. But the results and the growth that came out of the experience were positive. Those were good and necessary.

It’s easy for me to forget, often, that even if what happened to me was undoubtedly negative, the results were not if I grew and came closer to God because of my suffering. The suffering and other people’s lack of integrity or good decisions (in this case, their poor planning and lack of following through) wasn’t good. Should those things have happened? No, probably not like they did. But if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have learned to embrace loneliness instead of fighting it, and I would be a lesser person today. The experience was bad, but the outgrowth from my response to it and what God did through it was something way more positive than I ever could’ve dreamed.