Roomies

Reconnecting with the Xangites

Just a little update from my life to yours.  Just graduated out of MC after three years of real change and real learning.  When I look back at these three years, I can say that I believe I did the right thing.  These will probably prove to be three of the most valuable years of my life.  The people I met, the books I read, the encounters with God, the struggles, the struggles, the endless hours of thinking, the hours of trying to pray, family issues (struggles).  What an unpredictable, weird three years these have been. 

A girl on our team named Martha put it best when she said, "Though we may have joined [MC] with goals to accomplish, with expectations in mind, God accomplished what he wanted to accomplish even if we don't believe we accomplished what we wanted to accomplish."  I'm sure we've all had experiences that left us confused or hurt or we decided to do something with goals in mind and it turned nothing like we had hoped or imagined. 

I would like to hear other people's stories of how God turned an experience, maybe college or being part of a ministry or moving to a new place, or whatever it may be, and did something in your life that you didn't expect. 

I am a good liar.  I know that my site says "Honesty...its the best policty," but who better than good liars have a healthy respect for honesty?  Exactly.

Here are a few things that I've convinced people to believe.

1.  I convinced a few high school students that unicorns really did exist.  I told them that there was a breed of horses that lived in the Argonne forest of England with horns sprouting from the forehead from which the unicorn myths were derived.  But they were hunted for their horns to extinction.  After telling the guys that I was kidding, one of them said in almost a defeated tone, "I actually just believed there were unicorns."

2.  I made a friend of mine believe that someone wanted to pray for the salvation of Satan in the prayer room at hell house.  I told her that the guy believe in universalism, which I had to explain, and that he felt "burdened" for the salvation of Satan.  The look on her face after I said I was kidding was priceless.

3.  A lady came through my checkout lane at work and I had her swipe her 20 dollar bill through the credit card reader.  She didn't think twice, she just straightened it out and began to move towards the card reader when I stopped her and told her that I wasn't being serious.  She had a good laugh.

4.  A couple of friends of mine and I were talking about how people can be way off with their "words from God."  One of them gave an example, then I gave an example.  I told them that a man approached and told me that he felt I was called to serve the crack addict women in the Dallas area.  These friends of mine laughed pretty hard, and I continued:  Yeah, the guy just walks up with this serious look on his face and with a somber voice tells me, "I really feel that you are called to women addicted to crack."  They cooled off a little bit, then I told them I wasn't serious and they laughed pretty hard again. 

Honestly, these aren't lies, just very short fictitious stories. 

Well I think I've come to that point everyone has at least once in their life.  That point where you decide you are either going to fight to keep your faith, or you are going to replace it with something that makes more sense.  And honestly, I wonder if I'm going to choose the thing that makes more sense.  At times I've thought to myself, "I"m going to walk away." And it scares me.  I'm going through this revamping of my beliefs, of my thinking, of my convictions.  This is nothing new to most young people who have turned 21 in their lifetime, or whenever it was they found themselves arrested by this stage of life.  But its new to me.  Its a scary thing to think that you are capable of losing your faith.  So I'm learning things, unlearning things and I'm trying to do it with God, because I tend to exclude God and close myself off to my own thinking.  Honestly, I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to do.  And I don't know how to do what I'm supposed to do,  so its like feeling around in the dark hoping I get somewhere.  I believe I need to fight.  I have it above my bed written.  I don't know if its God's word to me; I'd like to say that it is, as that would give me the confidence of God's activity in my life. 

I'm sure many have experienced this.  Maybe its a right of passage.  Kind of like drinking alcohol on your 21st birthday, which I did, by the way.  I had a couple sips of a gin and tonic "bombay" which tasted like liquified metal.  Then I had a rum and coke, which was better, as much as what they drank back in the twenties to cure the flu can be better.