Walking Through Fog

"I'm still holdin' on

That's why I still pray

Feelin' empty inside

I can't make it through the day

I don't know what else to do

I don't know what else to say

I'm talkin' to ya now

But I promise that you feel so far away"-Lecrae (Far Away)

This song is one I listened to on an endless loop when I went to the beach after my big mistake (Shameful Failure). It helped me a lot again last night.

My youth group and I went to Six Flags (Carowinds is much better, for the record) and the day was mostly fun, a little bit of drama, but that's always expected with my two girl friends. Our group of 6 got in line for the Superman ride at about 4, and it turned out to be so long that we were waaaay late for our meeting time back at the church bus. Our youth minister was, needless to say, very mad. the plan now was, since we were leaving so late, that we would not stop for dinner on the way back home. Everyone blamed us, rightfully so. But our youth minister didn't yell at us quite as much as we were expecting. I think I speak for my group when I say I felt dreadful.

An hour after the bus had started moving, we were stopping in a McDonald's parking lot. (((This has nothing to do with what I'm writing, but my dog just ate a spider! Bleh!))) My youth minister asked me what I wanted to eat, but I didn't want anything. I felt like there should have been a punishment, we came to the bus an hour late, we left an hour late, she said there would be no dinner because of this, yet she was letting us stop for dinner! She bought me an iced coffee, and then a large fry. (I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat Big Macs.) I accepted the coffee, but I didn't want anything to eat. I still felt like there should have been a punishment, and I told her that. She said she was sick of that attitude, so I just walked away and hid until it was time to go.

It's a rule of mine not to cry in public, but I was crying now. One of my best friends who had come on this trip with us and her boyfriend had been crying most of the day. Yeah, it had been mostly for her boyfriend's attention and was really starting to get on everyone's nerves, but on the bus ride to McDonald's, she had started banging her head on the window behind her, hard. Her boyfriend has been making her cry almost every time they're together. It's not always his fault, he's my best friend too, sometimes she's a little over sensitive. But it still hurts to see your best friend like this for 6 months. When I try to console her, nothing works. She calls her self stupid, and ugly, and unloved, and all she wants is her boyfriend to love her back. Why do girls place their self-worth in the hands of guys? We are all God's children and we should place our self-worth in God's hands. I pray for my friends who are like this, but I feel useless. Anything I say to them is forgotten, and shouldn't I be doing more than just praying? 'Cause it hasn't been working up to this point.

Psalms 62:5-8

"I don't know what to do

I ain't lookin' for answers

I just need you to hold my hand

Through this cancer

Tell me you never left

Even in the midst of death

Breathe on me I'll do anything to feel your breath

My God is not far away"-Lecrae (Far Away)




Those were 2 of the things I couldn't stop flow of tears for. There's another thing that I just couldn't stop thinking about and really what the title of this blog post is about. (Road to...?). I've been struggling a lot with what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I have a license, I have job, I'm on my way to a community college, but after that..? I was waiting in line on one of the rides with a guy who hasn't been at our church very long. He had recently been on a trip to Honduras, so I started asking him about it. He's a year younger than me, and I'm (forgive me) pretty jealous about the fact that he's been on a wonderful mission trip and I still have yet to go on one. But I've always been too worried about getting the money to do it. And I was telling him this and he told me I shouldn't worry, that God's gonna figure it all out and He's gotta plan to use me. Then I admitted that I hate not knowing that plan already. I was in JROTC for my four years of high school, and they teach you to make plans ahead of time. But according to this guy, that's not always how it works. I told him I felt like I was walking through fog, that I couldn't see but a foot in front of me and it was so discouraging. Then this guy told me I need to just work  on my patience, pray, read the Bible. He told me his trip to Honduras didn't have a man-made plan. That every time they tried to make a schedule, they never stuck with it. The day they got there, their first project was to dig a grave for an 18 month old child. A plan by them would never have worked, but it was all in God's plan and in God's time. He had given me a lot to think about.

We got on another ride, the Goliath, kind of like the Intimidator at Carowinds. I love roller coasters, but they also scare the living daylights out of me. We were at the part where you're traveling up really slowly and you start to pass the tops of the trees beside you. This is always the part I start to freak out about, because you can't see anything beyond the top of the track before it plunges straight down. I told my friend, this same guy, that this was my new metaphor for my life. All I could see was up to the top, and I was anxious because the rest of the track eluded me, I didn't know exactly when I would feel my stomach drop.
His come back: "But I promise you it's gonna be awesome."