Decision...

I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks, but it's been a crazy busy last 3 weeks.

Last time, I wrote about hanging out with my Lifegroup and a guy named Janaque from my LG who was moving to Massachusetts. Well, about 2 weeks before he moved away, we realized that all of our hanging out was becoming more than friends. I didn't think I liked him initially, but the more I hung out with him and got to know him, the more I liked him. We then had a decision to make...not see each other the last 2 weeks he was in town, or continue to hang out and essentially "date" for those 2 weeks. We chose the latter. ;) To make a long story short, we saw each other just about every day/night those 2 weeks and it was probably the best 2 weeks I've ever had. We realized that we were making him moving away harder on us, but I honestly didn't think it would be that hard after only knowing him well for about a month and "dating" for 2 weeks.

I was wrong.

Janaque moved away last Tuesday and it sucked...royally. I couldn't believe how much I fell for this guy in those short 2 weeks. We thought the smart thing would be to just try to be friends and keep boundaries on how often we talked. That lasted about a day. We couldn't hold back talking to each other. We talked last Saturday night for about 4 hours and in that conversation, realized we had a big decision to make. We couldn't keep things the way they were without any kind of definition. That wouldn't be fair to either of us. Do we try the friend thing or do we try the long distance dating thing? The "I like you but I'm not actually dating you" thing wasn't going to work.

The "just be friends" route would be much safer. My type A logical brain likes that option. How could I possibly date and feel this way about someone after only 2 weeks of dating?? Trying a long distance relationship just seems foolish. But, just being friends means we'd probably have to not talk as much...I don't know if that would be possible.

On the other hand, a long distance relationship would mean a ton of risk and commitment. It would mean lots of money in flights to visit and trying to grow closer/continue to get to know each other from afar. And, ultimately if things worked out, it would mean one of us would have to sacrifice and move. Yikes.

We decided we couldn't make that decision in the spur of the moment. We decided we needed to pray about it. A lot. And talk to those closest to us to get advice. To do that, we decided not to talk (phone/text/email/FB) for a week so we could spend some quality time with the Lord about it. It's only been 2 days and I'm going crazy. I don't think I can last a whole week without talking to him. But, it has allowed me some sweet time with Jesus.

Obviously I need to talk to him to see where he's at with all this, but these last 2 days have showed me that I don't want to be "just friends" and not talk as much. I miss him too much. It scares the crap out of me though. A long distance relationship takes a lot of commitment. Any kind of relationship is risky. Can I really be feeling this way after 2 weeks?? How do I know this is really real and not just the beginning "honeymoon" stage?

I really just need to not let my head freak out and rest in God. I need to trust that He has everything under control. If it's meant to be, it'll all work out. If not, He'll let us know that too. I'll keep you posted. :)

"Show me your ways, Lord,
teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for You are God my Savior,
and my hope is in You all day long."
Psalm 25:4-5

I had an awesome weekend! I went to a game night at my new friend Janaque's (pronounced juh-nake) on Friday night...kind of a last hurrah before he moves away in 2 weeks. Saturday, my lifegroup did some clean up at the Arboretum in the morning, went out to lunch together, and then played some frisbee. Saturday night, Janaque and I had a movie night together and ended up staying up really late talking and getting to know each other more. Sunday was purely lazy...and amazing. I think I watched 7 hours of football (while doing schoolwork and other things)...glorious.

This weekend was so good for me. It felt amazing to have plans in Madison and to feel like I have a friend group. It kind of made me sad though. I'm having such a great time with Janaque. He's like my little buddy here (he's 4 years younger than me...making him almost my younger sister's age and kind of like a little brother). We have so much fun. I can just call him up out of the blue and we can find random (and not-so-random) things to talk about for much longer than planned. He's an extrovert like me, so he's almost always up for hanging out on the spur of the moment. But...he's moving in 2 weeks. I told him the other day (when we were talking about how we were bummed that we just became friends a couple weeks ago) that it's just how my life works. I don't fully understand why it's working out like this. But, I'm not going to lie...I'm bummed that it is.

In spite of all this, I feel like God is trying to teach me something big. I just listened to yesterday's sermon from church online. It was about God's holiness and Tim used the passage in Isaiah 6 to paint the picture. Basically, the takeaway was that God's holiness is good (it's all-powerful and gives us life) but it also exposes our sin and requires that our sin be dealt with in order for us to be in God's presence. Thankfully, Jesus paid the ultimate price for our sins so that we can experience God personally. However, that doesn't mean we get to walk away scotch free when we sin. Yes, we are forgiven and can have access to eternal life. But we still need to deal with the sins in our life. And, as is shown in Isaiah, that refining is necessary, but will hurt. We've become so addicted and adapted to our sinful ways (personally and as a human race), that turning from them and dealing with them is going to be painful and hard. But it's absolutely necessary to experience life in Christ.

Like other times, the basic concept of all this isn't new. But, I think I've gotten accustomed to expecting life to be relatively easy and for repentance to be as simple as telling God "I'm sorry". I made so many horrible choices this past summer. I've struggled with the same sins for years, knowing that they were trouble areas for me, without a ton of success in walking away from them. I think I'm starting to realize that after the choices I deliberately made to do the complete opposite of what I knew was right, I'm having to deal with them before I can move on in my life. In the past, I've just gone right along with life...making it really easy to forget about areas of sin that I struggle with and secretly hoping that God would too. This time is different. God has blessed me with some community here in Madison so far, but I think I need to use this time of "less" community to focus on myself and God. This past weekend with Janaque is a good example. I found a good friend...an extrovert like me. So what do I do? Spend hours upon hours with him. Even though it wasn't necessarily bad, it's easy for me to get caught up in hanging out with friends and not take any time for myself or God. And that's only going to get me right back to where I was this past summer.

I struggle with unhealthy boundaries with boys I'm attracted to, among many other things...so to rid myself of that struggle (or at least allow for God to work in that area), He has to cleanse me of those situations. And, as Tim said in the sermon, it's not fun and might even hurt. It sucks to have your best friends move away, to be plucked from a comfortable and familiar place, and to move to a place that is familiar but not at the same time. But, I trust that God has a land of nourishment for me on the other side of this desert. In the meantime, HE needs to be my nourishment so that I can learn to make God my nourishment at all times, whether I'm in a desert or not.