Unable to see the sky

My favorite passage of scripture of all time is Psalm 139. Let me tell you, those verses have got me through some hard times. When it felt like I couldn’t pray and talk to God, I read it and wouldn’t feel 100% instantaneously but would feel a sense of comfort.

Well, I read it this morning and was just reflecting on everything that I had been going through.

I have a friend that I met over two years ago at a church conference. It was one of those meetings where people were spying on us to see if they saw any sparks fly between us. Well, there weren’t any initial sparks but I was at least willing to get a match. We exchanged email addresses and he emailed me about a month after we first met.

We started on surface topics for a while but slowly the layers of self disclosure began to peel away. Things were going well and after about six months I began to wonder if he were interested in a more then friendly way…I mean you would think that after six months he would make a move! I questioned him about it and he said, “I would love to be in a relationship with you but you live in VA and I live in TN.”

To me it wasn’t an issue but I guess long distance affects us each differently. I said OK, and we continued to email each other off and on for two years. Finally, I had enough of wondering, questioning, and hoping for something to happen. After two years I was interested and I approached my pastor and his wife about the situation and they were immediately gung ho on getting me to TN and fast. I felt this burden to pray for him and thought about him often.

Anyway, to make a looong story short it worked out that one of the ladies from my church wanted to go to TN to visit her son. Enter me and the “coincidence” of it all that I was contemplating my pen pal relationship with my friend.

Off we went to TN. I did my best to not get my hopes up, to go with an open mind. Before we had even left, I spoke to him to see if he would even be available to ‘hang out.’ He agreed that he would. Ok great. So, we got there on Wednesday morning. I was ready to go to church with him that night. No phone call. Ok, well he did say that he was able to hang out on Thursday. Thursday morning I got a text saying that he would be able to hang out but not until later. Umm…OK, you know I can go with the flow. He arrived late, and when I saw him I must admit that he looked different than what I last remembered. After several minutes of where do you want to go? No, where do you want to go? (which I always find annoying) I decided that we should go to a tourist attraction that I wanted to visit and then dinner. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time and laughed a lot but was overall disappointed with the way things had turned out. There was no spark, not even matches this time. He dropped me off back at my friends house with promises to call.

He didn’t. I was pissed.

My pride was wounded and of course, I began to question my beauty, intelligence, spiritual-ness, any and everything that encompassed who I am. It’s sad but true and I am not ashamed to admit it. I then began to question God. Why had he led me to pray for this man so earnestly, and often? Why had He worked it out so that I would be able to visit him? It felt like God had just punk’d me and I was embarrassed and angry.

After a couple of days of being angry with God, and a little crying, I ran across Psalm 63:8. I poured it out to him. I didn’t understand why he had done what he did but I knew that it was His perfect will for my life. It wasn’t an instantaneous thing either, but I eventually, little by little am finding my way back to God. I share all of this with you because perhaps you are going through some things that you don’t understand but I just want to encourage you that God has got it. His track record has proved to be perfect in my life and I know that he wouldn’t turn His back on me now, or ever.