When life gives you lemons...

...make lemonade. But what if you don't like lemonade?

I really don't understand the way life is sometimes. You're going along, doing your thing, trying to follow God's call for you life, even though you have no idea what that is. You think things are going a certain way and then BAM!! You're suddenly hit in the face with a whole bushel of lemons and wonder how it happened. Did I miss something? Was I supposed to turn right back there instead of left?

I think the most frustrating thing is that I wonder if it's possible that I've known the Lord for as long as I have and am still unable to hear His voice. Did I just think I heard it? Did I follow Him to this place only to find out I was following something else? What have years of going to church, having quiet times, going to school of ministry led me to? A total inability to separate myself enough from my own feelings and emotions to make a decision totally based on what God wants me to do?

The tricky thing is this whole idea of God granting you the desires of you heart. Somehow I've believed the docrtine of "God wants you to have what you desire so just keep following and trusting Him and things will work out the way you want." The idea that obedience somehow leads to success and happiness. I've been living my whole life under that premise. If I am faithful and do what He wants me to do, things are going to work out better for me than Susie Sinful. When that doesn't happen, you start to quesiton your very identity. The day you wake up and realize that maybe you're really a Pharisee is a bad one.

So for the time being, I'm just gonna add those lemons to my iced tea.

Still haven't found what I'm looking for

I'm not sure what it is about this age, mid-20's. It seems that there should be some sort of support group for those of us who are single, out of college, and either starting a professional career or looking for one. It's such a weird time. I thought college was bizarre, but it doesn't even compare to this.

I am trying to answer all these huge life questions, while trying to maintain that I've already figured them all out. I've never had so many deep, long discussions about the meaning of life, and what my core values are, and what I want to do, and who I want to be. And they aren't debate-like discussions where I state what I believe and the other person responds. It's more of a dialogue where he/she will say something that makes me say "Yeah, that's what I want too!" or "No, I don't follow that at all." I'm not talking about changing truth, but I feel like I'm beginning to formulate who it is that I am and who I want to be.

I know that it is a priority to me to always have close and intimate friendships in my life no matter if I'm married or single. We can make it without people who know us and who help us through crappy times and keep us accountable. I see too many married couples today who seem to be content with just having each other. That is not going to cut it for me. I want a group of friends who go out on Friday nights and do dinner. Who share life experiences and are vulnerable. I don't want surfacy friends that I see once a week at church in passing as we drop our kids off at Sunday school. Or ones that I make small talk with at soccer practice. I think this is a huge issue with our culture these days. No one has true friendship anymore. The church has tried to remedy this with small groups, but I question whether that has even worked. I know people who go to small groups and still don't have any true friends that they are real with. I know life gets busy with jobs and kids and whatever else, but we make time for what is important to us and this is important to me.

This isn't the most well-written blog ever, but thanks for reading anyway.