'What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?...
Matthew 18:12
Hey there!
I'm going to jump right into today's post. Lately, I've been feeling very lost. This is easily seen through my words and actions. I've been gently (not really gently) reminded that my self deprecating humor and aggressive sarcasm aren't always jokes when they're aimed towards myself. My good friend has been 'training' me to be confident recently. I'm not doing too well. Wait, I mean... I'm making progress.
In the past three weeks, I have made some drastic changes in my social life. By this I mean I ended a friendship. Now don't get me wrong she was a good friend, but she hurt me and through that, I was able to realize that she wasn't pointing me to God. Things get a little complicated so I'm not going to go into detail. What you should know for the sake of this topic is that I spent a lot of time with her.
Now that we're separated I can realize all of the ways she negatively influenced me, while when we were friends I was blinded by the good influences. But since we spent so much time together, I felt very lonely and lost admits all my free time. So I'd been filling that hole with studying for my AP exam. But when I was not studying for HuGAP I felt lost again. So I studied biology for my EOC. While I wasn't studying I was practicing for auditions. This week I didn't have any auditions to practice, I took my EOC, and now all I have left is my AP exam.
I have even more free time. As usual, I find myself falling into a deep, deep pit of overthinking. I think until I'm confused and lost and don't know how I feel. And then I let all of those nasty feelings be seen by conveying them into how I act and speak. This leads to me constantly needing pep talks and people asking if I'm okay. I am okay, but I feel lost. Except for yesterday, an inciting incident led to an epiphany,
I was making my usual jokes and getting lectured on confidence by one of my friends when he said this. "Are you going to be discouraged and let this struggle beat you or are you going to find a way to get through it with God's help?" Consider me taken aback. I somehow had managed to completely overlook what was going on. I had taken my eyes off of God and transferred them to myself and my problems.
God is our shepherd. In Matthew 18, the parable of the shepherd leaving his 99 sheep to find the 1 that was missing. That's what God does for us. He died so that we would give our lives to him and say, "Take my life I can't do this on my own" because we can't. I tried solving my problems, but without focusing on God I didn't have the strength to ignore all of Satan's lies. As soon as the thought of not being a good friend passed through my mind I forgot everywhere I had been. Every lesson I had learned, every season I overcame, all the times I had claimed to be a daughter of God.
I ignored the fact that I had an amazing and all-powerful God on my side. It slipped my mind just as I slipped my eyes off of God. I pray that if you find yourself lost you remember that God is looking for you. Find a friend who will remind you of this, write it on your mirror, or do whatever it takes so that you don't stay lost.
Praying,
Addison Wimbish
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