Before I get into the primary purpose of this entry, I just want to thank those of you who prayed for my friend Mikey in the past several days. I know a couple of you told me that you did and I'm sure a couple others did so without telling me. Thank you for those prayers! I honestly feel like me and Mikey reached a new level of our friendship last night. As I said last time, we recently started playing this online Survivor game together. Well...just like that, Mikey was the first one voted out. Bah! I was definitely disappointed by this as I was hoping we'd get to stay in the game together for a long time and further grow our friendship. As it turns out though, our friendship grew to a new level anyway.
I made a video confessional for the game in which I described Mikey as not only a good online friend, but also a good friend in general. I really didn't think too much of it, to be honest, as I talked about my strategy for the game as well. I hadn't planned on showing the video to him until after the game ended, but since he had just been eliminated I figured I'd show it to him. I think he was definitely touched to hear me praise him so in the video. He called me "a good kid" and said it'd be really cool if we ever got to hang out in person someday. And you have to understand, he's not the most emotional/sentimental person ever. He's always cracking jokes and such. So to hear those words come from his mouth (or pop up on my computer screen, rather) was really touching for me as well.
This is a friendship three years (and counting) in the making, and I'm amazed at the progress we've made in our friendship. Hearing what he said last night gives me a second wind and a renewed hope that someday he WILL come to know Christ as his personal Savior. It can ABSOLUTELY happen and I would love for the Lord to use me to be a part of that. Seriously, I get so giddy thinking about it. So again, I thank you all for your prayers and ask that you'd continue to remember Mikey and the entire ORG community that I'm a part of.
Now that I've taken three healthy paragraphs to talk about that, let me dive right into another HUGE topic. Exodus. Holy $%#*&, it's only two weeks away! LESS than two weeks away actually! WOW. I remember praying about going to this conference back in November, so for it to be less than two weeks away now is absolutely crazy. Insane. I'm getting a little nervous, yes, but I remain hopeful and optimistic over it. Greater things have yet to come...
This past week I've had the house to myself. My entire family drove down to Florida to stay with some family and go to the beach. I probably would have gone if, you know, I wasn't going on my own little "vacation" in two weeks. Plus, someone had to stay with the dog. It's no big deal, as I abhor the beach anyway. But alas, I digress.
Being alone for the week, I've had a lot of time to think and pray about things. Mainly...whether or not I should finally pull the trigger and talk to my brother and sister about my secret struggle. Ugh, I've been fighting this issue for several months now and even now I find myself fighting against it. But I maintain that I need to tell them. On Sunday I feel I made the official switch from "if I tell them..." to "when I tell them."
It was an amazing sermon on Sunday. The guest speaker spoke from Genesis 18-19 where Abraham prayed for God to spare the righteous few of Sodom and Gomorrah. And what do you know: God spared Lot and his family. I've never thought about what would have happened had Abraham not prayed that prayer. Would God still have saved Lot and his family? Maybe...maybe not. The message focused on the power of prayer and having a healthy network of people to pray for you BEFORE disaster strikes. Not just after it does.
Cluing my brother and sister in on my struggle would basically double my personal prayer network when it comes to family/friends in my life. That's huge! I would love to have prayer support from everyone in my immediate family: dad, mom, brother, and sister. Yes, the awkwardness of telling them this secret frightens me to no end as it did with telling my parents both times. But maybe the third time will be some kind of charm and it won't be as bad as I think it'll be.
Regardless, I definitely ask you guys for your prayers. The plan is to clue my parents in on all this sometime this weekend after they get back from Florida. And then it's just a matter of figuring out a good day to talk with my siblings. Either that same weekend, during the week next week, or the following weekend. Ahhhhh! This is all so crazy, but crazy is good. My life has been too boring and stagnant in years past.
It's always hard telling people, especially those that are close with us. But you'll definitely find as you tell more and more people, it does become easier. You start to realize that it's not something to be ashamed of and rather just simply what we happen to deal with just like any other Christian deals with things. I'll definitely be praying for you though, it's always tough confronting family about this stuff.
I am TRULY GLAD you are going man...and a mutual friend of ours is glad you're going too :)
So again, I thank you all for your prayers and ask that you'd continue to remember Mikey and the entire ORG community that I'm a part of.
Comments (3)
Praying for you, mate.
It's always hard telling people, especially those that are close with us. But you'll definitely find as you tell more and more people, it does become easier. You start to realize that it's not something to be ashamed of and rather just simply what we happen to deal with just like any other Christian deals with things. I'll definitely be praying for you though, it's always tough confronting family about this stuff.
I am TRULY GLAD you are going man...and a mutual friend of ours is glad you're going too :)