Memory Monday #6

I wrote a title for this one: My Prayer to be a good friend.  This would have been written the summer after graduation.  I love that although my longing for true friendship had stuck with me - the answer to it had so changed!

7-23-00
Dear Abba,
Thank You Father for your love.  Thank You for holding my heart and loving and understanding me when no one else will.  I know that friends can't be perfect, Lord, but sometimes it feels like they don't even care.  My existence is meaningless to them and my presence no more than a flies.  Yet, I keep going back for more.  Keep loving and getting nothing.  You are my only real joy.  Thank You for letting me know that you hold me close to your heart, you long for our conversations, you listen and love it it seems no on else will.  Please don't let me treat those I care about the wrong way.  Help me to see other's needs and put them ahead of my own.  I love you Lord.  Thank You for Jesus who died and covered my debt.
Amen.  

Who hasn't felt this way?  Really? I look at this and hear the words of sooo many young girls that have confessed the same feelings of neglect to me about their own relationships.
  I wish I could say that this prayer had been completely answered.  I am thankful that even from the age of 18 God had been teaching me that He is the only one that will never ever let me down.  I am encouraged to see that he was speaking to the needs of my heart.  What a good and faithful God we have.  I am also encouraged that by no work of my own, He later provided me with amazing friends that let me know the value I hold to them and that I rarely have to go back to this place.

Memory Monday #5 Faith Comes

Here's one I think we've all been waiting for.  I skipped a few discouraging pages from the last post  and decided to move right ahead to the first entry I made with my new heart.

May 11th, 2000 (Just before graduation my senior year)

Dear Lord, 
Thank you God for all the blessings you give me daily.  Thank you for each morning I get up that I can be clean.  T/Y for my bed, for my food, for clothes to wear.  Please help me to be content with my life and not long for what others have.  T/Y for Franks and everything there and for letting me help there and please let me be the best servant I can be.  Please bless all my time there.  Please help all the bands that go through there to witness well and to focus on you.  Please be near the bands tomorrow and let your spirit pour on the kids there.  Let us all be at our best.  Help me to make wise choices that honor you.  Please direct  me in the path of your will.  Thanks for making a plan for me.  Show me what it is for this summer.  Please God, show me what to do.  I love you.  
Amen


At this point I'd been following Jesus about a year and a half.  I wish I had something from the days right after my salvation, but I don't know if I'd really learned to pray even until around this time.  I went to youth group, and to church, and hung out with Christians, but no one was really teaching me how to BE a Christian really until I went to Franks.  Franks was a music venue in Des Moines that brought in Christian bands.  The people that worked there started investing more time in me and showing me how to pray, how to serve, how to share.  So that's why I was so thankful.  I also realized as I read this that included in the bands I was praying for was Spoken - the band Travis was in.  This prayer was written the day before I met Travis for the first time.  Weird!  I guess the spirit WAS moving :)  Just a little early since I was still in high school and Travis was 21 at the time.  We didn't talk much that night.  


I'm so thankful for this entry and for it's stark contrast to my previous ones.  I'm also thankful to have these pages to remind myself of all that God has done.  I hope that if you keep a journal that you save it.  Might be one of the few things that I'd be down for keeping around in the attic year after year!  

Memory Monday #4

If you've been following along with my Memory Mondays, you already know I was pretty bratty.  This post is skipping ahead (past several years of selfishness, trying to fit in, and worry after worry about who thought what of me) to the summer before my Junior year.  This entry was just 3 months before I gave my life to Jesus and changed Eternity!

Auguest 18th, 1998
Douglas, 
Hey.  I'm so dumb.  I just watched this scary show and then this guy came to the door at 1am asking about some free chair in the yard and then the door blew operand now I'm paranoid!  Anywho - today was a crappy day.  I worked - people didn't show up so we were very short handed.  But yah, my parents bought a new couch today and that really bothers me for some reason.  I was so comfortable on the other one, and I would sit at work and think about how nice it was and I just want to go home and sink into that wonderful couch cause it meant home and security, but now it's going to the church to the youth room.  The youth room means lies and boredom, and selfishness to me.  All of the opposites of what the couch meant.  I'm sure my sure my parents will get good use out of the new one though.  I don't understand why I'm so grouchy to my dad either.  I wish he didn't try so hard at parenting.  I'm tired. Let's just hope the buggie man stays away!
- Wendlin. 


Here's my thoughts: My being afraid of the dark and of people has been a problem for a while.  Even now I cannot stay home alone at night. I worked as a life guard at the pool for 6 years. It was the best job ever.  You just sit all day, in the sun and bake.  Every so often you talk to some kids about what they're doing wrong and ONE time I saved a Mexican dude from the deep end.  I would love to have that job again, but there's something weird about a 30 year old life guard mom.  Don't ya think?  


I clearly remember my over reaction to my parent's getting ga new couch.  I really liked the old one I guess.  I think there must have been some crazy hormones flying around my head too - I FREAKED OUT.  Crying, yelling... sorry mom and dad for that!  I can say that from reading my other entries that I wasn't very comfortable anywhere.  I always felt awkward and like no one really cared.  I think it's really interesting though how I viewed church.  It was only a month after that I decided to call myself Agnostic.  I was really searching for something.  I was searching for the GOSPEL and I didn't even know it!  I hated that I wasn't comfortable anywhere and I even hated how I treated my own family.  Funny how God started showing me my need for a savior (not a couch like I thought) months before my salvation!  Love it.  Can't wait for the next post!

Any by the way, I had to edit this because while I was mulling this all over in my head today I remembered that I wanted to note just how glad I am that my dad (and mom too) were trying so hard to parent me.  I bet it was hard!  And not very rewarding at that time.  But I know now (all too well because of what I see in our high schoolers at church) that they were doing the best they could to be involved and love me and guide me through some pretty rough growing up years!  Love you Mom and Dad.  Thanks!

Memory Monday #3

Just your average high school girl looking for some love.  I have always really really valued relationships. I think that especially since I was an only child, I longed for security in my friend relationships.  My parents were my only constant - and no teenage girl wants that! Sorry mom and dad - the entries get a little rough for the next couple years.....

july 7th, 1997 ( 15 years old)
So anywayz, It's 12am.  I just read all that stuff from before.  What a silly girl I was/am!  My life is good now.  I'm almost 16!  I have good friends, and at the risk of sounding conceded, i'd like to say that I am a very nice/friendly/good person - usually!  I just got back from the Alaskan cruise!  That was fun.  I made so many new friends!  I was actually popular for a while.  I don't know but I think summer is my high time.  I always have more friends and stuff in the summer.  What's up with dat!? I have a boyfriend now - his name is _____.  He's a sweet heart - too sweet sometimes.  Infact - he's a kiss a**.  Know what?  My room is a pit.  I go to bed now - 
Wendy
Sue


I thought about editing this one because of how jerky it is.  But ya know what - that was Wendy minus Jesus so I'm okay with it.  That's how teenagers who don't know Jesus are.  I was really concerned with friends and fitting in.  You'll see that more in future entries.  This was the start of it - or maybe the middle of it.  This was the summer I really started finding trouble in order to be accepted.  That I started being okay with finding trouble in order to be accepted.  And what about that comment about my boyfriend??  I had totally forgotten about that.  I hardly saw him - he went to a different school.  But we had a mutual friend and I probably thought that having a boyfriend would help me feel like I was fitting in better.  Obviously I didn't care too much for him, or his attention.  I read this one knowing that if I can continue to tap into and remember what this day felt like, then I can continue to do youth ministry for years to come.  

Memory Monday #2

Here's another look into my diary.  I've learned a lot about myself in the last couple of days through reading my old journals.  One thing that was confirmed through this one was that my guilty conscience was almost as good as any discipline I could have received!  When I know I am guilty, I can be pretty hard on myself.

april 16th, 1991 (9 years old)
Dear Diary,
I am a stupid idiet
who can even
have a good aditude
towds enny thing.


Today at girl scouts
we were trying to plane a pic knack
and I mess every
thing up.  Now my mom
hates me and it will
be very hard to earn back her respect for me.
Sighned,
stupid dumb itityit

Wowza!  I'm sure I was being pretty bratty and controlling.  That's one thing that being an only child can do to you.  My mom was our girl scout leader so that always made me feel like I had more control over our troop than I did.  I bet everyone else wanted to do one thing, and I threw some kind of fit because it all played out differently in my mind.  My mom probably didn't know what to do with me and I bet it ended up in a yelling fight between her and I after the meeting.  Then probably in her crying because she had such a bratty daughter and didn't know what to do with her.  Then me feeling guilty and sending myself to my room.  I don't remember ever really getting disciplined at all but I remember whenever I felt guilty (which was almost every time I made my mom cry, which was a lot) I would send myself to my room.
Also - I love that I was trying with all my might to figure out how to spell "idiot".  My spelling really hasn't improved, thank goodness for spell check and the word suggestions that pop up for  me now!

Memory Monday - a look at my diary.

Yesterday my mom handed me one of those "I don't want your stuff so take it or I'm thawing it away" boxes.  I think anyone who's moved out of their parent's house knows what I'm talking about :)
This particular box contained some old journals of mine.  Wow.  They ranged from 1991 (when I was 9) until 2001 - the year Travis and I started dating.  So maybe for the next several Monday's I will bless you with my private thoughts and then some commentary on how I feel about it now :)

january 15th, 1991 ( 9 years old)
Dear Diary, 
today has ben a bad and good day.  this morning my mom woke me up late.  And I was in such a hurry  I for got my shoes at home.  tonight I lost my tooth. and at school I helped Any dig a tunol in the snow at last recess just before the bell rang we met then it was finished. to night my mom yelled at me because I pushed the buten on the phone that sed speaker phone when she was talking.  other then that my day was fine.  Well maybe not all fine because Miss Mully got mad at me for something I didn't do.  Well that was my day.  


january 17th, 1991
Dear Diary, 
last night war started in Iran.  yesterday someone caved in our tunnel. 



I love how simple it all was.  Let me explain - I probably was upset that I'd had to wear snow boots all day long at school because I didn't bring any other shoes, and I had probably spent most of the day upset with my mom for it because I wanted it to be someone else's fault.  Interesting that the blame game starts oh so early in life.  I liked loosing teeth - so that was a good part.  And I was pretty excited about the tunnel thing.  I probably pushed the speaker phone button on purpose to annoy her - I used to do that a lot because I was a stinker and also kind bored a lot.  Who knows what I did at school to make my teach mad - but I really respected Mrs Mully for a lot of reasons, so I know that whatever it was, I really didn't do it - or at least didn't mean to do it.  I wasn't old enough by then to know that sometimes people get upset about other things and they accidentally take it out on you.

I think its funny that I wrote down that night when war started.  I remember watching on tv and seeing the little white lights (bombs) fly through the dark on tv.  I didn't have a clue what was going on, but I knew enough to know that I should remember that.  I probably thought I was going to end up being like Anne Frank or something.  But the tunnel getting caved in was probably what was really on my mind that night.

So really - it's not that simple at all.  No matter what age we are.  Motives, emotions, and wars can get in the way.