The Future Soon

Friends in your life are like pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up and sometimes they lean on you. Sometimes it’s just enough to know they’re standing by.
-Elizabeth Foley

The fact that the end of the beginning is so quickly approaching is both extraordinarily terrifying and exciting for me. I don’t want to leave and yet, there’s so many new and unknown things looming on the horizon that I am thrilled to be so close to experiencing them. However, all this is tinged with the bitter-sweetness of the possibility of loss and growth beyond what may be lost.

Not only is the loss just the idea of being outside my comfort zone in a completely foreign stage of my life and losing this stability, but it’s drifting away from all those I depend on. And not only is it that, but I will soon have to leave something I’m just getting to know; my Young Women’s group.  Which actually, really upsets me. Sometimes, I forget I’m actually 17 and when my eighteenth rolls around, as far as I understand, I’ll be released from being YW’s president.  And every time I think of this, it kind of gets me angry, and I ask myself, as one of my YW asks ‘Why didn’t you join sooner?’. And I know, you’re not supposed to beat yourself up over the past, but seriously, my excuses were extraordinarily lame.

They’ll judge me

I’ll be a loner and have no friends

I’ll offend everyone and they’ll be angry with me

I don’t want to wear skirts and act like a stereotypical woman and spend 3 hours crammed in a Church

I don’t want to talk about God

I don’t know what to do or how to act or anything

And it’s actually completely the opposite.

They’ve never judged me.

I have more friends than I could ask for.

I’ve only offended the missionaries and they handle that easily.

I love wearing skirts and I can still kick butt at Halo and learn to knit in the same day.

3 hours isn’t enough Church.

In the right situation it’s hard to get me to stop talking about God.

When in doubt; flail. Someone will eventually grab your hand and pull you up. (Usually my bestie does this well enough when I have no idea what’s going on XD)

And so, when I turn 18, I am going to have to flail exceptionally hard, because that’s going to bring in a whole different dimension to what I know in the Church and, at this point, I’m not sure if anyone will pull me up, because everyone is going on now.

Anyways, un-Church related future-stress:  I didn’t tell my friends this, but the reason I keep falling asleep in classes is because I’ve lost so much sleep from nightmares that I’ve been having for 2-3 weeks now. These nightmares mainly focus on losing/drifting away from my friends in various ways and that scares the bejebus out of me.

My main problem is, I suck at socializing. Sure, I will happily go up to someone I don’t know and start talking…If my friends are close by. If I’m on my own…Sorry, I’ve got no idea how to talk to anyone. Especially outside the Church. It’s easy to talk to people in the Church, because we all have at least one thing in common. But outside, I don’t know how to find common interests. Last time I tried that, they all walked off and then no one in that organization would talk to me because I was automatically deemed a loser.

Anyways, I tried to multitask and lost my train of thought, but it was a post by a friend that inspired it.

“But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt. When that day comes,” says the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my master.’ O Israel, I will wipe the many names of Baal from your lips, and you will never mention them again. On that day I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and the birds of the sky and the animals that scurry along the ground so they will not harm you. I will remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, so you can live unafraid in peace and safety. I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord.” – Hosea 2:14 -20

(Yes, it’s plain English. Copied from a friend’s FB, if you have an issue, go find it in your KJV and read from there)