Sometimes, you just gotta cry like a baby to remember you kind've are one

Last night was a bad night.

I'm pretty exhausted lately, and I feel like a drowning moose thrashing in the ocean. (Yeah, I like my analogies too). I can't be sure, and I don't want to invalidate anyone else's work, but Biomedical engineering is really hard, and unless you are in the major you just will not understand what it requires. It's a constant stream of work that requires a lot of comprehension and concentration. It's a level of work no one has required yet, and that we have never been capable of before. It's having no weekdays, or weekends, or nights or mornings, or sometimes meals for yourself. It's straight up back-breaking work. All 3 juniors are struggling this year, and we frequently have mini freak out sessions where we tell each other the obvious-this major sucks right now.


And I've had a really bad attitude so far. I'm frustrated. Of working really hard and seeing little to no results. I'm tired. Of being tired and it not making any difference-still gotta get the job done. I'm irritated. That I am not getting the grades I want despite giving it everything I've got. The grades that I need. Or that I think I need. I'm upset. That the relationships I have are not where I want them to be, and that I don't have the time I want to invest in them. And lately I've found myself saying this when I pray: "Hey God, this is ridiculous. Could you cut me a break?"

If there were a translator for my head (and thank goodness there is not because there are very few who even understand my head) this is what it would have voiced in that last sentence.

"Hey God. You aren't implementing my plan like I want and it's driving me crazy. Could You please bless me in the way I want to be blessed?"


Job 41:11 Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is mine.
Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
Jeremiah 55: 8-9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways" says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Colossians 3:23-24 Whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.
Isaiah 54:10 For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you. Plans to give you a future and a hope. And you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all your heart.


The last verse is so beautiful to me. I remember a time, not incredibly long ago, when I was at a place that I had no hope, and the possibility of a future wasn't looking too good either. I had sought, with all my heart, for a very long time, and had not found. I had questioned and asked and sent up challenges that crashed into the roof and fell back down on me like broken glass, lacerating my heart with doubt, and bitterness, and frustration, and loneliness. I remember being used up, and bled out, and just done. And I remember what giving what I had left, a worn out shell that no longer had any fight, to Jesus and telling Him if He was real, and could make anything of it, to go for it, because I was done. I remember what it felt like to trust. I remember owning the meaning of blind faith, and getting up every morning and rejecting what I saw and felt and trusting what I knew. I remember holding onto truth by the thread of spider silk that every buffet of doubt and anger and fear threatened to annihilate and spin me back into a dark place where I was master of my own soul. I remember reading Jeremiah 29:11 and thinking that there was really no way that trusting God was going to give me a future I wanted, or that the plans He had were going to get me anywhere I wanted to go-let alone prosper me. Hope was also out of the question. I remember some days that I went on just because I had promised Him I would. And you don't break promises to the One who volunteers to take you when you have no more options and everyone else has left you.


Looking back, and remembering how everything happened, makes me think. God never told me what was going to happen when I decided to trust Him. In fact, what was going to happen was irrelevant at that point. Giving over autonomy, and acknowledging Someone greater, and laying down my self. That was the point. It was not my future, it was not my plans. God never did what I asked Him to. He didn't give me a fix and let me go. He didn't tell me what was going to happen. He didn't tell me the future and let me make my decision. He didn't even give me specific promises other than vague things left to interpretation, like "plans to prosper you". Well, what the hell does "prosper" mean? And I'm pretty sure Your idea of "harm" is a lot more lax than mine. Nope. I was given what I needed to go on, at the time, and the promise that He wouldn't leave me. And that His plan was perfect. And I was forced to give over control without knowing anything


And you know, that was the best decision I have EVER made. Because He did come through. He did prosper me. He did give me a future that I am currently living out, and it is so far beyond what I ever thought was possible for me that if you had told me it would happen this way, I would have told you you're an idiot and to stop lying. And more than anything, He gave my heart, that was dead in despair, hope. God gave me hope. Hope that there is something so much more than this present condition. Hope that I have a place, and a plan, and a relationship I will never lose. Hope that He's waiting for me, at every turn, wanting to know me more, and open my eyes more, and allow me to understand Him more, until one day I can comprehend what it means to be loved by God. He gave me hope, He gave me a purpose and He gave me value. Without Him, I'd still be stumbling around in the dark. Well, no. I probably just wouldn't be here at all


And I find I can keep going on. Not because I'm sure the outcome will be anything like I want. Or think I need. I don't know what's going to happen. But I have hope that has never disappointed yet, and I have a hand that has never let go of mine. And that provision?


It's enough