Five Minute Friday: Growing Pains

It's Friday again. That one day of the week I get to sit down and talk to all of you, because apparently Blogger won't let me post comments anymore. Bah. Anyway, Lisa Jo over at Gypsy Mama thought up this idea a long time before I even discovered her blog about writing your heart out for five minutes, without editing, just whatever came into your head. Link up here :)
Today's theme; growing
Here goes

One thing I've learned in the past years is that growing doesn't happen all at once. For one thing, we definitely are not plants. As much as Jesus liked to compare us to plants, one can only take the metaphor so far. I, for one, grow up all crookedly.  For me growing seems to be more of figuring out where NOT to grow and growing there anyway, realizing something's wrong and turning around. Maybe that's the reason that my faith is the way it is, a fact that can't be proven otherwise. Jesus can't not be present in this whole process, otherwise where would I be? It's not fun but it's not  terrible either.
People I talk to seem to either love high school or hate hgih school, but I think it all depends on what mood they're in when talking to me. High school, and middle school for that matter, is filled with absolute crap and absolute treasure. Crap like drama and seeing peope you love suffer and go down the wrong track or have completely terrible things hppen. One of my dearest friends' little niece is in the hospital with lung cancer. She's already lost her mom and dad, a few friends and her sight, and I just wonder how she could take all of it and still be alive. Another is what I used to call boy crazy, but now I don't even know what to call her. And now several of my other friends are falling into the same kinds of traps, and I just want to fix it. I want it to work and I want them to see God. But how? How do I get them to see God when I'm tired and worried about a homework assignment or test or whatever's on my mind on that particular day?
But then there's the really cool parts of seeing the same people every day, saying hi to people in the hallways, building relationships on nothing more then just doing life together. I hope that one of these days I will get a chance to talk directly about my faith with someone, but I want to trust that even today is useful and God is still working. I have classes I love and people I get to help and a wonderful family and church and small group to see me through.
It's been an interesting journey through the last few yeats, but one I wouldn't trade for anything. November through January is going to be a season of rememberance for me, remembering my faith and  where I've been. Through the insecurity, through reading the Bible desperately trying to find something to prove that I belong, through my own cancer scare when I was fourteen and losing my voice right when I won the lead role in a play. Through freshman year and the feeling that God was leading me somewhere that I didn't really want to go. Through youth group and late nights and early mornings, God's been there and charted every single step I took. He's the reason I've made it this far, and I trust that there's definitely still more to do.

Also, I know everyone says this, but all you guys who read this are seriously the highlight of my Friday. The thought that somehow all of these random people are connected by nothing more than a keyboard, a faith and the Internet is ridiculously cool and something only God Himself could have thought up. Ya'll are the interval between homework assignments, reminding me God's still here somwehere amid this massive to- do list, and I hope somehow my ramblings do something to the same effect for you. But right now it's late and I'm tired and getting loopy, even though it's only nine o'clock. So I'll shut up now. Except for this one quote I stole off Ashley Mays' blog a while back and thought it was amazing, but forgot to write about it...

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the question themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
Letters to a Young Poet