Troublesome

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27
I haven't written for almost a month. Why? There's a couple reasons. 
First, I'm not at college right now. I'm not in a theology class, and I'm not grabbing desperately for my jar of Spiritual Vitamins just to make it through the day. As a person, I'm busier and less frantic at the same time.
Second, I'm an idiot. I've been telling myself that I'm too stressed to write. That, dear friends, makes no sense. Writing makes me feel better usually, and scripture almost always comforts me. How does it makes sense to be too stressed to pay attention to God? It doesn't.
So this morning when I woke up cursing this emotional roller coaster I've been on lately, I forced myself to come here and post. I'm liking it already. At first I pulled a vitamin, but it was 1 Peter 5:7, which I've already done a post about. So then I pulled another one, 2 Corinthians 4:17, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." My brain latched on to the word trouble. Now the trouble I think they're talking about in this verse is more like persecution for faith. But it gave me an idea, so I looked up "trouble" in my Bible's concordance and found the verse at the very top of this post.
As I said, life has been an emotional roller coaster lately. Here I thought that summer would be so wonderful and happy and stress free, and it's turning out to be more troublesome than the school year. At least at school it was just my environment that was getting me down. Now there's so many more people in my life that I need to keep track of, and sometimes it confuses me. Questions like, "How do I feel about them?" or "How do they feel about me?" or "When and how can I spend time with these people?" are plaguing my brain. I sometimes even long for the days when I was desperate to make friends instead of keep them. I especially long for the relative simplicity of the way my boyfriend and I operated back then. Now it seems like there's so many questions and conflicts. 
Wishing for "how is was back then" is okay sometimes. But we have to live in the here and now as best we can, or we'll go crazy. Things change, and we have to adapt to survive and prosper. But what can we do when it seems like the troubles of the here and now are just too much to work through? What about when everything seems to be out of our control? Well, it is. We can make decisions and run our lives by free will, but ultimately it all goes back to God's plan. And he does have a plan. A great one. He holds us close and drives us towards wonderful futures, and takes all our troubles in the meantime. He gives us peace. As Jesus said in the verse, he doesn't give as the world gives. We don't have to do anything to merit the gift, and nothing is expected in return. God's peace is utterly free.
I'm not saying it's easy to remember. Certainly not. Just look at me, not writing for a month because "I don't have time." There I was (and I'm sure I'll be doing the same thing in half an hour) ignoring God's peace so that I could worry about my issues myself. But he leaves reminders everywhere of his blessings to us. Hey, maybe one of you reading this really needs a reminder that you don't have to bear your troubles alone. That's what makes this whole writing process worth it.
There's a song that's been really popular lately: Blessings by Laura Story. It pretty much sums up the message I'm trying to convey. The first line of the chorus says, "What if your blessings come through raindrops?" Sometimes God gives us troubles because in the end they turn out beautiful.

Could it be?

My apologies dear friends, it's been a while since I've written. As I mentioned in my last post, my jar of Vitamins was packed away for quite a while. Also, the conditions of my life haven't exactly been conducive to inspiration. Either I'm too busy to sit down and write out my thoughts, or I'm too bored and lazy to have thoughts in the first place (random song quote: "it's the double edged sword of being lazy and being bored"). 
Anyhow, this last weekend was particularly insane. I went to spend the weekend with my boyfriend for his high school graduation. Going into it I had some worries and fears. First: I'm socially inept, and this was going to be a very social affair. We went to about 7 parties, many of them for people I barely know. Second: I've never met his extended family, and they were all going to be there at once. Third: On Sunday night his parents were pushing him to go to "Project Graduation", an after-party of sorts sponsored by the school that runs from 11:00pm until 6:00am. I wasn't feeling too great about being left at night and joined in the morning by zombie-boyfriend operating on 3 hours of sleep. 
All of these issues are mostly driven by selfishness. In a nutshell, I was worried about being uncomfortable, making a bad impression, an being inconvenienced. But I'm human, and I couldn't help but to give in to them sometimes. In the end though, as always, I was thanking God for both his mercy and his blessings. It all worked out. I never felt too awkward, I got along great with his family, and he didn't go to the party because he was wiped out. 

The verse I want to look at today (now that I've gotten personal and told you a story about my own life for a while) is Jeremiah 29:11, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future." 
First, I'm not sure if I've talked about this one before, but if I have, oh well.
This verse is repeated everywhere around graduation time. You can find it in cards. You can find it on little decorative plaques. Tons of gift items for grads feature this verse. Why? Because it's TRUE. And it's something that young people (like me) bouncing off to college with boldness and trepidation tend to forget. It's a mantra. Now that I think about it, it actually applies to the first part of this post. I worry because I forget that God has everything worked out in his plans. It also works for my boyfriend, who, when asked if he was excited, replied that he definitely was, but he was terrified to fall flat. I think every student and employee feels the same way. We're scared to fail. We're scared to disappoint. Partly because we don't want to disappoint the people who love us. But also because we know that there's consequences for failing. Our whole lives could fall apart after one mistake. It's awful to think about.
But.
God has a plan. We have a hope and a future.