Today was an awful day.
For three days, I am babysitting a 3rd grade girl in my church. 8:30-5. Just her. I like babysitting, but I tend to do better when there's more than one child. So they can play together...and I don't have to do very much.
I'm going to make a great mother, I know.
Anyway, here's the thing. This summer is stressful enough for me.
#1. I don't have a job. I am making no money.
#2. I am taking online Bible classes. Bible classes are hard. Online classes are hard. So it's taking a lot of time.
#3. My junior recital is slowly creeping up on me, and I'm nowhere close to being ready.
#4. I'm lonely. My best friend moved to New Jersey. Another friend got engaged. Another friend is so busy with her life that she doesn't have a whole lot of time for me.
Now, I'm not trying to throw a pity party and make you feel sorry for me. It's just....I'm struggling with feeling alone and as if I'm trying my best to keep my head above water, but my strength is waning fast.
So, as I'm sitting on the couch in this girl's house, desperately trying to be a good babysitter but also knowing that I have a OT Lit quiz tomorrow that I REALLY need to study for....I start to get frustrated.
I can feel the frustration building up inside of me, and THAT was frustrating me. Why was I getting so upset about this? I volunteered for the job. I said it would be fine. I said I could handle it. No big deal. This was my decision, and my fault that it was too much for me at the moment.
I wish I could say that God spoke to my heart and told me to be stilll; that I realized I was being irrational and immature and needed to calm down and act like a 20 year old. But that didn't happen. Instead, I just slapped on my "Everything's Fine" mask and tried my best to be nice to the girl and play Uno with her and to respond when she asked me a question.....even though it was the last thing I wanted to do.
So I'm sitting there, and I'm texting one of my friends from school. For some reason, something that he said rubbed me the wrong way. The comment he made was nothing; he meant nothing by it, and I knew that it was just a comment. But I got so ticked at him. All this frustration that was buildling up inside, and all the stress that I was feeling, and all the loneliness that I've been pushing away for the past few days just boiled over. I made some smart-aleck response back and proceeded to do the most mature thing I could think of:
I deleted him on Facebook.
And then, to make the matter worse, I sent him a picture of the computer screen saying I had deleted him.
I know this sounds like a super ridiculous story to you, and you're thinking 'Why is she even writing about this on her blog? Nobody cares.' But honestly....it's how it affected me that I want to share with you.
As soon as I clicked the "Unfriend" button, I felt this wave of guilt wash over me. For defriending someone! Immediately I started chastising myself for feeling guilty.
"Your conscience is out of this world. It's facebook. It's not like you're defriending him in real life. Geez. Stop acting like the goody-goody Christian girl who never does anything wrong. He's not going to care."
So I pushed the feelings away and decided to go for a run. It didn't help. I felt even worse after that. So I grabbed my phone and texted him back, sincerely apologizing. And here's the thing...as soon as I sent it....I felt better. And I knew, in that moment, that it was because God had been telling me to do it.
It just amazed me how God speaks to us. Even these little things that we think He doesn't even care about are of the utmost importance to Him. How we treat others, even when we're struggling and hurting inside, matters to God. I felt so convicted. Our God is so loving and caring. How could we think that He isn't interested in our day-to-day activities and actions?
Because He is. I can testify to it. God even cares about what we do on Facebook.
Lesson learned.
