What really started shifting this perspective was a series of events beginning in January. At one point, I was frustrated with my roommates because I was doing all the dishes and cleaning up all their messes and giving without getting any credit. Hannah had to sit me down and tell me that I could simply receive without expecting anything back. So, my mind was opened. A little. But until South Africa, I wasn't actually living out what I knew in my head. I still had some pretty skewed mindsets:
I thought that if guys joked around with me, wanted to spend time with me, or responded to my messages, they must be really interested in me.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I thought that I could only share my heart and develop intimacy with the person I knew I was going to
marry.
Not necessarily.
I thought that
the number of pageviews I got on this blog determined how much people valued
me.
No.
I thought that people only gave to me because they were expecting something back. You give me a ride, I pay you gas. I buy the milk, you must pay me back because it was your turn. You give me a compliment, I must find something encouraging to say to you.
Didn't Jesus say gave the extra cloack, turn the other cheek, etc.?
I thought that if my roommates did not hug me every day, they must be ignoring me.
Nope.
I thought that if a guy friend asked if I wanted to get coffee, he MUST be interested in me! I'd never learned just to hang out with a friend like that. And I feel like I should have, since I am 18. Still, I continue to learn about America's social customs.
Then I left for my mission trip. I learned to have brothers. I learned that I could rest my head on Dima's chest and let him hold me as I cried. I learned that I could let him spend $8 on me at Dairy Queen without wanting anything back because "in the kingdom there is always more."
I learned that I could lay under the stars with Schuyler as we spilled our heart to God and watched shooting stars soar across the sky and it was okay! We've both had similar prophetic dreams, then our families happened to sit by each other at Graduation AND at Denny's. We both are strange, have had very diverse lives, and live by the spirit of adventure and union with God! My automatic response to all this is a to squirm! But God says, "there is something in this friendship. You two are like siblings, walking side-by-side with a flashlight, searching out my treasures in a cave! So open up your heart and just enjoy this friendship and adventure!"
During my mission trip, I was preparing a five minute message to share with any given church. The basis of it was that Jesus just wants to love us more. I planned to pray Ephesians 3:17-19 over them,
which I memorized"
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, would have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God." --the Apostle Paul