My Social Media-less Life

I had no intention of writing tonight. I also had no intention of going to my church’s young adult gathering either. This is what happens when you allow yourself to be led by the Spirit.

For the learned folks, you’ll recall that when Jesus was “led by the Spirit” into the wilderness for 40 days, it literally meant that He was dragged as if by the nape of His neck. That was me this evening.

Tonight, I didn’t get home from work until 6:35pm. I promptly remembered the second I turned off the car that I was supposed to grab some extra supplies for a special cleaning tomorrow. I groaned, turned my car back on, and left.

I had every intention of not going to the young adult meeting and I was making up every excuse I could think of to not go.
– had to get supplies for work
– too tired
– was still in the clothes I worked in
– don’t really want to be around people

The list could literally keep going. But I also realized something else thanks to a podcast I was listening to today. In this week’s episode of The Talkville Podcast Tom Welling was talking about a certain scene where his character was angry and he said, “Well my therapist told me that if you’re angry at somebody, you’re really only angry at yourself.”

It feels New Age-y and maybe it is, but it struck me so much that I thought about it in the context of not wanting to go to the young adult gathering tonight and realized… I am angry at myself. I’m angry about the way my life seems to have stagnated and how that’s affected those around me. I’m angry at the fact that I feel like I don’t have anything going for me right now, like I’m just here. I literally hate just working all day, being gone from my house for 14 hours, coming home and going to bed. I’m angry at the fact that I quit social media and still haven’t replaced that wasted time with productive writing. I’m angry at the fact that I feel angry all the time.

It’s not like I don’t pray. It’s not like I don’t read my Bible. It’s not like I don’t talk to people. It’s not like I want to spend MORE time away from my house at someone else’s. I just… want to feel like I’m going in a direction. I feel like I’m in the middle of the ocean and I’m paddling, but I have no idea which way will get me to shore or even where the next shore is.

Maybe there won’t be another shore. Maybe I’ll be in the ocean forever. I just would like to have some confirmation that I’m on the right track and aside from a few friends encouraging me that “you’ve got this!”, I really don’t feel like I’ve got anything.

I know God is there with me and I’ve never doubted His plan and I’m not about to start that now. However in April, God did ask me to wait until August before making any big life decisions. Now that it’s past that time… I’m wondering if I overstayed a welcome somewhere that I was supposed to have quit. Like I should’ve turned left or right and kept going straight and now the road is a little dinky gravel road that’s probably someone’s very long driveway.

These are all thoughts I’ve been having over the past week.

And then tonight while I was getting my cleaning supplies I had one of the weirdest thoughts I’ve ever had the pleasure of thinking:
I need a puppy or something to love on.
Have literally never thought I needed a puppy of my own. In fact, I have problems with puppies because — more often than not— they’re a lot of work and a lot of trouble those first few months.

And then the Lord’s Spirit grabbed me by the nape of the neck and said, “You’re going to young adults tonight.”

And then as we were getting ready to start doing “official” young adult things, at the height of my displeasure with all things including myself… Garfield the cat— who I’ve never met or seen before in my life— saunters into the group and befriends anyone he pleases. He doesn’t belong to the leaders of the group. Sometimes they see him, sometimes they don’t. He’s just the neighborhood cat that someone eventually adopted and put a collar on.

But tonight he really took a shining to me. He was all over me, in fact.

I love cats, so this was 100% OK with me.

And then he did something very few “new friendo cats” do: he actually laid on my lap. Not in. Just on.

By this time we were ten minutes or so into our young adult prayer time, but I realized… God heard my silly little “puppy or something” thought and gave me a cat. It didn’t answer any of my angst necessarily, but it did bring some calm to the mess and a smile to my face. It reminded me all the more that God is there and that— sure my life seems more pointless than ever— but it’s not about me and I do have a purpose.

Cats are different than dogs in that cats are intentional with their affection and who they allow to touch them. The fact that this cat laid on me, even for a few minutes, was further proof that cats really do care and are very sensitive to what you really need… even if it’s not what you really want.

I may not want to be paddling in the ocean feeling like I’m going nowhere, but it’s in those times that one feels the least seen that God does the most work in.

Thanks to Garfield and Jesus for the life lesson and reminder tonight.