Reconsideration

So, as you may have noticed, my usual method when faced with something I am doing wrong is to completely remove it from my life, then start fazing it slowly back in. I have done this with facebook, blogging, watching movies, reading romance novels, playing D&D, and numerous other things. I get attatched very quickly and frequently need to step back and re-evaluate the situation. In this case, I was informed by a friend that my idea of secrecy and vagueness are not neccesarily most peoples idea. I already knew this to a certain extent. Outside of my lifegroup, if someone doesn't tell me something is a secret, I don't automatically assume it is. My life is an open book, it just happens to be written in a foreign language with very bad grammar. If you ask me something about my life, I will tell you, provided I don't expect you to use it for bad purposes.

Anyway, that went a little off track. So, I have decided to change the format of my blog. First off, my name is Helen Hogan. I am senior at Iowa State University planning to graduate in December with a degree in Mathematics with a Secondary Education endorsement, and (assuming I pass my classes) a statistics minor.
The biggest thing in my life right now is that I am terrified of graduation. I may look like I am living an adult life, but that's not really true. My parents pay for my education, as well as most of my home neccesaries. Being an official adult, having no free time, working full time, being a teacher, are all terrifying to me. I am an average student. I may have occasional periods of brilliance, but they are few and far between. I am a math major because my parents are in math so I can call home regularly and ask my dad questions. I am scared of the idea of leadership. In my mind I am a huge screw-up who cannot do anything right, except accept Jesus after only 20 years. I am now ok with my screw-ups, but I don't understand grace well enough to want people depending on me and following me into my screw-ups. I don't want the burden of being responsible for other people because I don't think I am worthy of it. I am broken, but not on a regular enough basis to invite God into every situation. Despite constant examples of screwing up when I decided to play Lone Ranger, I still instinctively turn to that option. What is wrong with people that we insist on being so independent? IDK.

Oddly enough, I didn't start out this post planning to go into a rant about my future. I really wanted to get something out there that I just learned. I have been a Christ-follower for 2 years now, and I only just found out that there is a difference between not trusting someone and not forgiving them. I have been told many times over the past year that I have trouble forgiving people, or I just flat out don't, and usually refuse to. I am not an introspective person at all, so I tend to take people who are close to me's word about what I am feeling, if it's on a deeper level. I am one of those forget your face when you walk away from the mirror people. I settle something to my satisfaction very quickly, and do not dwell on it again. At some level I am sure that's not true, but it's on a deep enough level that I am unaware of it. Anyway, I am currently going through Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, and 2 days ago I read about trust. The way I understand it, not forgiving someone means you hold a grudge against them and/or expect them to pay you back in some way. Not trusting someone means to forgive them, but they have repeated the problem often enough that you expect them to repeat the behavior in similar processes. I know a lot of really smart people read this blog, so tell me if I have this wrong. I understand that people can't pay you back for hurting you. Emotional hurt cannot be healed by humans. It would be nice if they apologized, but after several episodes of them not, I let that idea go. However, in some cases people repeat the same painful behavior often enough that when similar situations come up, I expect to get hurt. I don't hold it against them, it's how they are, but I do expect them to do it again and so brace myself for it.

Many of my advisors have told me to let go of expectations. This is pretty much what I think trust is getting at. You come into a relationship with expectations and when they are not met, you get hurt. In the case that started all this, I was trying to get together with a friend so we could re-establish a damaged friendship (there are quite a few cases like this so stop hypothesizing). They kept saying how they really wanted to hang out, and wanted to hang out more frequently then we currently were. We would make some sort of a plan, and something would come up and they would flake. I forgive them for not showing up. I don't expect them to apologize. We have horribly communication and I understand where they are coming from. However, after the pattern repeats itself several times I stop expecting them to show up. I still feel twinges of hurt that I am broken up about this damaged relationship and they don't appear to be, but I can let it go. I can't force someone to care, though there are certainly times when I wish I could. My conclusion is basically that I am not an unforgiving person, I just have a hard time trusting that people will overcome the odds stacked against them. People change through the grace of God, but they do it on God's timing, not mine. I trust that at some point God will help us come together, but it may not be now, and it may not be soon. The hardest part I struggle with now is being willing to persist in trying to hang out with them. Normally I would probably let it go until we had had time to mature more, but in this case it is a valued relationship (and again, there are more than one of these) and I hope to see it reconciled. If anyone out there have any suggestions or Biblical words of wisdom, please let me know. Thanks, HH