It amazes me how easy I find it to love someone. Just today I stood at a bus stop for an hour waiting for a bus that took forever to come with two sweet English girls named Sophie and Harriet. Both were newly eighteen and so excited about life. In some ways they were so adult - heading out to a bar, occasionally taking a sip of some kind of alcohol, talking about their jobs and their future plans and their future schools. But in other ways, they were so vulnerable and child-like, discussing how they love Justin Bieber, worrying about what their friends would say when they found out how late they were, responding so excitedly to everything I had to say, planning to pick cherries and talking about how cute my little brother is. And my heart completely went out to them. When they got off the bus at their stop, calling back to me, "Goodbye! We love you! We'll add you on Facebook!" I almost wanted to cry.
Will I ever see them again? Whether it's here or in heaven? My mom handed them a tract to read and we talked a little about their religion and our love for God. But sometimes I feel so helpless lying alone in bed at night crying out to the only one who can save them. I can do nothing. God is more than able to save to the uttermost - but will he choose to save these two? These girls with such beautiful, open, loving hearts. A little misguided, but so sweet. It breaks my heart a little more every day that I know people who need to love Jesus but don't. This is why I feel like choosing a career in missions would be killing me slowly, because praying and working and loving and having the majority of your prayers not answered would hurt me so badly that I feel like my love for God would grow warped. Because I'd beg him daily for the salvation of so many I love so dearly, but every day the heavens would appear to be silent to me. And I feel like I'd doubt him, and reconsider whether he truly loves the whole world if he doesn't choose to save everyone. I already doubt so much with basically all of my extended family not knowing Christ or ever desiring to know him.
This is one of the major things I struggle with about God. I don't understand it. I don't understand him. The pat answer is, "Well, if I could understand him, he wouldn't be big enough to be God." And that's something I've thought long and hard about, and I absolutely agree. To me it's not just another Christianese statement. But that doesn't keep me from wishing that I did know why he does what he does.
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