you do all things well

Before I left for England, I went out for dinner with a friend of mine and we randomly started talking about the school she and I both used to go to, though at different times. She told me that she'd heard that the graduating class (in other words, the class I used to be a part of in elementary school) was the worst one from that school ever. Apparently their junior-senior prom was more...immoral, I guess you'd say, than the local public high school's prom, which my friend went to. People drunk before they even arrived, inappropriate things happening while they were dancing, etc. Just in general, and from more people than just that one person, I've heard that the senior class is a little dysfunctional.

Occasionally, I'll see one or the other of them on Facebook, and it makes me sad to see how much they've changed. No longer the innocent little third graders who would pretend to be cheerleaders and play American Girl dolls with me, they now occupy their time with various boyfriends and drinking and drop swear words in their casual conversation. I almost want to cry sometimes when I see how they're throwing away their lives. They had so much potential, so much in them that's now reduced to just another party kid in college.

And then I think about them, about what they did wrong to me. As "innocent" little third graders. About that period in my life, about all that I went through, both publicly and privately. About how I could never understand why God cut off my friendship with them so suddenly, so sharply, so agonizingly painfully.

Then I think about who they've turned out to be and who I've turned out to be. I think about our separate futures, what we'll do for the world and what we have to look forward to. And I think about how they've restricted themselves from good things and ruined themselves and lost so much, both now and for the future.

And then I think I understand.

He loved me, so much that he could not leave me to ruin my life with those friends who have now turned their back on him and are looking into a life without hope because they chose themselves over God, and are not likely to change anytime soon.

He chose me, he pulled me out of "the muck and the mire," he set me apart to be holy for him. Why? Don't ask me. I'm not that special; I can't see that I'll do anything super radical or life-changing in the future so that people will write biographies of my life and talk about me after I'm dead.

But he loves me. He changed my life for me when I didn't understand and when I would have kept on going down a path that would have ended in destruction. Instead he picked me up and set my feet on the path of life.

This is one of the biggest things in my life that has happened to me that I have never been able to understand why it happened, no matter how many times I begged God to tell me. And now it's like I can see a little more clearly and see how he's used that situation in my life to break me and mold me into the person I am today. I still hurt over what happened, and I still can't say that I understand everything, but I can say that God is using even the terrible, horrible parts of my life for his good. And my God knows what he's doing.

Awesome.