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Eugene H. Peterson said that this is not a dream world in which everything works out according to our adolescent expectations --there is pain and poverty and abuse at which we cry out in indignation. Besides, "we humans are always looking for ways to be more than or other than what we find ourselves to be. But nothing ever seems to amount very much. We intensify our efforts --but the harder we work at it, the less we get out of it."
So here I am, in my teens, trying to figure out a way to survive my adolescence as I grow up. And like a whole lot of things did not turn out the way I thought they would in my life. So i am just trying to develop a philosophy to live according to. Considering the facts mentioned above, something like: "the lower your expectations, the lesser the disappointments" would fit perfectly, wouldn't it? I mean like: do not open yourself to others, it will just bring trouble. Or do not ask for help unless it is really really necessary, you can always do it yourself. Or do not expect anything great from the rest of the people, or what about: I will never fit, so i just need to find a way to get through all this as a whole and then do whatever I want. These all seemed pretty good ideas. I only needed to remind myself, because as a teeneger, my brain is usually somewhere I can't find it.
But then I open my Bible and start reading, and guess what... Yep, my mind gets all messed up.
I find things in the book like:
-Don't frustrate God's work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we are doing.
-Your lives aren't small, but you are living them in a small way
-Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
Hope? In this world? We just stated there is hardly anything hope worthy in this world. But what about the next one? Our true home. Where everything will be perfect, and brilliant, and wonderful, and shiny, and new, and everything you ever imagined is not going to be there, because it is going to be far better than your own ideas. Wow, I guess i can put up with some little inconveniences after all. I can live happily, even though I have no control over the world around me. I can share with others, even though if they don't share with me, for I was already given more than enough.
So I have to go, not knowing when I am coming back. I need to finish up that semester project.
