C'est la vie. That's all there is to say.

There are things about my life that I don't understand. I'm sure that's true for many but every once in a while, things happen. Things don't just happen though, they happen quickly, and I find myself in a miniature whirlwind of sorts, one that, once it slows down, I look back and I think: "Did I go too fast, too soon? Did I say too much at once? Did I react prematurely? For undisclosed reasons, I can't be specific, but the moral of the story is that this weekend has been absolutely fascinating. I've gone with the flow, but when I look back, I wonder if in that flow I just...unintentionally overstepped my boundaries.

Life is life. You can't take back anything, you just have to go with it. I accept this, but it doesn't stop me from cringing until I see the final reaction or response to whatever I have said or done.

Today, I was a jerk. Things were recently implied, and I think I may have overstepped myself by going ahead and putting said implications to the test.

My dad said that I should find a way to explain myself. So I'll just blog.

The reason I do what I do now, especially concerning relationships, is because I have already been through the experience of thinking that someone is worth my time, and then just committing my heart to them. I don't want to do that again. It's a waste of time, energy, and heart space. Now, I have to determine by means of subconscious, and conscious testing if someone is worth my time, and wait for them to act on thinking that I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. I cannot pursue. I can do my part to try and build a friendship, but I cannot pursue. I cannot devote myself again unless someone makes it clear that they want to devote themselves to me.

It's a logical way to be, I should have been like that all along...but alas. Love clouds our judgment.

We'll see. It's an interesting life I lead. All of these obscure windows have cracked open that I did not expect, and are simply just that. Unexpected. I'll continue to live my life and let the Lord do His thing, I suppose. I hope that I don't get in the way. That's always a hassle.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in cahoots with "the Church."

To start off on a high note, today was really nice. Good church service, though people who have been missionaries with big organizations for so long make me wary sometimes...you can't always tell if they're just trying to sell you something at this point. Either way, I was reminded of something that I'd really love to do someday. Maybe the Lord will open that door, maybe not. We'll see. My "heart", for lack of a better Christian term, for missions has always fluctuated. "I want to do missions," and then someone says, "Well, you'll be so far from home," or "It's so expensive," or "You don't want it to be a vacation under the guise of mission work." All of which I understand, and as you can see by my lack of involvement with world missions, it's played its part in my decision making. Anyway, that desired was kind of stirred up again, I think. We'll see, I guess.

I proceeded to spend the afternoon between my store and Newburyport, both places offered up a really nice time. I enjoy walking around cities/towns by myself, and Newburyport is particularly lovely. A majority of my co-workers I think judge me for going over there on my day off, but I can't help it that I like them. I don't have a lot to do in my life right now. Why not hang out with people whose presence I enjoy? I don't see the problem.

Now to get to the meaning of my title. Sometimes, I feel like I'm in cahoots with the Church. I know that the Bible says that the Church is the Body of Christ, and that we're supposed to function like a body...work together, be there for each other, etc...but sometimes, when I think about so much of the reality of the church, I feel like I'm in cahoots with it to somehow defend its bad behavior.

I mean, the reality of so many parts of "the Body of Christ" is that it's full of hypocrites, apathetic Christians, or people who are just trying to prove that they're good enough. They aren't working together, they aren't trying to be Christ-like for the sake of reaching out to people who don't know the Lord. I don't deny that I am a part of the problem. I say that I'm a Christian and that I love the Lord and that I want to honor Him, but...I hardly participate in any of the "regular" Christian "activities" or "duties." I rarely go to church, I rarely read my Bible, I rarely pray...I'm a Christian in name only at this point. And I feel like I'm responsible to be honest about it.

I mean, granted, I don't want people to look at me and think, "Well, geez, if she's a 'Christian' and keep her 'Christian life' together, what's the point? She's just as bad off as me." I don't want people to think that about me, but it's true. I guess what makes it different is that I know I'm not condemned for being imperfect. Not that imperfection is a condemnation otherwise, but you know what I mean? Like...at this point in my life, I see that I'm a Christian in name only. My deeds aren't necessarily evil or going against God, but there is no action to my faith.

James tells us that faith without works is dead. You don't have to be living a life of blatant, willful sin to have lifeless, useless faith.

I feel like I'm responsible to be honest about my lacking with the Lord. If anything, I think that 1) It's important for people to know that Christians really don't have it all together, even though the whole point of church these days is to look that way. And 2) Even though I don't have it all together, and even though my faith is bearing no fruit, I see it as a challenge to rise up above myself by the grace of God so that people can ALSO see the reality of the Christian walk. It's a walk of mountains and valleys. It's a walk about feast and famine. It's about choices. Christ does as work in us continually to be like Him, but WE CHOOSE to let that work really take place. And sometimes we choose death over life, but then we choose life over death.

Does any of this make sense? I just think that it's wrong for Christians to NOT be honest about where they're really at with their walks with God. What's the secret? That being a Christian is hard? "Oh no, don't tell anyone that! Then they won't get saved." They're gonna get saved if they think we're constantly better than them?

I'm not sure what I'm rambling about anymore, but hopefully something made sense.

I'm tired of having to back up a Church that I'm uncomfortable being affiliated with. Can't the Church go back to being JUST about Jesus and being like Jesus and being Christ-like to those who aren't believers in Christ so that they can see it's not just a crutch or make a group of pathetic people feel better about themselves?

And I mean, I know that I shouldn't be "bashing" the church. I'm not trying to. But if I hear someone say, "Blah blah, people in the church are this and that," and I know that they're right, I mean...I have to agree. But then I want my life to reflect what the reality of Christ is. And currently, I don't think it is. My challenge is to repent of complacency and just OBEY. Like Pastor Tim said so many times. Simple obedience. Day by day, doing what God asks of you, one thing at a time.

*sigh* Christianity. It's so misunderstood. By everyone.

I feel like I'm falling apart.

But instead I'm going to be honest with you again about the person that I've become.

A long time ago, when I was about ten or eleven years old, I made the decision to not date. I wasn't going to date, I was going to court, and then I was going to get married. I was going to wait for a godly man who was going to know that I was the "One", and it was going to be romantic, and easy, and fine.

This has pretty much worked for me since then until now. For a long time I prided myself on having some kind of lofty standard for men, for dating - or not, rather. I was perfectly okay with waiting for the godly man (who of course had problems because no one is perfect.) I was okay with it until I thought that I had met him. And understandably, I'm sure, once I thought that I had met him, I began to get antsy. I began to be impatient, under the guise of patiently waiting for him to get a clue. Unfortunately, with the permission of my emotions, and against the will of my mind, my heart got away from me. I was convinced that somehow, some way, some day (sounds pretty West Side Story, am I right?) that this man and I were destined for each other. No matter what or who happened in either of our lives, it was fate. And since I believed that, it was easy to fall back on the "I'm trusting God" line, and play the "I'm waiting for the right one" game.

And then the reality of what I knew about my future with the man slapped me in the face one last time. And I gave up. I wouldn't have told you that, I would have said that I was a better woman for it, and that I was confident in my singleness, and that I was still trusting God and still waiting.

Not true. I gave up. I gave up on meeting anyone that I truly connected to, believed in, wanted to be with. Every once in a while something would happen and I'd feel some sort of glimmer of "hope" again, or I'd feel a wave of "single girl power" rush over me.

But the truth is that I don't know if I'm waiting anymore. I don't know what I'm waiting for, and I'm not trying to become the kind of woman that the man I think I should be waiting for would want to marry. I'm a mess. I feel like I've given up and I'll take whoever wants me, but the flip side is that that's not going to happen. I don't know what my future is. I don't know if there's a man in it. The image I have is a man who is much too good for me. I don't deserve some God-fearing man who wants to serve the Lord. I hardly want to serve the Lord. My walk with Christ is a complacent one, and I can talk a good talk but the reality is I don't have anything together. Right now, as I type this, I feel like I'm falling apart. I feel alone, and I feel like I know how I should be but I know I can't get there with my feeble attempts at Christianity. I get uncomfortable when Christians talk all Christian-y, like I can't relate to them anymore. That's not the person I want to be. I talk about wanting to be a "light for Christ at my job." Yeah, okay. Nice idea.

I want to wait. I want to believe. I want to be a godly woman who can stand beside a godly man and honor the Lord with marriage. I want that. But it doesn't exist right now. It's like I'm an emotional streetwalker, looking for anything, but I'm not at the point yet where I'll give in to anything that's offered to me, but I won't be surprised if I do some day.