God, Why?

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:14-19

The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. -Psalm 145:18-19

I feel like the past few days I have been really wrestling with the question, 'why?' I have continually been praying for more faith from the Lord because I know that I have doubts about God's plan for my life right now when there are so many options and barely any direction. There are plenty of things about the things God has placed in my life that are a complete mystery. The biggest question as of late has been, 'God why do you have me completely lost when it comes to after graduation?' I obviously know the answer to that question. The Lord is trying to teach me patience....just like every other day of my life.... but more importantly, He is continually teaching me about my trust issues and how much control I like to have over about getting things figured out and planned. I feel as though this is God's humor in answering my prayer of giving me bigger faith in Him and what He wants to reveal in my life. But seriously, why does this have to be so painful? I have definitely been feeling convicted of how much I am dwelling on the future and wanting to just figure things out so that I can know what to expect even in the littlest way. I have to continually remind myself that this is not how God works and that I am creating this pain by not fully surrendering to Him. With this being said, it has also been a struggle because God also still calls us to not just sit and be stagnant. He puts desires on our hearts that we have to continually surrender back to Him and He delights in us continually asking for our desires but He also calls us to take leaps of faith and trust in Him through that as well. Confused? Yea, me too. It is hard to find the balance of when to just sit and wait and when to take leaps of faith. Please correct me if I am wrong but I think most of the time God is calling us to take leaps of faith and just go in a direction trusting that He will close the door if that is not where we were supposed to end up. Speaking of which, I am very excited to announce that this summer I am trusting the Lord to use me through an organization called YouthWorks. It is a mission organization for junior high and high school students. I am SO excited to be involved in this ministry this coming summer. My official role that I am hired as is Program Coordinator. I will be doing a lot of the planning for the evening meeting time including giving the main talks throughout the week. I am so excited to be able to grow in the Lord just through preparing these talks on God's Word and through the Spirit speaking His truth through me. Through this opportunity, I am also praying that the Lord will use it to show me if He is wanting to close the door on the possibility of going into youth ministry after graduation in some aspect or continue down this desired path. My heart has been really set on doing ministry and I feel more and more called to ministry within the church through pouring into youth and women. I will not lie, waiting on the Lord to give me direction in this particular area has been hard but there has been another area of mystery that has been incredibly painful the last few days.

If you have read my blog posts before, you have probably read about my family situation. I wouldn't say that my family life is horrible, but I will say that it is broken and incredibly distant. I was awakened again to the lack of intentionality among my family members there is when I was driving to my grandmother's house across town to pick up a coat for my halloween costume. I actually got lost on the way. Getting lost quickly reminded me of the fact that I hadn't been to grandma's house in probably 2 years. After I left her house, I felt like a horrible granddaughter, a horrible daughter since I never go to my parents' house either, and a horrible Chase/Lodzinski family member in general. Most of all though, I felt so hurt. "God, why do I not have support from the family you have given me?" This was the biggest question that popped into my head while tears ran down my face. I don't understand. Family is such a skewed word for me because I have always considered friends more like family than my actual family members. As I have processed this pain a little bit the past 2 days, I keep realizing how much my past truly does impact my present. I struggle SO much in wanting to control planning and what I am going to do and I can be very good at just doing it myself. I have become way better at asking for help and not depending on myself but I still have so much to learn. I made a connection that I struggle so much with self-sufficiency because I grew up needing to be self-sufficient. Because of having incredibly distant family, I didn't experience deep emotional level love. I know my parents love me and I recognize that they showed me deep love through giving me opportunities in gaining experience in anything and everything but I also recognize that there was still a huge void. I just want to be hugged and actually be told that I am loved by them. I fear the words, "I love you," because I don't know how to react most of the time. God, I don't understand why there are so many walls built up in one single home. I obviously have known my parents my whole life but yet I know more about a friend I have had for 5 years than I do my parents. This is continually an incredibly painful area that God is trying to refine and I truly need to trust the Lord is near as I literally cry out to Him. This post probably has many disconnects in thought process. I need so desperately to be filled with the fullness of God and be rooted in His love alone as stated in Ephesians 3. The Lord is allowing me to grieve this painful area in my life and I am trusting that the Lord will reveal His mercy and grace continually through this.