I was at a beach retreat for our church. Our church, though big, doesn't have a whole lot of diversity. Almost all the girls play soccer, talk about boys and make-up, have rich dads, and changing how they looked was their top priority. (Trust me, I was in a small group with all the girls my age and all of them said they wanted to change how they looked above all else.)
For someone like me, who is introverted, likes anime, fantasy books and gameboy, and who dislikes (though with no good reason) anything mainsteam, it was hard. No one even knew about 4/5 of my intrests, let alone be interested in them as well. My only friend was drifting apart, and I found myself wanting to fit in, though only on my terms. I thank God for giving me my stubborn nature sometimes, it has kept me from giving up on who God made me.
So, needless to say, on the retreat I was lonely. It was announced that night we were to have a Sandcastle building contest, and the teams was simply your grade. While all the other groups were planning awesome volcanic villages and a persons face carved expertly out of sand, our group chose to do a one layer wedding cake with little to no details. This is where I started to feel left out. I had wanted to do an egyptian palace, or the court of queen Ester, but was shot down with little sympathy. I then tried to suggest putting seashells on the cake for decoration, but no one wanted to go in the water to get them. Well, I went in, got soaked, and they ended up not even putting the shells on the cake at all. No apologies.
After the competition, I went near tears to one of the youth leaders. When I told her this, and my feelings of being left out, she with a 'duh' smile said "well you didn't have to get the sea-shells, did you?" This pretty much broke me.
I was expecting sympathy, comfort, but instead I was made to look like an idiot.
Luckily, we had prayer time after that. The Main youth leader told us to all go out on the beach and talk to God, and boy did I have a lot to say.
I must have walked at least a mile down the beach, yelling at God for putting me in these situations, asking him why he didn't give me a friend I could count on. And then, my flip-flops started getting sucked into the wet sand. I ignored it at first, still grumbling at God, until with one large wave one of my flip-flops that was still stuck in the sand got washed away.
At this, my prayers to to pleas of help. These were not only favorite and newest paris of F-F, but they were the only pair I brought with me!(hey, I was thirteen, it seemed like the end of the world and I was in a fragile state)
I kept on walking, with my one F-F causing me to limp while looking the direction I thought the current would wash my F-F up on the shore.
I gave up, with a final ditch prayer to God asking him for it to catch my eye.
I turned around, and there it was, not twenty feet away. I ran toward it and grabbed it before it could be washed away, and then, as I like to say, God hit me over the head with a steel base-ball bat. I heard him say to me,
"Rebekah, you keep on looking your way using your reasoning, from now on, look my way." It hit me how stupid I had been the whole night. I kept on looking for friends my way, by forcing myself to be noticed. I had kept on looking at how I was wronged, instead of how God would see the situation, and how he saw their hearts. I kept on looking at my troubles, instead of looking at God's plan. And, I kept on looking the way I thought the flip-flops would wash up.
I sang praises all the way back to the hotel we were staying at, breathless with Joy at the experiance and God's wisdom. Sometimes, three years later, I still need God to remind me of this simple truth, but for the most part I remember. And I am thankful.
RJdreamer, signing off, reminding you that God can use even a flip-flop to get his point across.
(btw, that pair of f-f has never gave me a blister, and it has been three years.)
