Wow. It has been a long, long time since I have had time to write or even think. I miss it. I work so much now, it wears me out. I fight to maintain my walk with God – scraping and clawing and fighting each day to find time to read His Word. My usual day involves working from 5am to 10am at Starbucks, then I work at Apple from 11am – 7pm. The best time for me to read my Bible is between the two jobs, but it doesn’t really satisfy the need I have in my soul. I read, but I hardly have the time/energy/capacity/attention span to reflect on what I’ve read. I don’t get to journal or on this blog anymore. That really frustrates me beyond words. I need that time to reflect, or I may was well be reading the newspaper.

Don’t get me wrong. I am glad to be paying off debt. It’s the glimmer of hope for what I’m doing right now. In the past two months, I’ve paid off more than $3000 off my credit cards. But it has been rough. I’ve worked myself nearly to death. I miss my friends. Instead being able to go hang out with friends after work, I go home and go to bed early because I know how early I have to be up the next day (usually 4am). Since the beginning of the year, I have lost the community I’ve had with friends, the woman I loved, the job I loved and the freedom to set my own schedule, the time to spend with God that I used to have and the intimacy that came from those times. There were times I was afraid to say, “It can’t get any worse” because it usually did.

Lately I’ve been reading about Job.  He lost everything he had (family, wealth, health) at a moment’s notice in a game between God and satan. His friends only condemned him, and it seemed like God didn’t give a rip about it. I identified with Job 30:20 “I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me,” and verse 26, “Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness.” Sometimes, God allows us to suffer. He allows us to become isolated and He allows us to become weary. He allows us opportunities that make it easy to walk away from Him. He allows the people around us to give us bad advice and condemn us.

But God ALWAYS has a purpose behind it.

We don’t always see it. Sometimes we never see it; other times we see it only years down the road. After God puts Job in his place (see chapters 38-42:6) God begins to restore Job to an even better position than he was before. But this is what really jumped out at me today. Job 42:10 says, “After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before.”  It doesn’t really say how long it took Job, but God didn’t do anything for Job until after he prayed for his friends. I find it somewhat circular that Job used to pray for his sons and daughters in case they had sinned against God and didn’t know it, and now he was back to praying for his friends since they were all he had left. Even though they had just blasted him over his character saying his sin was why God was doing these things to him. It takes a lot to get me angry, but people challenging my character usually fires me up pretty quickly. Job had to forgive before God would do anything to restore him to his previous place. My curiosity wonders how long it took Job before he began praying for his friends again. Teaching Job about forgiveness was probably not God’s original intention either, just a by-product that showed up along the way of the lesson.

I know this isn’t the most focused post. It may even be running a little bit long.  But here’s my point: Who do I need to forgive? Beyond that – who do I need to forgive and begin praying for? Praying for someone who has wronged you prevents bitterness. It’s like anti-venom. You can’t be praying for their best interest in one breath and wishing ill the next. Maybe God is just waiting, dancing around in anticipation, for me to begin praying for someone specific. I may have forgiven them for the most part, but am I praying for them? He’s not a machine God (If I do A, then God will do B) but sometimes (like it shows in Job) God waits for us to do something first.

I can see potential of something wonderful happening soon in my life. I can see how my current circumstances have pushed me into a very easy spot for me to pick up and move if needed. I am no longer in a committed relationship with somebody in Atlanta and I am no longer tied into a lease. There is a possibility for me to move to another city, one on my list of 7 major cities I want to have an artistic influence in with Creating Contrast. Both of my part-time jobs have sites in this city. And there is a big, big opportunity to be doing exactly what I want to be doing there. I came kicking and screaming (and cursing at times) to this place in my life, but this could be the restoration I have been longing for. But I have to check my heart first. I have to remember this could all just dissolve and blow away tomorrow, but my heart will remain and my heart is His. Who do you need to forgive and pray for?