The One with All the Encouragement

For those of us here in the US, this past Thursday was Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving just so happens to be my favorite holiday--the cooking, the family, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the food; I would add football, but my family never really watches football on Thanksgiving, since we prefer college football over professional.  We do occasionally throw a football around the yard (or, in the case of last year, we shoot some toy arrows with toy bows...occasionally, there are Nerf guns involved).  One of my other favorite Thanksgiving things is watching the F.R.I.E.N.D.S Thanksgiving episodes...hence the title of this post (and really, that's the only reason that F.R.I.E.N.D.S is even a relevant anecdote here, so if that's the only reason you started reading this post, move along, or you might be disappointed).

The last several years (seven? six?), my family has attended a Thanksgiving Eve Breakfast for Dinner gathering on, well, Thanksgiving Eve.  This has easily become my "new" favorite thing about Thanksgiving.  It began in the tight kitchen of a family friend's home.  The first year, we blew fuses in the kitchen as we all tried to make pancakes, eggs, bacon, biscuits.  We didn't eat until about an hour and a half after everyone showed up--and it was a wonderful evening of laughter and "family" (although very few of us were actually related...so it's basically a "friendsgiving" situation).  As the years have progressed, the number of people has increased, the kitchen has been redone to be more open, and we figured out that using my dad's flat-top grill outside to cook the eggs and bacon saves the fuses.

But the best part of the whole evening is always seeing old friends.  Many of us only see each other at this dinner each year.  Part of that catching up this year included a couple of people talking to me about this very blog.  In spite of the humor with which I view most of my experiences in the online dating world (let's be honest, it's how I view most of my life in general), some people can tell how frustrated and discouraged I can get with the whole concept of waiting (not-so-patiently) for "the one".

Before this party, one of my relatives asked if I would be interested in being set up with someone he knows.  I told him I was fine with that, since *obviously* this whole online thing seems to be as successful as trying to kick through a brick wall.  At the party, the hosts took it upon themselves to offer me some extremely heartfelt encouragement this year; the wife talked to me about a single guy that she knows, and said she has been praying about whether or not she should try to set us up (she had actually mentioned this idea to me several months ago, via text, but I had forgotten about it until that night).  As it turns out, this is the same guy that another person I know has thought about setting me up with (this person also asked about it in the last week).  Now, I'm not letting any of these things get my hopes up that anything is going to actually happen, let alone work out--but the important part here is that it's encouraging to know how much people care.  On top of these encouraging conversations, the other host (the husband of the wife mentioned previously) shared a Bible verse with me which God had laid on his heart: 

"Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" (Matthew 7:9-11 ESV)

He reminded me that the Lord loves His children, and that He loves to give us good gifts.  Of course, this doesn't mean that God doesn't allow us to go through tough things--He definitely does, because He uses trials and difficulties to grow our faith, because they show us how much we need Him.  But God also uses other people encouraging us to grow our faith.  I didn't go to this party expecting anything like that, but God, being the loving Heavenly Father that He is, gave me the gift of being encouraged, but also challenged.

As I thought about this verse on my way home, I realized that one important part of it is that the son ASKS for what he wants.  Don't get me wrong, I have prayed about wanting to date someone/get married eventually...but I've honestly never been great about praying for something consistently.  It's more like I just kinda mention it to God when it comes to mind.  I think partially, I feel like I'm being selfish if I pray about myself "too much"...but the Bible tells us to ask.  I don't for one minute think this realization is going to "magically" make something happen, but I do think that I need to be more faithful about praying about any future relationships.

So to those of you who read this blog, and who mention it to me in person, THANK YOU.  To those of you considering setting me up with someone, THANK YOU.  But more importantly, THANK YOU to people who really, earnestly pray and LISTEN to what the Lord says to them, and who aren't afraid to pass it along to those of us who sometimes struggle with the listening part.