Frustrations

Theres a girl I know and work with and love hanging out with but I see little growth. In fact, she has expressed, on more than one occasion, very 'as-a-matter-of-fact' that she is not at all interested in God, Jesus, or Christianity to any extent at this point in her life. For her, it is something like: 'I'll eventually get to it I'm sure but right now I'm going to have fun'.

So I keep pouring into her. Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting my energy and time in what seems to be a dead-end. We've been hanging out weekly until this past February: she got involved with a high school musical and didn't have time and that took about two months. The musical was the end of April, she invited me to go but I didn't because I totally forgot which is genuinely a terrible excuse.

I waited before calling her because I had struggled so much with the relationship and the lack of growth and she calls me a couple weeks ago ready to pick up right where we left off. I'm not ever going to deny someone the availability of a listening ear that won't smack talk, gossip, or let out the dirty little secret because at the very least this girl - any young girl - will know that someone cares...if they only recognize me and not Jesus.

Periodically in our relationship there have been wonderful moments where God fit in and we had an intelligent conversation about God knowing us, planning our lives, fitting in in our other relationships, and even the gospel message...the whole Jesus death, resurrection, and meaning in our lives.
And the Gospel message was totally out in the open, I didn't beat around the bush with it or anything like that...it was just that.

So this has been my greatest frustration thus far at GR YFC. I was ready to let her go and sow her wild oats when she called me a couple weeks ago but instead we got together. At subway last week I dug myself in even farther...she was given an acoustic guitar she badly wanted to learn. She asked her crush and he agreed to but then never showed up. I offered knowing that it would at least be time loving on this girl ('loving on' is a term we used frequently here...I know it sounds wrong in all the terms of the world but loving on is more than just loving someone, loving on to us at YFC is an action...it's pouring all of who you are into every single kid: turning off the cell phone, preserving time, not being distracted at all...no excuses and absolutely no reservations, just 150% all about the kid(s) you're with at that moment...'loving on' just like Jesus).

And loving on this girl was what I had been struggling with the most. I had made peace for the most part, with the fact that this might just be one girl that wasn't part of the elect (yes, I'm a Calvinist to some degree), it was hard and I wasn't completely ready to give up on her obviously but I looked at this moment in time as a sign from God tho that he wasn't yet finished with this girl...he was still giving her opportunities to be with him. So who am I to decided for God that he was done with her?

I still struggle but I must say that yesterday was our first guitar lesson and it went well even tho we broke three strings...one that was brand new...oops. I even apologized that the all the music I had was probably not the kind she would like or choose to listen to (I admitted at this point it was all Christian except three songs or so) but I did it with pride and dignity knowing that God can use that too...I guess I just warned her thats all.

So that's my frustration.