Facebook came out when I was a junior in college. I was always proud of my college Facebook use. First, of my 200 friends I had only sent out three friend requests. Second, I never looked at the profiles of girls I liked.
I learned the second lesson watching one of my hall mates. He did not have Facebook so he’d always want to look at his crush on my computer. I was with him in the dinning commons one day when his crush came over to talk to me (she was MY Facebook friend after all).
Within thirty seconds my friend asked her about a movie she had just seen. She looked at him like he was a rapist (they had never talked before). I almost died laughing. All to say, lesson learned.
In December I hadn’t yet realized I like Family Guy, so to get through the relational doldrums of nights off I would log onto Facebook and look through pictures of past crushes (I know I’m violating my own rules).
I could never bring myself to look into their photo albums—that was too creepy. But, I’d look at their profile picture and then read all their quotes. They were all good evangelical girls so of course all of their quotes were Bible verses.
One girl had Psalm 27:13-14 written on her wall: “I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
That verse hit me like a rock.
For most of that quarter I had been hoping Chap Clark (my professor who writes all about mid-adolescents and wrote one of my favorite books of all time Hurt) could help me get War For My Soul on the fast track for a contract. After six weeks of emails slowly going back and forth he told me he had no ideas.
It was devastating.
So, I wrote down this verse at the top of my journal page.
Below it I wrote, “Lord, I feel super creepy.” Not only was I looking through their profile but I was writing down one of their favorite Bible verses--I had surpassed my hall mate from college in Facebook stocking.
I wanted to scribble the verse out but I couldn’t. The words were perfect. I was definitely stuck waiting in life—waiting for Hebrew to end, waiting to get a War For My Soul contract, waiting to graduate and move out, and waiting to find a wife. Yet it was okay because I was waiting for God to act. And, as the first verse bears witness too, God is a God of goodness. So, I was waiting for God’s goodness. Yet, it wasn’t going to be easy—it was going to take belief, strength and courage.
It became the theme verse for that journal that very night and I realized within a couple of weeks that was going to be the theme verse indefinitely.
Even though I’m now done with Hebrew, I still find myself mainly waiting. But it’s okay because I’m waiting for the God of goodness.
By the way, shortly after this happened something changed in Facebook and I haven’t been able to access my account since January—so I think that might have been why I started watching Family Guy.
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