Laughter is Coming (My New Toy Part 2)

Every kid counts down the days till high school graduation. Every year I would think to myself, only six more years, five more years, and so on until it actually happened. I knew graduation was coming and I knew almost the very day it would happen. I looked forward to this day and could not wait for it to happen. So why did I not trust God, that He had a day planned for me to meet some new friends.

At the end of high school I started feeling disconnected from my friends. I started to wonder why, and started to think it was something I had done, but it was not what I had done but what I would not do. My friends started making choices that I would not make. Your friendship grew farther and farther apart e3veryday. Soon they went away for college, and I was left in Dayton, Ohio all by myself. Sometimes they would come home to visit their families and I would not find out until later that they were in town and did not call me. I was so upset by the distancing of my friends I never thought God had some new ones on the way.

For two year I was a downer. To be honest I would have not wanted to hang out with myself during that time. My parents would always try to comfort me by saying God had a plan and had new friends on the way. God’s plan was for me to go through this, how mean. I started thinking that God was mean and totally not worth my time and effort. But I kept asking myself, if God is so great then why doesn’t He do something to change this life I am in?

One day as I was walking around my college campus, I ran into a girl I knew from church growing up. She had found a Christian group on campus and they were going on a mission trip soon to New York City. I thought it would be a nice change of pace to go on a mission trip and see NYC in the process. So I got some info from her about the group and how to contact them.

I started going to the pre-trip meetings, and meeting some people my age. Each meeting I started to wonder if this was going to be when God had planned for me to meet some new friends.

There was one guy at the meetings, John, I thought he was weird. At some meetings he was wide away and almost bouncing off the walls and other times he was almost falling asleep. Our meetings were right before WWF came on, and John and some of his buddies would stay after to watch. I never stayed, I thought WWF was for kids, and also thought they were weird for watching it.

Another guy, Justin, caught my eye also. It was hard not to notice him because he was the outspoken funny guy. I thought he was weird too; after all he enjoyed WWF also.

There were some other people in the group that stood out, but these two really puzzled me. I almost dismissed the idea of them ever being friends because of their joy with the WWF. I would soon find out my judgments were totally wrong.

We took two fifteen passenger vans on the trip. John and Justin sat in the back of my van, with me sitting just in front of them. I slept for a couple hours and then could not sleep anymore. John and Justin were still out, and only woke up for meals and bathroom breaks. I consumed myself in my walkman, closing off everyone else in the van. While I was listening I started doubting that I would make any friends on this trip. But John and Justin were still asleep.

We arrived at a grocery store at 7 or 8 at night, and John and Justin were waking up. Just like everyone else they took a little time to wake up, but when they did everyone around them knew they were awake. I could not help but notice their goofiness. They soon crawled out the back doors of the van and were chilling out the back of the van. I soon decided to join them. We were soon jumping on the bumper of the van and laughing at the jokes and funny stories they were telling. Laughter, now there’s something I had not done in years.

As the trip went on, so did my closeness with these new friends. I started to wonder, what was going to happen when we all got home. Were these friends going to abandon me when we went back to Dayton? I distanced myself a little preparing to be let down, a decision I now regret.

When we arrived home, everyone was inviting me to come to their weekly meetings on Wright State University’s campus. My mom and dad still did not know all that was going on in my head; they just kept praying that I would soon find some new friends. I started going to their meetings, because I had nothing else to do and had run out of excuses.

John and Justin soon became my new best friends. The day had come that I had been looking forward to for years. John and Justin soon became the best friends a guy could ever ask for.

The only trick about waiting on God to resolve my frustration and anxiety for new friends, was not knowing the day it would happen. I thought God always would keep us safe from pain and harm, but He does not. God allows us to go through tests and trials to strengthen our relationship with Him. God wants us to realize, He is the best thing that ever happened to us. Exodus 34:14 (NLT) “You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a jealous God who is jealous about His relationship with you.”