His Answer.

"Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of your love"

-Psalms 69:16

"This is what the Lord says: In the time of my favor, I will answer you"

-Isaiah 49:8

So many of you don't know this, and when I tell you...you'll be tempted to grab your phone and call me to talk me out of such a rash and seemingly senseless decision. But trust me, I've thought about this A LOT. 

I'm not going to prom. 

It's not because I can't find a date. It's not because I don't have money for a dress. And I promise it's not because I've lost my mind. 

1) I have no real desire to go. 

2) I refuse to spend all that money on one night.

3) I went last year, and it just wasn't that big of a deal to me.

I couldn't help but feel like God was calling me to do something else. Something that I would remember for the rest of my life. I'm sorry but I just can't imagine myself at 82 years old, on my death bed, whispering the last words "I'm so glad I went to prom." I decided I wanted to do some kind of really awesome community service instead. Something that wouldn't just make a difference in my life, but someone else's. 

At first the idea had no shape, no specific interest. Then gradually, and I honestly don't know how, it developed into working with homeless people. Which is weird, because now that I think about it homeless people have always triggered this deep sympathy within me. It wasn't until I started taking 290 to get to Rudy's that I realized how close to me they actually were. I felt so compelled to give I made a rule that anytime I had cash on me, I would give it to the homeless people. I knew that working with homeless people wasn't my idea, and that it was definitely God. So I found myself with this idea, but with no idea what I was going to do.

Then my friend Will took Amber, Adiam, and me to this church downtown called Ecclessia. [Which is another awesome story in its self, that I must save for another post or else this post will be like 1 gazillion pages long] It was..amazing, but like I said another story. Anyway I noticed in the bulletin a section about their "Open Table Meeting" that invited me to "journey along side us as we seek to end poverty and homelessness one person/family at a time". Something in me thought "maybe this is it? maybe these people can help me." It was definitely a long shot. I waited a couple of days to debate whether it was my idea or God's. I couldn't shake the feeling that I should just email them. I mustered up the strength and just did it. I explained who I was, and that I wasn't sure what they did, but I was hoping they could help me figure out what to do to reach out to homeless people.

After I sent the e-mail I felt dumb. What if they did something completely different than help random high schooler's to plan instead-of-prom activities? Was it selfish of me to assume they would go out of their way, to help me, one person? 

I decided I would just pray to God about it. I started randomly flipping through my bible [method amber told me about lol] hoping god would give me a word. Sure enough I flipped right open to the second scripture I posted at the beginning of this blog. "In the time of my favor, I will answer you". Fine, I'll wait.

I got an email the day before Easter. "I'd love to help, call me when you get a chance."

My heart dropped. Was this forreal? Is this seriously turning into something?

I waited until after Easter to call, didn't want to interrupt family time/bonding ya know. When I called... he was busy, told me to call tomorrow. I felt immediately discouraged. The next day, which was today, I tried calling again. It went straight to voice mail. My immediate thought was "I shouldn't bother again." Then my dad asked me to go pick my mom up from work. "I'll try one more time, but that's it!"

So I called, and this time he answered. 

We started talking, and he was asking questions about exactly what I was looking to do. I began explaining that I felt called specifically to dedicate/set aside prom to work with homeless people. Instead of spending that day on myself, I wanted to serve someone else. I wanted to spend all the money I would have spent on a dress, shoes, jewelry, limo, and dinner on people who were only looking to fulfill their basic needs. He told me about how they're working with a 52 year old mother and her daughter right now and asked if I would be more interested in doing something with them, or doing something like serving food to homeless people. I told him I'd like to work with the family.He was like you could take them shopping, to the movies, out to eat, or something like that. I told him I just wanted to spend the day serving them in any way I could. He said that he'd let me meet them first, and see what I felt like God was calling me to do. 

We kept talking and he was like you know "you know the Open Table Meeting is really more like a board of directors. We work with homeless people and try to get them on their feet. There is a person who helps them get a job, a person who helps them find housing, and that kind of stuff. We actually have a position open that is specified for a student. They are in charge of arranging actives and reaching out. I'm not saying you are or anything but if you're interested in working with homeless people in the long run, I think you'd be perfect for the job. I mean it's a commitment, it would involve a meeting once a week and it would be about a year obligation. You don't have to give me an answer now but I'm just throwing it out there. And let me ask you this. How would you feel if me made a video out of it? You really don't hear about or see stuff like this very often and I think you have an amazing story. I don't want to sensationalize the whole "giving up prom to work with homeless people" but I think it's really an amazing picture of how people can serve Christ in their own ways, or own situations. It's funny because I was just listening to KSBJ and they were talking about this young man who spent all this money to rent a crane to hang outside a building a "will you go to prom with me?" sign and how it was going to be hard to top that when he wanted to ask a girl to marry him. I couldn't help but wonder...where are you priorities if your willing to spend that much time, money, thought and effort just to ask one girl to a dance? I couldn't help but wonder where kid's priorities are these days. Then two weeks later you email me, wanting to do something radically different with your prom."

I wanted to cry. Sometimes I wonder...why God choose to bless me, and use me in the craziest ways. I feel soo unworthy, but sooo soooo honored to be a person he chooses to display his glory through. The feeling just makes me want to cry. 

I don't want people to feel guilty, or like bad people, or even bad Christians because they didn't, or aren't choosing to give up their prom to do a community service. I didn't share this story with those intentions. For some reason, God wants me to do this. I honestly wasn't even sure if I WANTED TO DO THIS. But I have never been more sure of what God wants me to do. God waited until his favored time...and God answered me loud and clear. 

If you're waiting like I was for God to give you an answer. Keep waiting. He KNOWS when he is going to let you KNOW what he wants you to do. He will answer in the time of his favor, and it will be the perfect timing :)