My loneliness is killing me
I must confess I still believe
When I'm not with you, I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me, baby, one more time

I'm sure MANY of you are wondering what the heck I'm doing putting Britney Spears lyrics on my webpage. I'll tell you in a minute, but first here is another set of lyrics to go with those:

You've been pushed, you've been shoved,
You've been left and unloved--
Oh, why do you stay?
So many tears that you cry every night,
But you know your life doesn't have to be this way.
But you've got hurts deep inside,
You feel it's only right that someone should pay.
You can't forget all the scars he left on your heart,
All the promises he made.

And here is the reason.

Jenny is reading a textbook that has lots of interesting statistics. The one she just read to me said that from 1990 to 1996, the number of psychaitrists in America jumped from 40,000 to 300,000. And professional therapists today outnumber all librarians, firefighters, mail carriers, dentists and pharmacists.

People out there are searching, begging for help. There are so many lost souls. How can we reach them all? They're hurting. They're desperate. They need YOU, God! Oh, how can we reach them all? Create in all of us a desire to find them, reach them, help them, love them, Lord. We need You to help us bring them to You.

I don't know why girls broken from relationships always come to mind when I think of hurting, dying people. It's close to my heart, though I've never been there myself. Britney Spears' song is a very good example of the burden of my heart. The girl in the song--if she's not talking about herself, which is very plausible, whatever you may think about Britney--is desperate to have her boyfriend back, desperate to feel loved again, desperate to feel wanted again. And unfortunately there are flocks of young girls out there, even as young as 11 years old, who feel the same way. Oh, to have the capability of helping all of them!

That's why I go to the AOL board occasionally called Girl to Girl Advice. There's not a single girl on that board who knows the love of Christ, yet there are hundreds of messages posted on there a day. Girls looking for answers. Girls wondering why their boyfriend dumped them after the girls gave them what they wanted. Girls trying to find a quality boy to love them. It's so painful to hear them... To watch them. And, as I said, there are hundreds of messages a day. One person can't reach them all. It can get overwhelming.

That leads me to my next point. Today in Sunday School we talked about what we learned from God this summer. I couldn't think of a thing at first (isn't that how it always goes?), but as I sat listening to everyone else and jotting down potential things I could say, I realized what God taught me this summer. I didn't get a chance to say it in Sunday School, but I'll say it here. I've been learning how big God is. He's not just big, he's HUGE.

Some people, when they see someone hurtling down a destructive path, get so worried and freaked out and frantically start thinking, I've got to save them! I've got to save them! That can escalate to obsession. You can start thinking their salvation depends solely on YOU--"I'm the only one they'll listen to! If I'm not there, who will be?"

Well, what I learned this summer is that that is the wrong attitude to have when you're witnessing. We are not the ones who save people! GOD is the one who saves people! And the great news is, he is BIG ENOUGH to reach out to those people even if you AREN'T there for them. It's useless--useless--to just sit there and worry about your friends not getting saved. Yes, you can pray. Yes, you can make efforts to talk to them about Jesus! But sometimes people are at a point in their lives where they just won't listen to anyone. What you have to do then is pray that God will soften their hearts (he is certainly able to!) and just trust him. Trust him. Say, "I think you can do this. I'm going to step out of the matter and let you handle it."

That's the kind of thing I have learned this summer. God continues to increase the love and caring in my heart for people who don't know him yet, but he has also been reminding me that I am not God. I'm not that big! But HE is HUGE and can do, as Paul says in Ephesians, immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. That's big.

That's what I learned this summer.

-Stephanie