So I’m sure that millions of dollars in research grant money and thousands of hours of mind-boggling experiments and brilliant studies and brain-frazzling analyzations and graph-making parties have been poured into the study of how humans relate to each other, but today, as I was sneakily pretending to study and actually watching people cleverly out of the corner of my eye (I know, I know…my ingenuity surprises even myself sometimes), I observed something pretty basic that didn’t cost any research dollars (another fact of which, I confess, I am rather proud).

See, here’s the thing: when people—and by people I specifically mean a guy and a girl—like each other? It kinda shows. Even if it’s a super duper masculine burly type of a woman and her skinny white nerdy wussy-looking scruff-muffin of a love interest. And if people (and by people, I now mean socially awkward freshmen boys who are dreadfully and concerningly girl-crazy but have no clue how to go about getting any member of the fairer sex to cast so much as a favorable glance in their direction) would just watch the other people (other people referring to the love-struck duos who populate Liberty’s campus in numbers so large as to be semi-miraculous), Girl-Crazies could perhaps pick up some valuable tips from the Star-struck on how to read (and respond to) body language appropriately.
Just a few of the things I’ve observed in the past 24 hours.

Tip #1: if a girl likes a boy, she will stand close to him. So if a boy approaches a girl, and she looks happy to see him, engages him in conversation, and moves a hand/foot/her whole self towards his general direction during the conversation? That’s a good sign. The Girl-Crazy will probably never get this sign, but normal males could interpret this as an encouraging indicator. The converse is also true, and this is why many Girl-Crazies find that when they approach a girl, the girl will turn around and walk rapidly in the other direction. This is not a sign of affection, and no, she is not inviting you to pursue. She is praying that God will strike you with lightening.

Tip #2: If a girl likes a boy, she will laugh at his jokes. Even if they’re not funny. So if you tell a knock-knock joke and she falls off her chair and laughs for five minutes? That’s another good sign. (Except it may also be an indication of insanity, or a sign that you have a bug on your face). But if you tell a genuinely funny joke and it gets merely a stiff, barely-polite smile in response? That is absolutely not the time to try a second joke, or try to grab her hand playfully. She is on the verge of an emotional eruption, and she may also be seriously PMS-ing. Turn around and walk away.

Tip #3: If a boy likes a girl, or a girl likes a boy (yes, amazingly enough, this one appears to go both ways), they will touch each other. I know, I know, Americans don’t believe in ever physically laying hands on each other if at all avoidable (germaphobes), but friends—and especially lovers—will often breach this social regulation. That’s how you know they actually enjoy each other’s company and aren’t secretly planning to destroy each other at the end of 2012. It may be merely a playful swat on the arm, or a hearty handshake, or a high five, or a hug…but if people genuinely enjoy one another? At some point, they’ll probably touch. And again, the converse is true. If you go to hug someone, and they duck away and don’t respond in kind, or they simply hesitate and look uncomfortable? They probably don’t want to hug you. This is not an invitation to tackle them. It means keep your distance.



Tip #4: this one’s for the boy-crazy girls…because craziness definitely crosses gender lines. If a boy looks at you and smiles? This does not mean that he a) thinks you are the most strikingly gorgeous creature he has ever laid eyes upon, b) understands all of your emotional needs and wants to meet all of them ASAP, and c) is planning to marry you as soon as he can convince his parents that it’s a good idea for them to have both of you living in their basement bedroom. What is MAY mean is that he is 1) friendly, open to conversation, and has a lively personality, 2) just being polite—most people in America smile back if you smile first, 3) knows you already and thinks you’re cool, 4) thinks your mismatched socks and pigtails look ridiculous, or 5) is not even looking at you because he’s actually smiling at his friend, who happens to be standing right behind you, or 6) thinks you’re kinda cute and wants to make friendly conversation for the sake of boosting his male ego while simultaneously petting your feminine sense of importance. Please note that none of these is remotely close to a proposal of marriage and should not be interpreted as such, or he may run very quickly in the other direction next time he sees you coming.

Yesterday evening, as I was flitting down to the second floor of one of the main campus buildings in search of coffee creamer, I came across a cozy little corner filled with mischievously-grinning college students. Two of them were personal friends, and so I felt license to ask them why precisely they were all wearing the I've-got-an-inside-joke grin as they sat around laughing knowingly.

"Well, we were just wondering if you were homeschooled...or if you're a homeschooler," piped up one bright-eyed little sophomore named Ian.

"Um, what?"

"Yeah. There's a difference. Here. You need to see this."

At which point, all of us (because apparently everyone in this little group had been homeschooled), crowded around somebody's laptop to watch this video...which I found amusing enough to share.

It is perhaps one of the singular peculiarities of Christianity that often times when we are most struggling with something, God sends to us another person struggling with the same issue on a deeper level, and through the process of helping and counseling the struggling friend, we ourselves are most deeply reminded of all the answers and truths we already knew.

Two weeks ago, I was home alone one evening, and perhaps my mind had begun to play tricks on me, as it is wont to do when it hasn’t been properly tasked in the first place. I was thinking back over the past several months, and feeling more than a little discouraged over the apparent futility of much of what had taken place. When we’re little children, it’s so easy to have exalted dreams—it’s the living out of those exalted dreams in later years that sometimes leaves you feeling a wee bit brutalized, because you realize that big dreams require big sacrifice.

I was vainly attempting to put together a jigsaw puzzle that night, but my mind was in overdrive and making it rather difficult to concentrate: Why are you really here, Thea? What was the purpose, exactly, of the last 23 years? What are you trying to accomplish, and why is there so little visible progress towards that goal? You’re home on break now—and doing what exactly? Let’s be real—would the world really be any different if you had never lived? You can’t even fix the problems within your own family.

The voice inside was rather ruthless that night, and I was in a poor position to defend myself from the onslaught, having once allowed the questions to begin. Sometimes the overwhelming feeling of the insignificance of everything good we’ve ever said or done really, really gets to me, and in the darkness and the silence, I dropped my head and let the tears fall, feeling suddenly keenly inadequate to answer the charges rising against me in my own mind. Why exactly AM I here? I wondered.

My phone buzzed just then—a text message from a friend several states away. He was feeling discouraged, wondering why God had him where he was, what purpose he was supposed to be fulfilling, and why it seemed that everything he’d ever said or done didn’t matter anyway. Life was kicking him in the teeth, so what was the point of continuing to try? No one was listening to what he had to say, even when he was right—what was the point of this uselessness?

Wow. Ok. So maybe the devil works through isolation, and robs us of our joy and our sense of purpose by catching us alone, when we’re most vulnerable, and beating us over the head with our failures.

As I pointed out to my friend that often times, the ministry we think God has given us to one person may actually be God’s way of helping us to minister to another person entirely, I was pondering the irony of it all—strange that he should be struggling with the same thing, tonight of all nights.

Messages flew back and forth for maybe an hour. I pointed out that wisdom is not made less wise because it is ignored, and that our value as the counselor isn’t determined by the response of the one counseled—that sometimes, God allows us to be ignored, to feel impotent…in order to increase our capacity to trust that His timing is perfect, and force us to realize that we were never in control of the situation in the first place. I reminded him of Jeremiah—that many of the prophets were called to speak to people who not only refused to listen, but also hated the prophet himself and tried to kill him on multiple occasions. Talk about a nasty job with no visible results! And yet the far-reaching impact of Jeremiah’s obedience to God’s command to testify is still impacting the Christians of 21^st century America. Our faithfulness in the little things, like our sin, has the potential to impact untold thousands of men, women, and children in some respect or another.

And as I wrote these things, I realized that God had sent this friend to me tonight because I needed to hear all of the things that I was telling him—I needed to be reminded, and I needed to believe that they were true in my own life. Sometimes God speaks to our hearts through the questions that we ask others: Are you willing to be a Jeremiah of the 21^st century? Are you willing to be faithful even when it’s thankless, and you can’t see the results? Are you willing to believe that the God-honoring decisions that you make on a daily basis may be done on behalf of someone who will read about you in 350 years?

A week later, I was spending a few days with my sister and her husband in the Twin Cities. Somehow, when I spend a lot of time around couples, I become more keenly aware of the fact that I’m very much not a couple—and for me, there’s a natural tendency to begin to wonder why not, and what exactly is God’s timeline, and why isn’t it a little faster?

So all of these vague feelings of discontentment were rankling in the back of my mind, making ugly noises (and uglier attitudes!) when I got a phone call from a friend. She was struggling to believe that God actually had her best in mind—that He could and would make something beautiful out of her broken story, that He could or would prepare her for and give her a God-fearing husband and allow her the privilege of helping that man to raise godly children.

“How do I know, Thea?” she asked, the desperation undisguised in her voice, “and what if He doesn’t? What if I wait, and I do everything right that I know to do, and nothing ever changes? What if the waiting and the being frustrated just goes on forever? It’s not worth it—why not just have kids out of wedlock, because what if the real thing never happens?”

I appreciated her honesty. I think we all wonder those things at one point or another—maybe often, or nearly all the time.

But I asked her if she believed that God actually loves her. There was a pause, and then quietly, she admitted that she believes He does—100% of the time, 100% of His ability, which is infinitely greater than our finite capacity to even comprehend. Sometimes the best way to get through to somebody is just to keep asking questions.

“Do you believe that He controlled your past? That He knows your future? That He holds you right now in the palm of His hand? That He would ever plan something for you that was not ultimately in your best interest? Can you trust Him? Really? How much can you trust Him? Is He a God that’s worthy of our trust? Our love? Are you sure? Why are you sure? Historically, when we look at Scripture, how many times has He let down the human race? Oh really—none?! So what are the odds that His character has drastically changed in the last ten minutes? Look at Abraham—God promises him a son. And then he waits and he waits, and he waits some more—there are 25 long years between the time when God gives that promise and the day when Isaac is born. Were there times when Abraham questioned whether or not God really meant it? Whether or not he could trust God’s word? Whether or not he could trust God’s heart for him? How could there NOT have been times when he questioned all of the above? Where do we think Ishmael came from if there were no times when Abraham questioned? But did God come thru? And was His plan ultimately best the whole time? Is He the same God today as He was then? Can we believe Him when He tells us that He’s an unchanging God? Are you sure? How sure are you? Why do you think that God ordained the institution of marriage? What’s the purpose of marriage, when obviously people can have sex without being married? What if it’s protective—and what if He meant it to protect YOU, to help you grow, to provide an atmosphere in which you can be nurtured and loved, in which your husband can grow, and your children can thrive? What if marriage is God’s way of bringing glory to Himself? Is it worth it to wait, if you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that what God has for you is better than anything that you could ever get for yourself by refusing to wait?...”

By the end of an hour and a half, I wasn’t sure how much I’d gotten thru to her, but I knew that I was now convinced (and I also knew that I was running out of questions)—and again, I marveled at the wisdom of a God who sends someone to us for counsel in the area in which we ourselves are struggling. Crazy. In a genius sort of way.

And suddenly, I was really, really thankful for the fact that God didn’t give me a group of perfect friends, as I’d sometimes jokingly thought would be nice. He gave me a circle of people who are as broken as myself—because He understood from time immemorial that it’s in attempting to apply truth to the cancer of lies in the life of another that the lies in our own lives are most effectively exposed and confronted.