"Do you think she likes me?" I would ask myself.
"No." I answered myself.
"Do you think I have a chance?"
"No." The answers were all pretty much the same...I thought I should change the questions.
"Do you think she'll forget you?"
"Definitely, yes." My answers were pretty clear. Let her go, Ben. Don't even think about her. She'll forget about you, so you might as well forget about her. By the time I arrived home that night I had forgotten and remembered about a thousand times. I finally gave my thoughts to the Lord.
It would be almost a month until I would see her again. My sister called and said that she was coming to my parent's house with Keila. Keila was expecting a friend's visit from Guatemala and my parent's house was somewhere in the middle of the airport and where Keila was living. I found out they were going to stay for the weekend...and I began to sweat. I knew the possiblities were there that I would spend some time with her, but I didn't want to stick my neck out to far. I would resort to "playing it cool".
My sister told me that they were going to come straight to Friday night youth group at the church. She also said that Keila was interested in seeing some of the videos I had produced for the children's ministry. I knew our interaction was inevitable, and I was determined to being "friendly cool" not "arrogantly" or "awkwardly cool".
My sister and Keila walked into church right in the middle of my message and sat down amidst the youth. My message went from being extremely powerful and life-changing to abnormally choppy and intensely boring. I was bored. I glanced around the room, everyone was bored. Everyone except my sister. She was laughing at every joke I made. I'm sure she wanted Keila to believe I was funny. I think we all knew I was in way over my head.
The meeting ended abrubtly when I realized I had not only lost the teens, I had lost myself somewhere along the way. I dismissed everyone and then proceeded to act like the coolest youth pastor known to man. I arm wrestled one kid and about broke his arm. I made jokes and meandered around the room trying to be the "man". Looking back I must have looked like quite an idiot. The crazy thing is that at the time I was sure that my incredible interaction was going to be a plus with Keila. Little did I know that she was exhausted and waiting for an opportunity to watch some of the children's videos over the weekend.
Andrea could sense Keila's exhaustion, "Hey Ben, when can you show Keila some of your videos?"
"Let's do it right now!" I exclaimed breathlessly after cremating a 13 year old at thumb wrestling.
I sat down with my video camera and I called them over. I opened the 3 inch LCD screen and began to show Keila my wonderful videos. I realized about 10 minutes in that this was an awful idea. Number one, I was awkwardly trying to hold the video camera so Keila could see the screen. Number two, it was so loud in there with everyone laughing and talking I don't think Keila heard one word of any of the videos.
She laughed appropriately at some of the funny parts, "This is pretty good."
Pretty good? I thought. She must hate them! What a moron...why did I show her these videos, they're awful!
"Thank you," I said sheepishly.
The evening viewing of videos ended soon after. I went home thinking about what a dork I had been. I had agreed to let Andrea and Keila use my car the next morning to pick up Keila's friend, and I knew the next day of activities were important in the world of "making a good impression".
The next day was Saturday and my phone rang around noon.
"Hey Ben, it's Andrea," I took a deep breath, "do you want to meet us today for dinner?"
We agreed to meet at Fridays later that day and I called a friend for some company. The dinner went great. We all laughed, told some great stories, and laughed some more. Then the bill came and I froze. What do I do now? I thought.
"Okay, well, I owe about 15 dollars," apparently I didn't think for too long, "here's the bill...everyone else can see what they owe."
Now my thinking was...well...I wasn't thinking. If I would've thought it would have crossed my mind that Keila wasn't working, and her friend had just traveled to the States from Guatemala. If I was thinking at the moment I would have offered to pay for everyone, thus taking away any awkwardness or misinterpretations. Instead I sat there while Keila and her friend scrounged into their purses looking for their money.
We moved on from there to the mall. I thought this will be a good opportunity to hang out and walk around. We decided to meet some other friends there as well. Then confusion set in. It wasn't on purpose, and truthfully it was completely unexpected. Even though I had many interactions with the girl I had once courted, I wasn't aware of the strings still attached to my heart until she showed up that night at the mall. We all wandered aimlessly around the mall. I spent little time getting to know Keila. The situation was confusing my brain.
Then Santa Claus entered the picture. Literally. We decided to get a group picture with Santa. Not realizing Keila was completely broke from Fridays I talked the group into all chipping in for a bunch of sticker pictures. (Somewhere we still have that picture).
Andrea suggested that everyone should come over to my apartment and watch a movie. I agreed, thinking it would be a good idea, not realizing the immensity of my confusion. A bunch of us sat down in the living room of my apartment that night and watched Ice Age. I ended up sitting on the kitchen floor petting a cat that I had for about 24 days, completely confused over the fact that my ex-girlfriend was sitting in the other room along with my future wife watching Ice Age while I was sitting in the kitchen petting this stupid cat! I hate cats!
The next morning I led worship at Sunday morning service. Keila and her friend showed up and sat down on the right. While worship was winding down, my pastor stepped up to the pulpit. I thought he would just casually transition to the rest of the service. But he didn't. He stood silently for a moment. Then he called out Keila and her friend.
"I don't know you young ladies or where you are from," He spoke, "but I feel God has a word for you. You came to this place in obedience to the calling of the Lord. You wonder if those things that are on your heart are from me [the Lord], and you need to know that they are from me [the Lord]."
I can't remember the entire word, but I knew in the middle God was speaking to Keila about me. I can't tell you how I knew, but I knew. I looked up at Keila during the word and she was looking right at me.
"God must be speaking to her about me," I thought. Then the fear of God hit me and I started to tear up. Could God really send this girl all the way from Guatemala as an answer to my prayer? Does God care for me that much?
The answer was of course, yes, but I was still fighting through my confusion.
Andrea invited me over to the house after church to show Keila the videos. I went over with some of my scripts and showed Keila the videos. As I was there that Sunday afternoon, I talked myself right back into confusion. I was certain by Keila's interaction with me she was completely uninterested, though I was viewing my whole world at this point through the eyes of my insecurity. I couldn't see anything correctly. I went back home to pet my unwanted cat and wallow in my confusion.
I would further deepen the weekend of confusion later that night when Andrea would call and ask me to bring up Monsters Inc. I left my dinner cooking on the stove and brought the movie over to my parents house. I had no idea that it was Keila who suggested I bring the movie over in hopes I might hang out. However, I sat there in the living room of my parents house while everyone begged me to stay and watch the movie, including Keila, and I looked at her with the eyes of insecurity, uncertainty, fear, and confusion, and told her no.
I went home and decided to do two things. One, pray much more about Keila. Two, get rid of the cat.
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