Change Your Heart

Last night was my monthly prayer meeting and since I seem to be in an extended season of Nothing Going On I requested prayer that God would help me not be so cranky, since, by and large, I don’t like people. I quickly followed that up with, “You all (in the room) are okay,” “Thanks!” chirped Nellie (and very very technically, I didn’t mean everyone in the room, only half of them, I thought I’d be polite.)

(I like Nellie. I like her Norman, her husband, and I like Donald, also in our group.)

Why don’t I like people? Um, well, most people like to complain about their lives and yet don’t do anything about it. They don’t try, they don’t make decisions, they don’t change. Yes, I’m saying that Nothing Going On with my life, but I have a monster writing calendar with goals and deadlines, and I also have goals this year like Take Surfing Lessons and Possible Karoke and Go See A Bob Baker Marionette Show I’m working, I’m writing, I’m setting goals and reaching them.

I hate to be around complaining people who aren’t trying to change. And yet I complain all the time about how I hate people and I don’t seem to change towards liking them any more than I do. The closest I get is being more polite towards them. If I’m exceedingly nice to you, it probably means I hate you inside. KIDDING.

I remember when Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind came out in the theaters, and I went to see it with a college buddy of mine and it looked like a date even though it wasn’t a date because we were just friends, bantering about roommates, Cold Mountain, Down And Dirty Pictures, and I don’t think either of us realized what a date movie ESOTPM ultimately turned out to be. Yes, a mind bending whacked out date movie, but a poignantly imaginative rumination on love, pain and memory. Still one of my favorite movies of all time.

(I like my college buddy.)

I distinctly remember sitting through the end credits, and in MY memory, there were animated little diamonds or something that faded in and out as the credits rolled, but I just checked my DVD copy, and there are no such thing, just a black screen with credits on the right hand side. Not sure why my brain would conjure up something like that, but regardless of what I did or didn’t see, what was definitely HEARD over the end credits was Beck’s cover of The Korgis’ “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime”



Change your heart
Look around you
Change your heart
It will astound you
I need your lovin'
Like the sunshine

Everybody's gotta learn sometime

I bumped into Eugenia at my gym a few weeks ago. Eugenia goes to my church, and we were chatting about a third person who also attends, but who I do not like at all (And don’t bother asking me who it is, I will never tell. Just assume it’s you. KIDDING.)

(I like Eugenia.)

I was confiding to Eugenia about how I’m such a cranky bitch because I do not like this other person, and I wish I didn’t have to interact with them, and Eugenia just smiled and said something to the effect of how “God hasn’t changed your heart about them yet.”

Which is something I instantly loved. Because then it takes the pressure, the burden, the guilt I feel for not embracing this person off of me. IT’S GOD’S FAULT! HE HASN’T CHANGED ME! BOO-YAH!

Well, that does mean you need to pray for God to change your heart. You know that, don’t you?

It certainly seems like a prayer of “God, please change my heart so I like this person, that person, ANYBODY ELSE more” would be something He’d grant INSTANTLY. I mean, why wouldn’t He? It has nothing do to with my career, it has nothing to do with my personal life, it has everything to do with my heart, and if there’s something that pastors love to stomp in your brain over and over again is JESUS WANTS A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU! HE WANTS YOUR HEART!

(I like Jesus. I guess. There’s no real reason to dislike him, honestly.)

So I started incorporating that into my daily prayers, “God, please change my heart so I’m not such a cranky person and so I like (third party) more.”

What does God do? Separates us. I haven’t had to interact with this person in close to a month. It couldn’t be just coincidence, could it?

And yet I’m still cranky?

And now that I’ve acknowledged it, God will slam us together again? Uh-oh.

:)