When Things Go Wrong: Adam Guillory

Hello all, and welcome to the final quarter of the school year here at Louisiana Tech! Things at The Wesley this year have been freaking amazing. We’ve had dozens of new faces, a massive mission team, an amazing spring retreat, great food, and everyone has been filled with joy and simply overflowing with the Holy Spirit.

Despite this, not everything has gone according to plan in my own personal life. About 3 weeks before winter quarter ended I got a massive speeding ticket. Then, just as the quarter was getting close to wrapping up, I ran into my garage door. Then my iPad, which is my primary school device, got stolen. And finally, my computer died out about 3 days later.

Overall, it’s been a very expensive few weeks.

So what can I do about all of these objectively bad things – most of which I am to blame for – happening? In other words, how did I respond to costing myself and my parents several thousand dollars worth of damage and issues in short succession, plus the time I lost from not having the equipment I needed for school? At first, I lashed out at my mom – who is primarily footing the bill for the garage and the ticket – because she didn’t respond perfectly to my issues. I cussed out God and asked Him why everything was breaking around me all of a sudden. And I complained a lot, as in, I complained all day. If not out loud, in my head and in my heart. 

Then, I prayed about it. I came to realize that God wasn’t just giving me a test that I had failed, but that He was using this as an opportunity to detach me from the things I thought I needed, while causing me to be more reliant on Him and His Church. He did this by systematically destroying every means I could use to help myself, and forcing me to ask for help, which is something I’ve struggled with for a very long time. 

On top of that, He has taught me how fearful I actually am. The days after my computer broke down, every light flicker, every sudden noise, and anything loud would scare the living daylights out of me. I felt like a rabbit running away from a fly buzzing too close to his ear. I think the reason for this sudden shift is that my computer breaking acted as a last straw in terms of unpredictable and hurtful things happening to me. After that, any unpredictable thing felt painful, and I was afraid of it. Before my computer broke, I never considered myself a fearful person. In fact, I prided myself on thinking I was brave. This made this newfound fear even more difficult to swallow, because it was contrary to who I thought I was. So I prayed about it, and recognized that God could be using this time as a chance to reveal those fears to me and purify me of them, like impurities rising to the surface of gold before they are taken out.

Finally, this very short period of time has taught me, once again, that it is okay not to know what your future will hold. I have found that I hold on to plans very tightly, and I do not need to do that. In fact, I should actively stop myself from doing that. When I think I know what’s going to happen, and then something completely different happens that I don’t like, then suddenly, I get really mad that the thing I wanted to happen didn’t happen, and I lose sight of who is really in control here. If, eventually, I let go of any notions that I can predict what is going on and simply let God do His thing and love Him accordingly, then not only can I be a more flexible person, but, frankly, I can be happier and less angry.

Despite my obvious shortcomings in this ordeal, I am proud of the work God has done in me. Whereas just a few months ago I would have lost sleep over this and spent weeks or months resenting friends and family for their reactions to things that are not their fault, this time, that anger lasted 2 days. The pain is still there, but it only flares up occasionally. It’s no longer constantly in the background.

For a very long time, I have prayed that God would take away my anger and thought that the way He would do that would be to make my fuse longer. But this series of events showed me that He’s also working to make my bomb smaller, to not only give me more patience in my anger, but to deliver me from my anger itself.

Amen.

Adam Guillory is a junior Engineering major at Louisiana Tech and has blessed our community with his presence and joy since he showed up on our doorstep the fall of his freshman year. His wisdom, excitement, and tenacious desire to serve are a gift to The Wesley. Adam is passionate about swordsmanship, D&D, puns, and his friends. He is serving another year on our Discipleship Team this school year, and it has been a delight to see him grow in his faith.