singleness

This is something I have been milling on pertaining to life as a single.

Singleness just is.

It is not something to pity someone over. It is just like marriage. It just is what it is. It is a gift just like marriage. I am not in any way swearing off marriage with my whole not-dating-right-nowness. I am simply exploring new territory of life for me. God is allowing me to be blessed in this way right now and it is really a blessing. Comments from people who say, "Don't worry you will find someone", though I appreciate their heart, don't help. It implies that I am not complete. I am fully complete with or without a dude. My purpose, my mission, my goals, my hopes, my dreams are still the same. Don't get me wrong there is a hope for someone, but he will never complete me if he does come along. 

I have been thinking of it this way... Singleness is like having a Vanilla Dr. Pepper from Sonic... I love my Van. DP. Sometimes I might want a Strawberry Limeade, but Vanilla Dr. Pepper is a great treat too. I think maybe as I continue drinking my Van. DP day after day that I may really be wishing for my Strawberry Limeade and almost feel discontent with the idea of just having Vanilla DP. But I suppose the same is true with those who get to have Strawberry Limeade for a long time. They struggle with wanting to try Grape Limeade or Cherry Limeade, but they have committed to the Strawberry Limeade. So the issue isn't with the Limeades or the DPs it is with our hearts being content in those circumstances. And being content in the fact that I can go to the creator of both the Limeades and the Van. DP and get what I need from his eternal waters.

.... Wow ... I may have taken the analogy too far, but you get the point.

Sleeping Beauty..

Where I get my much needed beauty sleep.

My Life Here.

My Church Family

The Court Yard to my Home

My Home from the Ground 

Our Living Room

The View From our Living Room

the goodness of hope delayed

Isn't it funny how sometimes you are allowed the things you want most and other times are forced to deny yourself...

Okay here is an example...

There was once this guy who was just super fabulous, or I thought he was anyway:) He was SO cute and had A-MAZING character... anyway.... Like any smitten girl I would daydream. I would be hanging out with him in groups and would just wonder how his hand would feel and what his eyes looked like up close when you are really able to gaze into them. I was forced to deny myself those little hopes. But later on he asked me on dates and I was able to experience those things. God had allowed me to experience them.

Now the day is here when I am denying myself once more and seeing God take certain little hopes that I have and not allow them to happen... I want desperately to be overseas and to see friends and family. I even have this little growing hope, though I am perfectly content in my singleness, that one day there would be someone I could team up with and do ministry with, whose heart would be for proclaiming God's love to the nations, who would choose the harder road, who would fear and love God more than anything else in this world. These hopes are delayed. 

I must admit that there is satisfaction in the delayed hope. Because of God's grace I am able to know that He has good plans for me and he will never leave me or forsake me, whether any of these things come to be or not. I may never get to go to the nations, I may never get to see my friends and family and there may never be that someone... and all that is okay. I guess the joy comes from knowing that I can approach God with these things and he hears and he cares and I am able to have this glorious relationship with him and lean on him and that he will sustain me in my weakness and that whether I go overseas or not, He will be proclaimed among the nations. That is a nice feeling.  

A new treasure..

I am reading this book, Live Life on Purpose, and it has in some ways described things that I see in my life and pointed out the blind spots. Here are a few of the excerpts I really love and am in the process of chewing on.

"Just because you read your Bible, go to church, throw in a college degree, achieve some impressive accomplishments and raise a good family and shake those all up in a long life, it doesn't mean that out falls a life that counted for the eternal."- pg. 31

"When God tells you to follow Him, He is not obligated to reveal you destination immediately."

-quote from Henry Blackaby pg.32

"If you live without a vision of the glory of God filling the whole earth, you are in danger of serving your own dreams of greatness, as you wait to do the 'next thing' that God tells you. There are too many over-fed, under motivated Christians hiding behind the excuse that God has not spoken to them. They are waiting to hear voices or see dreams-all the while living to make money, to provide for their future, to dress well and have fun."- Floyd McClung

"I was on the wrong path, not because the path was bad, but because God had designed me for another greater journey"

"The status-quo of getting a job, getting married, having 2.5 kids, the picket fence, two cars , going  to church on Sundays (maybe even Wednesday nights), being in a cell group-all of this is considered the normal Christian life in America. It is not bad, but it has little to do with the journey that God is laying out for us to join into. For some, their map is even an old calling from God that the can't let go of. When you learn new facts about the world and new insight into how God is moving, you must be willing to hear a new calling from God and let Him give you a new map."

"To get the pearl of great price, you have to purchase the field. It will cost you something to jump paths. Not because it is a real loss, but because you have stored up treasure in the wrong place and you will have to leave it behind. But the gain our weighs the loss in the end, even if you lose everything, because on the journey your value system will change. Our treasure will change."

"We are on a journey where each step that God directs us toward is going to seem to require greater faith and sacrifice than the last one."

"We are going to see that the people God uses in His journey are not people who have incredible, unwavering faith; so much as they are normal people that are willing to take the next step down the path."

And I am okay with that...

Today I was a sub for Penny, who is still recovering from a few things,  in Kidszone. Kidszone is CHAOS with a more marketable name.  I taught the 4 and 5 year olds with the assurance there would be around 5 and it would be really easy. I prepared my lesson and made my "Celebration Circles" to get ready. I arrived with only half a cup of coffee in me (maybe that is where it all started going wrong) and only two students... THEN more came in two by two... until there were 10... that's right TEN! **bright side: this means more people came to church** There has never been a longer hour in my life, except for maybe those times that I was writing papers in college and felt like I was going to die. This was up there. The little darlings crawled in places I could not even dream of them fitting in, the climbed the unclimbable and did things with stickers and makers that would surprise the most seasoned professional. I couldn't even get through the lesson. I simply caved to games and coloring. When the parents came in the doors I felt like the French on D-Day. I felt so unfeminine. What kind of woman can't take a few kids for an hour and have a blast? I see all these other women doing it. Why can't I be like little Miss Susie Homemaker and be good with kids?

A few reasons I think: 1. I was one of two kids... no experience with the younger species... and believe me they are a species. 2. I like people who at least can behave like humans and not wild monkeys. 3. It was my first try. 4. It could be that God never intended me to have the 5 children I hope to have one day. 

I have decided that it is mainly numbers 1 and 3, closely followed by 2, and I dearly hope I can learn to be able to disprove number 4.

A dear, dear woman from church encouraged me by saying that she too waits at the fence for the parents sometimes. Maybe this was a fluke and I am simply applying one instance to all children. Racism only with kids... Maturatism, Ageism... hmm... there needs to be a word. 

At any rate I have decided to try again... maybe I can learn to handle the little dears better.  

The Compass

Wow... So much has happened this past week. My head is still spinning. I found out Monday that a friend of mine is SURPRISINGLY having twins, Thursday my other friend had her second baby a day early and yesterday a friend of mine lost her baby, she was 5 months along in the pregnancy. She is actually having the baby today.

As I have pondered all these events, I am even more convinced that God is GOD. He gives and he takes away and we feel the blessings and the moments that feel like it couldn't get any worse. Though all this is going on all around us and happening to us, God never changes. He is still good and he is still sovereign. It is in these stretching times that we must grasp on to dear life the TRUTH. Clinging to verses like Romans 5: 3-5, "We rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character and proven character produces hope, This hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." And when we are reaping the consequences of our sin Romans 5: 20, "But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." God may have brought heavy loads to each woman in her own right, but he has forsaken none of them, on the contrary, he is bringing each closer to himself and, as the song goes, tenderly breaking each one through their respected blessing/trial. 

My heart hurts and rejoices with each one of these women, but it is all for a purpose, God's good and Perfect purpose. I recently read in a book by Claude Hickman entitled Live Life On Purpose. In it he says, "A map is not always bad, but in the journey God will often lead you where there are no roads. You can't entrust your life to maps. The only way to be sure of your course in life is to trust something greater than the maps-a compass."