Love, Your Single Christian Friend

Dear Church,

     Hey there! It’s your single Christian friend. You may remember what it is like to be that friend. I’m sitting here in the row with a family who has adopted me each week so I’m not sitting by myself. Their kids are growing up, their kids are getting into serious relationships, and their kids are getting married. I sit here seeing all of my peers slowly disappear as I walk in each Sunday hoping to be greeted by those peers I admire in their friendships, relationships, and their walks with Christ. I see them raising kids to love the Lord. I get to be a part of loving those kids and help in leading them to love the Lord.

     I sit here with a smile on my face, sometimes tears, and sometimes a somber and pained feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t pity or hate my single status and I’m glad to use my time serving others unhindered, though it seems to come with some downfalls the longer I am in this phase of life. I joyfully serve in the youth group, I want to be involved in serving the church around me with my gifts and talents, but I often feel my friendship needs are lost to those around me. I can be engaged as much as I want on a Sunday morning, but I often leave church feeling exhausted emotionally though I’ve been filled spiritually.

     You see, I see married couples spending time with other married couples or young engaged couples, I see single men spending time with married couples, I see single men spending time with other single men. I see everyone of these people interacting with each other, and I often sit watching and wondering how they all love each other so well when I’m sitting there feeling totally forgotten. But there are no people in my church that are in the same position as me. I’m not invited to group get-togethers or to spend time with a girlfriend because they’re often busy with kids, husbands, other couples and they forget that the need for friendship and relationship of a single Christian woman is left unattended in the church more often than not. I’m thankful for the families I have been able to tag onto, but I’m in a unique and strange position as a single Christian woman.
      I struggle. I’ve always wanted to be wholly honest with those around me about my walk with Christ, and right now, I’m struggling. It’s not good to be alone, and while I know I have people I can turn to; I often feel as though I’ve been forgotten. Any discussion with a married woman lasts a short time and more often than not feels distracted and unwelcomed because their mind is somewhere else. I have no single woman peers in my church, and I often feel I’m not welcome to spend time with other Christians because they already have their core friend group in other couples.

     I’m thankful I can ask people for prayers, but my cup is feeling empty and dry and barren for lack of outside involvement. Friends, I know you’re busy and you’ve got friends and family to tend to, but I implore you to remember your single Christian woman friend. She needs to know she’s not forgotten, or less than, or unwanted in group settings.

     I’m not here to steal your husband or distract you from your kids. I’m here to learn from your wise words, heal from your encouragement, and thrive in your presence. I’m here to build you up and encourage you on the rough days, spend time with your kids and love on them and support them while I’m without any of my own, and when I have my own too. I’m here, I’m often on the sidelines, but I want to invest time in you and your kiddos, I want to give you time with your husband without any kids, but I also want to spend time with you! I want to spend time getting to know your heart and sharing mine. Please, remember your single Christian friend, we’re in a unique position once we’re in our mid 20s and few others are in the same position. I know it’s not always intentional, but remember that singleness and the world of dating can be hard, harsh, and cruel, and we need friends and friendship time just as much as you have in your married life.

With love,

            Your Single Christian Friend

Loved Beyond a Doubt

I remember always having this desire to have someone love me for me. And you may be asking yourself well why would you think someone doesn't love you for you? To be totally candid? I let the lie of the enemy attack me for more years that I would like to admit. Every time I would look at my desire to marry and become a wife and mama it was seated in a place where I feared no one would want to be with me forever because I had friends leave, boyfriends lie, and boys in general basically convince me I was not good enough while simultaneously telling me I was 'too much' and 'too good' for them. Words of contradiction left and right; it never made sense.

With each broken heart, may it be from a lost friendship or relationship, I would run to my own mama lost and confused feeling like I had been so blind to everything that was going on, and fearing that everything I was told in those moments was true. I feared I wouldn't be loved. And she would always tell me that I was loved and loveable and that the right person would come along and see that in me. I would cry some more and contemplate the thought, and my usual response was,  "But why can't anyone love me?" She would look at me with tears in her eyes as she saw her little girl with a broken heart that fully believed she wasn't worthy of love, and reply, "Oh, sweetie, you are loved. Your dad, and brother, and I love you SO SO much. And so do so many others." I would often come back with, "But you guys have to love me because you're my parents. You will always think I'm loveable." And I could see the big painful mama tears roll down her cheek as she would cry not only for my hurting heart, but also over the fact that, in all these years she has loved me so unconditionally and so perfectly how I needed it even when I didn't recognize it or appreciate it, I still felt the only people who loved me had a biased opinion of me and only loved me because I was their child; and parent's have to love their child, right?
Boy, was I wrong. In the last few years I have seen a bigger change in my view on love and who I am in Christ than I ever have before. I began to notice that with each passing friendship and relationship in my life I kept coming back to an underlying fear that people wouldn't love me if they saw what was under the surface, or it seemed to be confirmed when I would share more intimately about myself or confide in others and they would either disappear or it began to feel like a pity friendship.

I never ever knew where these feelings came from, and I now
know without a doubt those thoughts were and are from the enemy.

 The need for a deep relationship and fellowship with others is normal and natural and good, but somewhere along the lines I gave the enemy a foothold in that area of my life and I became conditioned to believe that I was a burden more than anything else in life and that desire was not good.

So, what has changed my thinking?
           Honestly? A conversation with a boy and a conversation with my dad. I have noticed more and
           more my need for an open conversation with my dad, and recognizing that he is still my
           protector as a grown single woman. (Becoming more and more engulfed in a relationship with
           my Heavenly Father has helped me realize much of this, but that is for another post.)
So, let me explain.
In the last year I have noticed a deeper and more serious mood swing before my cycle begins [stick with me, I'm not going to get weird on you], and I wanted to take a serious look at this because I felt it was harming my relationships with my friends, family, and potential relationship, and I wanted to reign it in. In these moments I would come to the point of emotions being so incredibly low I did nothing but sabotage every good thing in my life. I would say hurtful and totally untrue things to people that meant the most to me, I would try to end relationships by being a totally unrecognizable version of myself, and I would see these things happening as if I was a spectator and could do nothing about it all while being the one actually doing them. Now I'm sure you're thinking "oh, you could stop those things, you just didn't." I promise I'm not lying when I say I felt like two different people in the same body with one destroying and the other looking on in horror unable to move or stop anything.
Well, after seeing this months on end, medication making me feel like I was manic and depressed at the exact same time I finally called it quits. I had no idea what was happening, but in that moment a sweet boy felt the brunt of my low at that time and somehow made things more clear to me. I had decided that I wasn't in a place to give a relationship a chance, but was not at peace about it in the same moment. In that low I remarked that I was thankful that he had helped me realize that I could be loved even if that was all that would come out of knowing each other. He simply said to me, "Why would you ever think you aren't loved?" To which I tearfully typed a reply of the things in my past that I felt made me unloveable to those I would meet. This sweet man replied, "I'm so sorry you had to go through those things, but you should know you will always have someone who loves you." I don't know who he meant by that in the moment, but it didn't matter; suddenly something flipped in my mind and I knew he was right:

I was, and am, loved for who I am.

In the fallout of what would happen over the next month or so I couldn't help but still feel at a loss and have a heavy heart that I couldn't hold down a good relationship, and I felt like I still had so much to me that no man would want to bring into their life. This was years of lies all built up and I was starting to see it for what it was, but let's take a step back a few years first.
I remember in the midst of my painful broken hearts always wanting to run to my dad and just have him hug me, but never feeling like I could. Not because I felt he wouldn't, but because for some reason my pride kept me from wanting to admit that I needed my dad when all my life I wanted nothing more than to be the daughter that wasn't a burden to her parents (sounds so sad when I read it now, as I know I've never been a burden to them if you were to ask them). But as I went through one of these painful moments where it took every ounce of my strength just to get out of bed and function each day I found it in myself to swallow my pride and one day I walked into my parents' house, stood at the top of the stairs silenty looking at my dad while holding back tears, and waited. He simply asked, "Are you ok?" I took a deep breath, swallowed, shook my head no, and let the tears fall, "Dad, I just need you to hug me please," I barely got the words out before I was a pile of tears and he engulfed me in a hug that my heart needed more than anything else in the world. In that moment I gave up my pride and realized how often I had pushed that cry of my heart aside and not actually asked for the thing my heart longed for the most- my father's comfort in the form of a hug.
 
Fast forward a year or so and I found myself at a loss again- this time for feeling inadequate rather than with a broken heart. I knew the only way I would be able to sort through this would be to talk to my dad; I needed to know his heart toward me more than anything else, right then and there. (I had prayed so many times about my insecurities and kept asking God to help comfort me, but I just kept feeling the only way I would get what I needed in that moment was to talk to my dad.) So, one morning before work I pulled up to their house to get some coffee, and I decided to talk to dad about everything. In that moment I needed to know if I was a lost cause when it came to the chance of someone wanting to marry me, and that all these things I kept thinking about myself were just worries in my head. He did more than that in that moment. I won't go into detail of what we talked about, but I was late for work that morning for very good reason. He helped me see myself and my relationship with my parents in a new light.

 In that moment I came to realize that the love my parents have for me isn't because they have to love me. They don't lie when they tell me that a friend, or a man, would be lucky to have someone like me in their life. They're being honest. But why didn't I believe that until I was 25 years old?!
It finally dawned on me that they love me BECAUSE they know me. They know my ugly days, emotions, and habits, and they know my heart, my passions, and my love. They don't gloss over the bad and only see the good in me- they see the good and the bad and love me just the same. Yes, they are my parents, but that doesn't mean they have to love me. There are many kids out there that parents have left/abandoned, abused, or even faced being straight up told that they aren't loved. The love of my parents mirrors the Love of God in my life. God knows my sins and my proclivities and chooses to love me just the same.
So yes, I am loved and I am loveable. I don't feel the need to find someone who will love me like I used to. I know I am loved, and while sometimes I desperately need to be reminded that I am loved and loveable, I know deep down who I am... I just forget sometimes.

God IS love my sweet friends. It's ok to need to be reminded that you are loved. It is healthy to want those relationships, but please my sweet sweet friend if those words "you are not enough," "you are too much," or "you will never be loved," are creeping into your mind, find the ones who love you most, push your pride aside and ask them to remind you.. then let them remind you of why they love you, and know they aren't lying. They know the deepest parts of you and love you because of them not in spite of them.

Where Have You Built?

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.


 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
Matthew 7:24-27

        This song and these verses and their meaning have been on my mind a lot lately. I remember a time when I looked at myself and going, “What am I missing and why does all this Christianity make no sense to me? What am I supposed to be doing if I say I'm a Christian and go to church? What should I be doing about it, how should I be living, and what do I need to know?” I felt like I had been in church for years but had absolutely no idea what it even meant for me to be there. It was at that time in my life I realized I felt like I was living a lie if I claimed to be a Christian but had no idea why. It was at that time I found I had a deep desire to learn as much as I could about why I was at church and what it meant to have faith and believe in God; and that hasn’t stopped to this day.
        I have always looked for more and more resources and books to read to learn about the different aspects of God and ways to help me understand the heart of God deeper than before. I know no amount of reading or understanding will make me “better” in the eyes of God, but I want more than anything to know His heart and my heart longs to love and honor Him as much as I can because I can! In the same way that I long to express my love and gratitude to those in my life around me, I want to have my life be an outpouring for God as an expression of my love for Him!
        I look at myself today and see some of the events I have gone through over the years and how I handled them (sometimes gracefully and other times very distastefully), and I see one thing ring true at the end of each. No matter what came from the situation or how I felt in the moment, I always ended up running back to God. Don’t get me wrong when I say this though, because I didn’t always feel like I wanted to sometimes. There were times I felt God was turning His back on me and so I didn’t want to talk to Him. I couldn’t have been more wrong though; I experienced more outpouring than ever before of love and grace than I could have imagined from His people in these moments.

        The number of people that have prayed-through, lifted-up, and walked alongside me in faith during my life has been an incredible and undeniable stamp of God’s hand in my life. I have often felt I don’t have a very large friend group, but when I look at who I do have in my life I am so incredibly blessed to know I have some amazing godly friends and family around me. They have helped me build a foundation from a very young age (even when I had no idea what it was all about) and have continued to help me build on it to this day! I know my life could be very different if I didn't have these people surrounding me, and I don't even want to think of where or who I would be without them around me. This makes me even more thankful for their prayers and words of wisdom through the years even when I didn't want them sometimes!
        When the storms come into my life, I don’t fear that I will be swept away with them. I do experience the grief, the heartache, and sometimes the shear pain of the moment, but I remind myself that I need to continue to run to God in these moments; not a bottle, not a pill, not a relationship, not some temporary fill to make me feel better in the meantime. I have slipped up before and turned to things I shouldn’t, but God in his grace has gently and lovingly reminded me of my worth in Him and has brought me back to the fold.
        I think about these verses and how it says to build my house on the rock and how it has applied to my life experiences. I feel I have “built my house on the rock”, but sometimes I have decided to step outside of my house and stand in the storm and do a little “house shopping.” I decide that maybe the houses around me have something better to offer and I start to walk to those houses to find out. When I get there, they without a doubt look beautiful and enticing on the surface, but over time they are not able to withstand what life throws at me; maybe for a short while, but eventually the beauty wears off and they start to fall apart. So, I walk back out into the storm and head back to the safety of my own house [God]. And when I get there, the fireplace is roaring, a feast prepared, and the bed ready for me to rest in. I think many of us have had these experiences where we fall for the “grass is greener” mindset and forget the truths and promises that God has spoken over us. He is always waiting with open arms to welcome us home, but I don’t want to keep “house hunting!” I know I may fail from time to time, but I know my hope and my rest are in God at ALL times.
         In a time where everyone says truth is relative and that what is known as right is called wrong and what the Bible says is wrong everyone is calling right, I pray more than ever that you find your foundation on the true and unwavering rock that is Christ! We stand in what everyone says are “uncertain times,” but I can tell you with certainty that God is still at work, is in control, and has the final say in this life. I encourage each of you to stay rooted in The Word and reminding yourself of the truths found there. Build on The Rock and hold firm in your faith!

Healing a Broken Heart (part 2)

If you missed part 1, read it here.

In the process of recovering I had many family, friends, and acquaintances with good intentions hurt me more than help me with their words and advice. While I won't name names, I would like to take a moment to address how we approach those with a broken heart. To do so, I would like to list a few of the most hurtful things I heard:

• "Oh, he wasn't good for you, you'll find someone better now."
• "He's stupid, and you're better off now."
• "Oh you need to just pray and forget it, you're holding onto it too much."(less than 1 month after the breakup.)
• "You need to go to this spiritual healing conference, we'll even pay for it so you can go."

These are just the ones that have stuck with me most that I've had to work through. While most people don't intend for the words they say to come across as harsh, most don't consider how they felt when they experienced a similar crushing blow. Life does a complete 180 degree flip in the matter of days and it's something that takes a bit to gain your bearings again.

Now, to address the comments made above....

• If you felt he wasn't good for me in the relationship, why didn't you tell me then.... I would've listened....
• Don't tell someone their choice was stupid, especially if you didn't know the other person... Even if you did, you don't need to side with or against me, just encourage me to keep my faith and head up.... The fact that you say he is stupid makes me feel like I was stupid not to see him like you saw him and that apparently my judgement is off.
• Grieving isn't a one day process. It takes a lot of time and energy.., both physically and spiritually. I finally got tired of mourning my situation and feeling Satan was rejoicing in my pain and that's when I could finally heal and move forward. Don't tell me my grieving is excessive when I'm taking steps to understand what just hit me. If I'm still mourning it just as deeply 6 months after the fact, then you can confront me in my grieving process, but less than a month out is ridiculous especially since you don't know the extent of what I'm mourning.
• And lastly, I appreciate your concern about my spiritual healing, but if you feel so bold as to suggest the trip, pay for it, not explain it, and just assume you know where my healing process is without even consulting me, I'm going to take offense at that. Don't assume you know where my heart is and that you know what I need. Talk to me, hear my heart, don't make assumptions and prescribe a fix... It feels like you're belittling my faith.

So, while I wish I could say there is a 100% surefire way to get over a broken heart that literally knocks you to the floor, I can't. Grieving the end of a  relationship is healthy when handled in a way that is brought before our Father... My best advice is to seek Godly counsel. Be angry with God if you have to, but don't turn away from Him. Take it all to him. Everything. Put yourself on the line and let Him bear this burden with you. Even when you don't feel His presence, pray. He's always there. Always present. Always listening. Sometimes we just have a hard time being able to feel it as easily because of our circumstances. Trust the maker of your heart, and know He knows your heart's hurts and desires. But take them to Him! He longs to hear our heart's cries, to comfort, console, embrace.

To those who interact with an individual experiencing a broken heart, be understanding and considerate. Don't press for conversation, but offer your support to be there if they need anything; whether that be talking(consider your words and meanings before speaking), going out to eat, listening( knowing you don't necessarily need to be providing answers), or inviting him/her out to do something. Be a constant beacon of support... even if that means silently. Pray. Above all, brothers and sisters, I urge you to pray. The Great Healer is the best medicine in this situation. Pray without ceasing. Pray for comfort and healing. Pray from the bottom of your heart and pray knowing the Sympathizer and Empathizer is listening and knows the heart of the person you're praying for better than you do. Pray for their unknown and/or unspoken needs. Just lift them up!

To those experiencing their own broken heart right now, you're not alone. By any means. I pray healing, comfort, understanding, peace, and most of all, I pray you feel God holding your heart and reminding you of His deep never ending love He has for you. You are so precious in the eyes of your Father no matter where you are at in the grieving process. Do what you need to do to heal, and know that even if it feels like no one is supporting you, that you have at least 2 people who understand the pain, and they both support you... Me... And most importantly, God.

Healing a Broken Heart (part 1)

 A broken heart is a terrible, and I mean TERRIBLE, thing to experience. However, to be honest it is one of the best things that has ever happened to me when I look at it from a spiritual standpoint. Some of what I say in this post will not be what most people will want to hear, but the process of making it through the grieving and spirit-breaking that I experienced have shaped me into who I am now. So, bear with me as I share with you my grueling and painful experience, and the lessons I have learned.

As a young kid I rarely attended Sunday school or church with a mindset of actually learning who God is, but rather a mindset of how many prizes I could earn for memorizing this or that, or attending every Sunday and getting perfect attendance. Halfway through junior high my focus switched some and I wanted to learn more, but nothing really made me want to dig into things like I hoped. Nothing made sense to me and I didn't want to admit to those around me that the Confirmation class I attended went over my head and I didn't have any interest in it. Regardless, I went along with it, and became a member of my church, said the words of accepting Christ,  and all that went along with it. Honestly, I don't know what all I agreed to that day, and to this day I wonder what I have made promises because I was too afraid to say I didn't want to partake. After this I genuinely started attending both Sunday school and church out of my own interest and desire rather than because I felt I had to. I attended Sunday school, church, high school youth group, and helped lead the junior high youth group as well. I'm sure you're wondering why I mention all of this when it comes to getting through a broken heart. Well stick with me. In this time I partook in at least 6 different sex and dating lessons that were taught for both the junior high and high school groups. While I believe they were well-intentioned discussions, they lost their effect on me in explaining how to properly address a relationship when it would occur, as well as how painful certain mistakes would be to make that would shake anyone who has a heart for Christ (probably any person with emotions, truly) to the very core of their being. I so wish there were a way to better teach and explain the pain that comes from not holding these ideas to be the best for our lives. If at some point the Spirit reveals to me a way to minister in this area, I will definitely jump on it, but that time has not yet come where I feel I can clearly and effectively convey those lessons to those that need to hear it. No one explains any of the following: How to approach a relationship when you aren't sure how it should be modeled in your own life. Or how to approach it when you don't feel the relationships you have seen aren't healthy or accurate representations of what you expect a relationship to be. How to distinguish between making exceptions to your desires in a relationship and understanding that not everything you hoped for is something that has to exist in your relationship. Being realistic (making rational exceptions to a relationship while not compromising your standards at the same time.) How to recognize that a relationship isn't always the best choice. The Spirit shattering nature of losing yourself to someone that decides they no longer love you. The pain, both physical and emotional, that comes with losing someone you thought would be your forever.  The process of being at war with yourself because sometimes your heart and your spirit are in distinctly different places of understanding. How to deal with family that means well with their words, but really all they're doing is breaking your heart worse with things you don't need or want to hear quite yet. How to protect your heart after the breakup and keep yourself from destroying your relationship with yourself, God, and those around you. How weak you'll feel in every aspect of your life because you've trusted someone with the most precious part of yourself and you just don't have the energy to fight back against Satan sometimes. In all of these things you don't think specifically of how you could be growing or hurting yourself. Thankfully I knew my heart would need protecting in the time that I felt the most weak and wouldn't be able to prevent myself from breaking God's heart with my actions. I prayed God would protect my heart from any of my poor decisions I would make in those moments (which He has graciously done). But I look at this experience and I had the hardest time understanding why after all of my patient waiting and praying why God would allow such pain to pass over me. Then one day when I felt my worst I had this stillness come over me... Not out of being ok with where I was at, but from hearing God's voice. He spoke to my heart. The pain of unrequited love is a heavy weight to bear even if the relationship only lasted 6 months. The pain I felt from this experience was nothing compared to the amount of unrequited love God receives every second of every day.  The pain I felt of the war between my flesh and my spirit was nothing compared to how much pain God could experience at any point in time as a result of any number of his children not acknowledging the love He shares with them. In experiencing a broken heart of this nature I looked everywhere for answers. The internet, my friends, prayers, everything I could possibly think of to help me understand how I messed up so much. I can't regret any of my past. If I did I wouldn't be forgiving myself and I wouldn't be accepting forgiveness from my Father. That was my biggest hurdle in figuring out how to find my new normal. I would forgive one portion of what had happened and then come back a few days later and still be caught up in it. I was grieving. Not just a small "boohoo" kind of grieving but a spirit-moaning deep genuine mourning for what I had experienced. My heart felt like it had an anaconda gripping it for weeks on end, my body ached as though I was experiencing the flu tenfold and it was never going to end. My eyes felt as though they had been pumped full of fluids and then glass had been placed under my eyelids to scrape my eyeballs. I had never in my life experienced something so horrible in my life.  Even when I felt I wanted my life to end many years ago, nothing could ever compare to the core-shattering pain I felt with this breakup. I awoke everyday praying for a hardening and understanding in my heart. In asking this I found the book "Is God Saying He's the One?" by Susan Rohrer. While I don't think this got me over the heart issues fully, I do believe it helped bring me understanding of what happened. The biggest and most helpful thing I gained from reading this book would have to be the fact that free will is just that... Free will. My free will is never forced, just as in the same way the person I may be interested in is never forced in his free will. No matter how much my idea lines up with God's desires, if the other person does not have the same belief He will not force it just because I beg Him to do so. That would lead to a bad situation all around in the long run when you truly consider the consequences of trying to force love on someone.  The 2nd most helpful thing from this book had to be the grieving process that was addressed.  "There's no getting around the loss it can be to experience unrequited love. No matter the form a breakup takes - whether or not a man ever shared a woman's affections - it's grief, plain and simple. No doubt about it, when a woman invests her heart in a relationship with a man who does not see her the same way, it can be devastating. How great a loss it is depends upon how much and how long she's banked on this particular hope. It really can be a kind of grief that must be weathered, and grieving takes time. Some might balk at comparing the loss of a man who never returned the woman's affections to physical death. I hear you. It can be undeniably excruciating to mourn the loss of a loved one who will never return. But the same permanence that makes death so very difficult to accept also assists in the grieving process by offering a certain point of closure. As painful as the physically deceased are to mourn, closure has its benefits. It helps us to move on to know there's no chance for reversal. Admittedly, it can be infinitely more difficult to weather the loss of an actual spouse. But grieving the loss of an unrequited love does carry its own particular challenge, in that the man a woman has set her hopes on it still physically alive and able to choose her, and yet he does not. This sends her into a perhaps lesser form of grief but it is grief, nonetheless. Mourning begins on a soul level." Look for part 2 here.

Oddly Empty, But Not of Christ

Do you ever have times where you just feel "off your game"? Well I'm feeling it tonight strangely. Honestly, I kind of feel like crawling in bed, reading a book, crying, drinking tea until I can't drink any more, and then just staying there for weeks on end. And as annoying as these feelings can be sometimes, I know that it is something that I have, and continue to overcome each time it begins to set on. While I'm sure a large majority of this is coming from hormone levels and being tired from various things, it got me to thinking about how it this is a perfect example of needing God to fill you up, especially when the things of this world can make you feel so empty (for no reason) sometimes.

I know that I am happier and more content with where I am in my life now and in my relationship with Christ than I was a mere month and a half ago. Things aren't going badly, in fact, I've really been enjoying my schedule (even though it looks like it will be getting pretty hectic within the next month already).  Me feeling empty and a little displaced has nothing to do with the things I have.... actually, it does if you think about it... It helps to see that regardless of how well life can be going, and the things that you have in your life, you can still feel lost if you don't feel at one with Christ.

The last time I wrote one of my longer posts I mentioned that I did not understand how Christ can fill my emptiness. But today, I can completely understand it. Not because I truly understand how someone I've never met face-to-face die to take my place out of love for me, but because I have been able to experience God's grace in my life. To understand God, you have to understand His grace that He covers us with. We should ask for his forgiveness not expecting a certain amount of grace to be poured out of a supply that is simply for each individual that we think will eventually run out. No, grace ABOUNDS to cover our sins against God.

I always knew that God covered us in grace, but it never really struck me as something "that" important to experience. In fact, I could tell others time and again, when they were struggling with forgiving themselves for a sin in their life that they need to ask for God's grace because He loves them unconditionally, but I never believed it myself and accepted the grace in my life. Beth Moore mentioned, from the Ragamuffin Gospel that we tell others about grace like handing out brochures to places we have never been before because many of us talk about grace, but we have never experienced grace ourselves. That statement really hit home with me.... It's true, how can we tell someone about something we haven't done/experienced in our lives? It's nearly impossible! At least to talk about it in a way that is meaningful that is!

Accepting grace and asking for grace are two very different things. We can ask without receiving, but you can't receive without asking either. So remember to both ask AND receive God's grace!

Love Others!

Well, I continue to be sidetracked and not doing as much homework as I probably should be doing right now. It's insane for me to look at my schedule and know that I have so many exams before my Fall Break here in a few weeks and then so many writing assignments to complete after as well. I'm dong my best to keep a level head and remember that I can do this all with the strength of my Father. This post, however, is not about feeling swamped as of recent and needing to take more time for myself and alone time with God (although I do need to balance that better throughout the week so I don't feel this way every weekend!)

No, today I'm posting because I have had Luke 6:27-36 stuck in my head ALL week from reading my small group Bible study chapters. I will also post a "Messy Mondays" video by BlimeyCow that goes along with this (yes, they do like sarcasm!)

²⁷ “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹ To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. ³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. ³¹ And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
³² “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. ³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. ³⁶ Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful."

This is such a wonderful passage to implement into our lives! It's a difficult thing to do some of the time!!!! But it is such a wonderful way to trust our Father and practice being like Christ. He spent time with believers and non-believers (all of whom were sinners, of course) alike! Not only that, but He showed them genuine love!



We often ask why we would need to do such a thing, but in the chapter before: Luke 5:27-32, we have been told good reason why!

²⁷ After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” ²⁸ And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.
²⁹ And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. ³⁰ And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” ³¹ And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

The truth that just radiates from these verses!!!!! I don't believe there was any ounce of pity or condemnation in these statements that Christ made either. In fact, I believe it was true compassion, love, and desire for others to know the greatest that abounds in following! This does not place us above others by any means. We humble ourselves and love others not out of condemnation or pity, but out of love and heartache. I know my heart aches for those around me that I know who do not know the full glory and wonder that is my God and Father! I pray for others to see His light in me and the greatness He offers us, and I pray to be a catalyst where He wants me to be. I know I don't always do what God asks me to do, but it's a work in progress.

Our speaker at Christian Challenge this week gave us a challenge before we left:

1. Read
2. Pray
3. Say Yes!

We are to read God's word and be in The Word, pray to see where God is working around us, and say "yes, Lord" to whatever He is asking of us. So simple, but so effective! We have such a great opportunity to share Him with others. Be joyful in Him and His promise, permeate this joy in our lives, and let others see Him in us!!!

My Passion & Where Should I Go?

Well, honestly, right now I should be working on homework or something that is productive so I won’t have nearly as much to cram into the next few days in very small amounts of time. But I have been sidetracked by many things all of a sudden of which I find to be more pressing and of a concern to me at the moment. I went from deciding what I would like to make for supper, to making a wall organizer for my classes because I feel I’m not organized correctly for how my brain has been functioning as of recent, and now I am writing this post you are reading. But why is this post so pressing all of a sudden that I’m not working on homework that I so desperately need to do, you ask? Well… let us embark that mystery.

As the majority of my friends know, today is National Suicide Prevention Day, and week as well I learned several minutes ago. Today strikes a personal nerve of mine and I am completely decked out in my TWLOHA garb, and wearing yellow underneath said “garb.” Now, I do realize, however, that me wearing the colors to recognize the cause and supporting the TWLOHA movement by either purchasing their products or donating to them, or even writing the word “love” on my arm DO NOT, in fact, prevent anyone from going through depression, having suicidal thoughts, self-harming, or anything of the sort. In fact, me wearing this all does absolutely nothing other than show that I took time out of my day to make a few clicks on the website and purchase their products and then I decided to wear these said products to show I support the cause.

I realize the money does go toward them working in their area of passion, but I was hit with a thought today that regardless of me wearing these things, I’m not actually doing anything to help others who may be struggling with any of these difficulties. In fact, I’ve been far more focused on my OWN issues as of late that I haven’t even seen the friends around me that have been having a rough couple of days or months, or even years, of their own. This brings me to another thought that I have had as of recent: I am a business student because I would someday like to start my own bakery and share my love of sweets and the joy that food can bring to people and the togetherness that can be found, but I’m not passionate about the actual business major. We keep discussing how we should answer questions of why we are getting a degree in what we are, why we are passionate about it, and how it can help the businesses we are going to be working for. Honestly, I can’t answer that I have a passion for business, or have a good answer to why I am even seeking a degree in business, or even tell someone that is interviewing me why I would be a good addition to their team because I want to help build their business to the best it can be.

No, I have a genuine love for people. I want to help people, I want to love people, I want to support people, and I want to give people the opportunity to find the greatness within themselves so they can in turn love themselves and see what they have to offer. I don’t want to help a business become a big name or even a big financial success, I want an opportunity to give others a benefit of the doubt, and see them for who they truly are where others may shut them out when they hear a small snippet of their past or even current life.

So where can I go from here, what can I do that will encompass my love for people, and what is it that I can do with my life to make a difference? Yes, I have struggled with many things in my past, but I have recently decided to change things and how I view things, and I want to change it. I have such a great opportunity to have a voice for others who may be going through worse things than me, and I have an opportunity to love people who may not know what it is like to be loved for who they are; every trouble, heartache, worry, and problem they have ever had. They are all beautiful to me. Now I know I sound sappy as I’m writing this, but I seem to be going through a huge time in my life of change, acceptance, moving forward, and many many other aspects in my life…. It’s wild, it’s chaotic, it’s a mess, but it’s what I asked for. I have literally prayed to my Heavenly Father, “Lord, I want to be so busy I can’t think about things that are going on in my life. I want to be so busy I am exhausted and feel like I have done something by the end of the day. I want to be so busy that I don’t have all the time to sit and do nothing.” I have gotten what I asked for, and I still find time to fill even when I think I’m so busy I don’t have the time to waste. It’s amazing to say the least. My Father has taken my request to keep me busy and it has been fulfilled, but He has also provided much time in which to fill with these activities I do. I rejoice in this! I can’t believe that I want to be busy, but I enjoy it. I don’t enjoy having to motivate myself to actually do things, but nonetheless, I am joyful.

I’m working on getting closer to my Father than I have been recently, and in doing so I am seeing all the things around me I had been missing previously because I was taking it for granted and focusing on me. So today I continue to ask myself: Where do I want to be in my life, who do I want to share my passion with, and how can I do this all? And I ask you the same: Are you seeking your passion from God or your own passion, and is it what you should be doing?

Single. By Choice? & Adjusting Once Again

Over the years I have been truly intrigued by the commentary others offer on my love life.. or lack thereof i suppose. It's not that it's a bad response, or comment, or anything, but it's kind of interesting nonetheless. The most common response I receive is "You've NEVER dated/had a boyfriend?! That's impossible!" And while this isn't really rude in any way if you think about it, it's actually double sided... It's almost like criticism disguised as a compliment. I can see it from several different ways; 1. You are an attractive and nice enough of a girl to have to dated someone by this point in your life, or 2. You should be out dating because it's what everyone does, or 3. You seem like a girl that would have dated several guys in her life. I'm sure most people don't mean it in a negative way or in an offensive way, and if they do I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But this also brings me to my next point.

"Well, it has been your own doing." I am so sick and tired of hearing this. I have been asked out a total of two times in my life in a way that I would actually consider being asked out. The first was a guy I met shortly before I had a wreck and I basically led him as a result of needing someone to talk to and help me cope with my feelings and emotions after my wreck. We lived an hour away from each other and I told him to ask me out because I was frustrated. I was asked out through text and I also "broke up" with him through a text. The kid was way too into me for barely even knowing me, and after a week of "dating" I realized I really didn't like the guy and I was just being selfish. And while he did get very angry at me, he is currently engaged and soon to be married to a girl younger than me and is saying much of what he said to me to her now, so that was a good reason to have ended up saying no. The second guy I turned down happened to be a friend from high school that I kind of figured liked me, but I didn't want to bring it up. Well one day he told me he liked me and would like to have a relationship, but I wasn't at a point in my life to date and I really didn't want to ruin our friendship. He is now happily married, has cut off ties with the outside world basically, and is now expecting his first child. Now yes, I've had many boys interested in me over the years, but it seems like when a guy tells you he is interested in you because you are crazy attractive to him it's just a huge turn-off because it feels like it's for all the wrong reasons.

I don't want to sound conceited with this post, I just want to get things off my chest and to clear my head... it has been so long since I've written and it is much needed. But honestly, I've never considered myself that attractive to the opposite sex. And I've never had to worry about it living in a small town. Now that I have entered college it's become very weird that I've started to see that the opposite sex does find me attractive, but I would rather not know this. It's repulsing to be in the cafeteria, in sweatpants even, and you can see guys looking at your butt. I'm not one to dress provocatively or show off everything I own... trust me, I'm in jeans/shorts and a t-shirt most days, so when I do decide I want to dress in nice clothes it's a battle between wanting to look nice for myself and deciding if it's worth having guys stare at me like I am a piece of meat, even when I'm dressed modestly.

But back to the relationship bit, I may choose to be single in certain ways, but really, I just haven't been asked by a guy who I feel will treat me right. This may leave me single for many years to come... well... so be it. Honestly though, I really do want a relationship with someone. I don't go around to guys saying, "no" just because I want to be single and I want them to know it. Trust me, if I could do the exact opposite I would. I want a relationship with all that I am, but I don't want to come across as desperate, and I don't want to rush into a relationship that isn't going to work or shouldn't happen altogether.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with me being single for as long as I have been. I just wish people would think about their response before they respond to hearing this about me. "There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, you're probably better off." Has been a comment from a few people in my life that has helped me to stay on the positive end of the original comment. Most days I don't mind not being in a relationship just because it's how I've always lived so I don't really know any different. But as of this Summer and getting back to school I have been having a harder time accepting this fact. I would say this is mainly due to the fact that I am now off campus and in a place of my own. I absolutely love that I feel more relaxed and happy about going to school, but I'm really having a difficult time not being able to see friends like I did last year. I could have probably survived the dorms if I had decided to stick with them this year, but I wouldn't have had roommates that I know either as all the girls got their rooming arrangements decided long ago so I just set my heart on getting off campus.

I spent two weeks by myself here at the house, and on top of that, being secluded to such a small number of people at home has really started to take its toll. The timing of everything is terrible. First coming to college I legitimately could not handle the large amounts of people around me, but by the time the school year was over I was beginning to be more comfortable and enjoy the company of people being around me. However, this happened as I had to head home to work on the farm and do homework and see very few people outside of my family. So, I headed back to school with high hopes and excitement that I would be able to see people again. Unfortunately, I see as many friends now as I did this summer. I could go visit the girls more often, but I already feel like a nuisance coming over all the time. I don't live in the dorm, and I don't want to overstay my welcome. I'm out of the way for them to visit me, so I don't want to push having people come over. But I just want to be around my friends more often. I can't change this. I live where I do and they live where they do. I made the decision and I can't undo it now. So I'm here at the house again trying to stay positive as best I can, but it hasn't been working very well.... I'm hoping things will get better as the year goes on and also as I start my job this week. If anything is a blessing for me being off campus it would have to be me getting a job...

I don't really know how to end this post as it is more of a "I just need to get some things out" post, but I will attempt.... Ah, who am I kidding? I've been at a loss for words lately... So may your day be blessed and your year be great. Lot of love from this girl.

This Is Me... Well, Part of Me Anyway

For those of you that know me, and I mean TRULY know me, you know that I am a dreamer, a thinker, a doer, a lover, a worrier, a hopeless romantic, an ever faithful friend and confidante, and a never-ending giver. While many of these aspects of my life are positive qualities to have, some of them are qualities that both give and take away from who I am. Mainly in the fact that I use them against myself. I have never once in my life I don't think gone a minute without contemplating some complex or simple thought WAY too much. And while I do love the fact that I have been blessed with the ability to think things through quickly, effectively, and efficiently when it is needed, it's also a nuisance. With the arrival of summer has come the ever present problem of TOO much time to think. My brain, while filled with many important and silly things, also has a way of telling me lies and stupid things that make my life miserable.With all of the interesting experiences I have had in my life, and my share of being treated terribly by others for quite some time constantly wears on me.

I can still remember plain as day putting myself in situations where people just wanted to tease me to no end, get a response out of me, or beat me down to make themselves feel better. I constantly came back to these situations looking for the love and friendship I felt I so deserved. I was a child. Yes, my parents and my brother loved me, but I wanted to know that someone who didn't "have" to have unconditional love for me could love me for who I was/am. As the years went on and I continued to be told I was annoying, stupid, loud, obnoxious, and people just couldn't put a positive image to me, I started to believe it. I WAS loud, obnoxious, annoying, and stupid. So, I did what I knew best... to withdraw. I stopped responding to people trying to get a rise out of me. I stopped having fun when my "friends" around me were and I stopped trying to show people who I was. I didn't know  how to connect with people because all I'd been shown by those outside my family was how to be mean and hate myself. I tried finding people to talk to as things got worse, but as soon as I started to get close to someone they would up and leave or find someone else to be friends with. I tried to turn to sports and running to get my mind off of things. That lasted until my eighth grade year when I started "maturing" and running became more of a difficulty than an enjoyment. I sought new ways to fill my need to fit in, but nothing worked. I constantly felt empty and alone. I'd find something that helped for a couple of days, weeks, or months, but then my old reminders of how everyone viewed me constantly came back and I was right back where I was before.

Now yes, I know, all of my friends and those that support me in my walk with Christ constantly say to turn to Christ because He is the only one that can fill that space and make you feel like you're worth something. In all honesty though, I still have no clue how that is possible. I have to be completely honest with this all. I've given my life to Christ, and I've worked on a relationship with him, but I've hit a standstill and even a backslide... I know I shouldn't believe all the words that have been said to me, because my Father says none of that is true, but because of my brain and its need to think constantly, I can't get rid of those words. I want to, so badly. I've made strides and jumps in my own self view, but I still can't imagine someone loving me for who I am; all the craziness, weirdness, stupidness, irrationalness, depressedness, my scarred image of what a relationship should look like and the belief that I'm never supposed to have one of my own, the fact that I don't believe I have enough to offer a man who would ever come into my life and even be the slight bit interested, my ability to tear things I so love apart without even meaning to, to pour all of my hate and anger and resentment of others in my past onto those in my present and ruining the friendships I already have..... I could go on and on. That's the thing though, I COULD, but I know I shouldn't.

I've had a couple of people in my life truly invest in me and desire for the best that I deserve. These people are some of the best friends I have, and we aren't even actually "friendship status." How am I supposed to be friends with someone nearly twice my age? I can't go spend the night at their house, tell them stories of things I'm struggling with at the moment and they can relate because they're in the situation now. I can't call them up and say, "hey! I'm bored, let's hang out and watch a movie or go do something fun!" I mean, yes... I appreciate what they have poured into my life, but it's just not the same as having someone my age that is willing to sit there and uncover every little part of me until they see the weak and broken person I am beneath my rough exterior to hide it all. There are things I have done in life that I haven't told some of my closest friends even (Sorry Daphne and Megan and Mysti, and many others), but I'm too ashamed of them and that I even did such things in my life. I don't know what it's like to have a friend who lives nearby and can go do things with whenever we so please. I grew up going to the farm in the summers, not spending time having fun with friends. I haven't found that college friend that I can tell any and everything regardless of what it is (sorry Daphne and the rest of you girls) or when it is.

But I'm a tough person to get along with.... I place myself (and others) to extremely high standards and I'm usually the one setting myself up for trouble as a result. I know what I have to offer and I know how I think I should be treated by others. But it's just not going to happen. If I expected others to text me first, call me to hang out, share their stories from their day without me having to ask, ask me how I'm doing just because they thought of me one day, call me randomly to cheer me up and make me laugh, wipe tears from my eyes when I can't do anything but sit here in a state of loss for what to do with my life, hold me close when I'm so down that I just can't move, and a long list of things I wish I could experience, I would never in my life find a friend to stay with me and I would never see anyone ever. Now yes, I do wish I could have all of those things in a friend, but I also understand that it's not going to happen most likely.

 I still have a hard time letting people be nice to me. I mean honestly? Why is that so hard for me? I know I deserve to be loved and treated well, but I'm so conditioned that it's not going to happen that I push everyone away that wants to do any of those things. My roommate this last school year is such a blessing and sport for putting up with me. I'm pretty sure I put her through Hell and back again before we finally learned how to communicate in a way that was effective. I feel terrible for all of the things I said to her in my times of stress and over-thinking and of desperation to get things solved. But I'm also grateful she was willing to work at the friendship as well to make it a better one than it was initially. Yes, Daphne and I had out tiffs, but I know that she's always going to help me laugh things off when I need it. It's just so difficult to be so far from people when that's all you want to feel better. I don't need to talk, I don't need to do anything... I just want to be in the presence of people.

It's a world of life, love, and other mysteries as the band Point of Grace said many years ago. And it's so true. But it's also a world of confusion, chaos, pain, and annoyances if we let it be. I'm constantly working on forgetting how I've been treated in the past and learning to love myself and believe I deserve to be loved by others not because I deserve to be loved, but because it's ok to be loved. Now, I know I use the word love here a lot, and I don't necessarily mean in an Eros or romantic love as is one form used in the Bible, but I mean in a form of affection (brotherly love) and friendship, Storge and Phileo. Some day I may have the Eros form of love, but right now, I think I need to focus on the friendship and affection. This is tough for me; I mean, I'm a hopeless romantic as I've stated before... but maybe that's why I'm struggling lately. I'm looking for the wrong kind of love. I'm pushing things and it's just making me feel empty when it's not returned in the way I hope for. So between all my confusion that I'm feeling and the trouble that over-thinking has brought with it, I'm doing my best to distract my brain from things that don't need to be worried about.

I DO have friends that love me for who I am (even if they don't show it all the time), I DO have worth to me that might take a little uncovering for someone to see and appreciate, I DO deserve to be loved, it's absolutely ok for others to want to know me and I mean ALL of me even if I'm ashamed of some of it, and I CAN keep a friendship even when I'm not the best friend that I should be. People will come and go that just aren't meant to be in my life. I can't change that. But for those that do stay in my life, I am eternally grateful for the love that is shared and the friendship that is built even when I try to tear it down. I apologize over and over again for the stupid things I have done to my friends, between playing guilt trips when they don't do what I think they should be doing in our friendship to just being a devil's advocate and legitimately TRYING to break up a friendship to see if they'll stay around, leave, or remind me of why we're still friends. I thrive off of words so it's tough to not make others give me complements that I so long for.... So to each of my friends reading this, that know me completely, mostly, and just a little bit; I'm a mess a lot of the times, and I'm doing the best I can most times, but I love you like none other and can never express my thankfulness for you in my life.

Catching Up & So Much More

It's been quite some time since I've posted anything or even updated anyone on anything going on in my life. So tonight I thought I would take a break from homework and everything in general and take some time to update everyone of what is taking place lately. To start off: I only have 5 weeks of classes and 1 week of finals remaining until my first year of college is complete. I would say my Freshman year, but I can't actually say I'm a freshman if we look at credits. In fact, I'm not even going to be a sophomore for much longer. I will have reached 54 credit hours by the end of this Spring semester putting me 6 credit hours short of being a junior; as a result of this I will be taking 2 classes this summer to reach 60 credit hours to become junior status. Upon entering my next semester I will be a Junior-Sophomore I suppose you could say, and I will only have 2 more years, or 4 semesters remaining until I graduate from college with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Business Administration and a minor in Accounting. After which I will then decide if I will begin pastry arts classes or something else. (This is TBA at this point in time.)

I'm not sure how many of you I included in my discussion of college and future choices, but as you can tell from above I have chosen to complete my degree at my current college and will not be taking a break from, or dropping out of, college/classes. This can be attributed to LOTS and LOTS of praying, feeling completely lost and confused, much stress, many tired and relatively sleep-less nights, and of course.... many heartfelt conversations with some close friends and family members in my life. I can admit that I have never felt so out of control of my life until this year. Choosing  a college seemed stressful because I felt like I was deciding what to do with the rest of my life. Honestly, though, I think I made more of a decision this year after actually reaching college rather than deciding where to go for schooling.

There are so many things that push you to go to college and pull you as well. It's what society tells us is best, everyone else has done it so we should, we want to experience the outside world, and so many other things that are circumstantial or fairly universal. We make a decision because we are told to... often times we don't fully think through our choice until we're finally in the moment. There has been so much testing of my faith this year and I will admit that I have failed multiple times, as well as triumphed multiple times. I have wanted to leave, get away, stay, and run away..... The biggest test I have had though, is seeing what I do when I am faced with hardship, feeling like I have no friends, being cut down by those I though I could trust, and being just plain broken by the world around me.

At one point I had officially given up trying to be happy where I am and was going to ride the rest of the semester out one day at a time however I could and I was never going to come back. After a trip to my brother's I began to understand a little bit more about how I had been living my life. The worship service that weekend had a sermon that talked about living in exile/ feeling as though you are living in exile. God tells us to make the best out of living in exile, not merely exist. We are to do what we can with what we have and joyfully serve Him! We shouldn't sit around a mope simply because God has assured us we will get out of exile. NO!!! As a matter of fact, we are to do the exact opposite. We are to live EVERY day for our Lord. We are not to say, "oh, I'll start living for Christ when I'm out of this terrible place or situation." What good does that do? We may feel like we don't belong, but it doesn't mean we still can't be used in outstanding ways!

I oh so appreciate the love I have received in the last few months as I have struggled through being ok with where I am at for this time in my life. The prayers have been oh so helpful and I couldn't have made it to this point without any of the support and love I have received. So I thank each of you from the bottom of my heart and pray for your walk with Christ as you have for mine; I can never fully express my gratitude.

Many blessings and prayers to you all my brothers and sisters in Christ!