A year later.

It is disheartening to me to see that it has been an entire year since I last wrote on this blog. Or wrote in general. The constant noise of life, of love, and every other distraction everyday brings don't always make time for reflection.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about fairy tales. You know the story. Princess, White Knight, a Castle, a crown, happily ever after, and MOST importantly...a fabulous pair of "one of a kind" shoes. The world seems full of ideas about how happily ever after is supposed to look, where you are supposed to live, and when you need to "step it up" on the road to your fairy tale. For a 27-year-old female, at times these "suggestions" can become daunting.

I have been living my life, trying my best to follow God's plan for my place in the world right now while constantly pursuing His best in the long run. And we all make mistakes, we kiss the wrong frogs, we fall down the wrong rabbit holes and end up in a pile of mud...but the more I think about how life is supposed to look, the more I am convinced I could never be happy living in someone else's fairy tale.

Everywhere I look I'm asked when I am getting engaged, married, or settling down. To be completely honest, I have been discouraged many times feeling out of sync with my fairy tale. What have I done wrong be where I am today and not where I wanted to be, or thought I would be, or hoped God wanted me to be when I was this age? And how in the world do I get back on track?

To all you girls out there that are discouraged. Be it you are single, in a long-term relationship you feel is going no where, in a marriage where you feel the romance and fire has died...listen to me. Why in the world would you want someone else's story when you can write one that can only have one leading lady? This thought came to me today as I was sitting at a wedding shower. Anyone can marry the prince and live out the life the royal family instructs you to live, but not everyone can charge their own path, make a difference in their world...not some guys. There are so many people that need to hear my story and I'm just getting the courage to write it. If I were married, a wife, or a mother, I doubt anyone would hear it for years. There HAS TO BE a purpose while you are waiting for your happily ever after

And on the subject, I think it is more crucial today that I focus all of my energy on living happily right now regardless of others opinions of my life and relationships. I want to make this moment count and matter for the glory of God, and refuse to live with regrets...and let's just be honest. I would never let some "fairy godmother" pick out the outfit I'm wearing to a royal ball.

Write your own story. Forge your own path. And trust that God knows what He is doing, even when you haven't the slightest idea. God is working on your prince charming right now, whether he is in your life today or will walk into it tomorrow. And at the end of the day, the most important thing is that you have prepared yourself for your own grand ball. I plan to be the leading lady in my life, and to let aside my opinions of how I think my future should look because at the end of the day, it has never been up to me anyway.

But one day when I do get my fairy tale...I have no doubt God wouldn't want me to show up in anything less than glass slippers....

 

boy and girl. man and woman.

So here is a break from my normal musings into my own personal spiritual struggle and life to address an issue that is more and more misunderstood within our culture and even church daily: male headship. I know that I might seem like the very last girl in the world to want to lend any of my will to a man (and I'm not going to any time too soon) but more and more I have heard married women speak with such disdain for their husband's authority, his spiritual leadership, and have taken their own opinions to action, claiming God's guidance. I want to set the record straight...or at least the Little Record.

Marriage is a really big deal to God. Not only does He institute it within the first pages of the Bible, but Christ also confirms the importance by performing his first miracle at a wedding. Regardless of your feelings about feminism or equality, I think it is important, at the onset to recognize how very important order is in God's plan. During the creation narrative, God does not simply create things that he wants to without giving consideration to when they are created. First land and water are created to sustain life before wildlife, and finally humans are introduced to Genesis. In much the same way, Man is created before woman, in Genesis 2:7. With God creating Adam, he also bestowed upon him responsibility immediately, putting him in the garden to work (2:15) and giving him the task of naming all livestock (2:20). From the onset, man was given specific tasks and a place of headship over creation.

Now enters woman. After looking at the entire created order, God decides that it is not good for man to be alone, so God specially forms woman. Woman is not created out of the dust of the ground like man was, but rather out of the side-rib of man. She is created not out of dirt, but out of something that was already formed in the image and likeness of God. (2:18-22) 

This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh

she shall be called Woman, 

because she was taken out of Man.

Genesis 2:23

From our origin, we were created, as women, to be adored, cherished, and loved in a way that nothing else in creation ever could be. Remember the next verse:

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother

and hold fast to his wife,

and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:24

It is only the second chapter of God's entire story He would leave His people, and already he is setting up His natural order. A man will give up his own life, desires, family, everything to cleave, hold fast, and become one with his wife. These sentences in the Bible make the point that marriage creates the closest of all human relationships. It is important to observe that God creates only one Eve for Adam, not several Eves or another Adam. The kinship between husband and wife creates obligations that override even duty to one's parents. 

Here is where I would like to make a few statements out of the New Testament, quoted directly from the Word of God, that almost always get modern-women up in arms, so bear with me.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Ephesians 5:20-24

and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Titus 2:4-5

And We can't forget the boys:

 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.  "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

 Ephesians 5:25-33

Now to unpack these verses. I am well aware that feminism did wonders for my gender in terms of allowing us to vote, have equal place with men in the workplace, and divorce us from typical female duties...bravo Rosie the Riveter. All the same, I have become sickened seeing and hearing talk from "godly women" on TV, and in the church not model the relationship and order God set out from the beginning.

I think a lot of people will be surprised with my take on the question of male headship for several reasons: first, I am a very strong, willed and opinionated woman that almost always speaks her mind; secondly, I am very firm in my religious belief system and am going to take a very special and God-fearing man to "lead me" in the Lord, and finally I am twenty six and have never been married or engaged. I realize this makes me the prime candidate to "hate on" men being in charge in the Bible and find new was of "interpreting" the irrevocable word of Almighty God ;) (sarcasm implied) Nevertheless I do not view God's created order or the idea that a woman should submit to her husband as an attack on my gender as being weak...and I encourage every woman married or single to take a very long and fast look at what the Word really says.

Women have been treasured from creation. Yes, we are to submit to our husbands spiritually, financially, emotionally, and in every possible way. I wholeheartedly believe this. Not because men are a stronger, smarter, or greater sex, but because God has given them an even greater responsibility, and we...a much greater honor. Marriage was instituted not simply for procreation, but to mirror the love and relationship that God has for His Church. Love without bounds, limits, or reason. Love that cannot be expressed in the human language. Love that breaks yokes, forgives misdoings, and never relents...regardless of how much we screw up. 

I doubt any woman would say that the church can be in charge of things spiritually because God is not holding up to His end of the bargain. Yes, we are human. Men (we all know) make mistakes, but so do we. Culture, however, is pushing women further and further away from the order created at the breath of creation...pushing us to desmasculinize men so that we can get ahead, feel more spiritual, or get pity from our friends. Whether you are married to Billy Graham or Billy the Kid, God is for and in every marriage. Think back to the Garden. God created one Eve for Adam...regardless of what brought you into this relationship (barring biblical reasons for dissolving), you are with that man for a reason...and only that man. God would not have created Eve to be in relationship and start the human race with a man who could not lead or love her. And God is still as involved in every marriage as he was the first marriage in Eden. 

So why have men cowered in the corner and not taken initiative in their families, their marriages, their finances, their spiritual walk in the modern church? Yes, things like sin, temptation....yadda yadda yadda play a role, but I wager that a great deal of good men who want to live lives of integrity and honor have been so demasculinized from the women in their lives, they wonder what the use is. From the way their mothers treated and spoke about their fathers to the way their wives nag at their every move...men are afraid to lead because they don't think anyone will follow them. And that terrifies me when I think of humanity's future.

So here is a word to women: edify the man God has brought into your life. Don't down talk him to your friends but continually life him up to the Lord in prayer that he might step into His god-given role to lead you, provide for you, and love you as Christ loves His church. No one is giving Christ advice on how to love...Calvary set the example for love and that is the love that is available to every marriage. Women who are still single: look for the characteristics of a Godly man in the men you date, associate with, or even spend time with. Conduct yourselves in a way, dress in a way, and lead lives that men worth following will want to be around. Don't settle for anything less than your Adam.

To men: Women want nothing more than to be led. Although culture won't back me up, women put on a tough front that is rooted in severe insecurity and fear of rejection. Model strength not to get your way, but to look to the good of both your lives. Live your single lives in a way that honors your future wife whether she is the woman you are dating now or will meet ten years down the road. God was thinking about your marriage from the day you were born. Model love, integrity, and honor in every relationship you have with women, from your sister to the waitress at Pizza Hut...be a man...that's what will bring you your Eve.

I do not believe that men are superior to women, nor should either partner in a relationship be lorded over, but women and men both need to come to a much clearer understanding of God's natural order...if and when we do we will live lives of peace that exemplify the Holy Marriage of Christ and His Church. A relationship that will lead and guide others to Him.

I leave you with the most famous quotations of what love really looks like, 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

 

grace.mercy.

If there were a common theme to the blogs that I write, I would have to say that theme is the concepts of grace and mercy. Perhaps these are themes in my writing because they have been so incredibly vital in my life, but regardless of what I go to the Word of God for, I never read a passage without an incredible, daunting reflection and consideration of the grace and mercy of God.

Tonight I was preparing for my small group class I teach on Sunday Nights and came upon one of the most familiar passages of scripture, the story of the woman with the alabaster box. Everyone knows the story in Luke chapter 7, how a "sinful" woman enters the home of a Pharisee where Christ is, pours on him perfume that was worth a year's wages, and proceeds to thank Christ for the forgiveness she so desperately needs before he has spoken the words of forgiveness.

So often we go to the Lord asking Him to "speak" to us, or to forgive us...then we proceed on with our laundry list of "I wants," "I needs." We never give God the opportunity to speak back, much less ourselves the chance to thank Him for the incredible gift of mercy we take for granted we will receive from Him just upon asking. We are literally asking the God of the universe to speak to us. How would you really react if that happened? If we gave God the time, created the space in our self-consumed lives to let Him actually show up? What if we really meant what we prayed??

Chances are we wouldn't keep living our self-consumed lives filled with sin and selfish ambition. We'd quit telling white lies and always preferring ourselves. We'd give up our secret-sins, we'd change the way we talk. We might even give loving our enemies a shot...all because we had had one single encounter with the divine Word of God...(I'll quit talking about that now to not ruin my message for my Sunday night students, but stay tuned for a Sunday night submission on this subject...life-changing)

Back to Luke, the Pharisees don't react well. They think it is an abomination and a waste of money so Christ turns to Peter and asks him a question in a parable. In 2011 terms it goes like this, "If there was a moneylender who had two debtors, one owed him the equivalent of 20 months wages and the other owed him 2 months wages and the moneylender forgave their debts, which would love him more?" The answer seemed so obvious...the one who had been forgiven more.

Mercy is the overarching theme of my life. I mean, I really want the nerve to get the word tattooed on my wrist it is so important. Daily I am reminded that like that woman, I have been forgiven infinitely more than I deserve...but what is the usual response? We feel puffed up. We feel superior to our friends who are "sinning worse". We make allowances for our lives in secret. These things ought not be... God extends His grace for one reason, so we would love Christ more. When I read this woman's story I am humbled and challenged afresh by the power of grace to change my life. A life not bent on satisfying the sinful nature, but on loving Christ more. On showing and extending the grace of God in such a tangible way to the people I encounter that they say, "I want your God."

Philip Yancey always challenges me with his statement, "There is nothing I can do to make God love me more, there is nothing I can do to make God love me less." The ball is in our court. In exchange for this great gift of unmerited mercy and extravagant grace...I must love Him more.

phoenix.

Let's face it, I have made a lot of really bad decisions when it comes to relationships in my life. I have dated some complete losers, low-life's, and befriended some very shady people. Through some of my "learning years" let's call them, I ran the gambit of figuring things out the hard way when it comes to relationships. I think this has made me cherish the true relationships in my life that much more.

George Washington said, "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence." The Prez definately wasn't lying when he uttered those words. Working now with young adults, one of the concerns/complaints I hear more than anything else is, "I just feel so alone, I wish I had more friends." Living in rural Oklahoma, I used to echo these cries. I used to feel I needed people around, talking to me, texting me, or social networking me to somehow validate my life and not feel alone. Especially as a single late-twenty-something, it is easy to feel isolated.


But Washington's words come back to mind. I came to a point last year where I was extending myself and my time to so many people I was getting no sleep and continually stressed out. Some were getting jealous because of how I was dividing my time and I was just exhausted. People will take you for a ride, monopolize all your time, take up all your energy, and in the end spit you out when you don't give them what they want if you are not careful, that is why true, valuable, and close friends are hard to come by and one of life's greatest blessings.


Last week I was reminded of this while I was evaluating National Fine Arts Festival in Phoenix, Arizona. I grew up loving Fine Arts (to the horror of some) and never outgrew my passion for the program. It seemed like everywhere I turned I was greeted with a hug, a scream of excitement, and sometimes tears. I was literally surrounded by like-minded people who actually understood why I am living my life the way I am and who I want to be. I didn't have to put on a show or a facade, for one week I was relieved to "just be" and that be more than enough. 


Mind you, I do not see most of these people more than once a year. I have collected this handful of beautiful people over the past decade and a half through some of the most random twists of fate. Some of them I talk to monthly, some only a handful of times a year...nevertheless I know that No matter where in the world they are, they'd be on a plane in a second if I needed them. There is such a value in relationships that edify your spiritual walk and personal life decisions. I encourage you to be cautious in how and why you choose relationships. Often those that seem the most appealing will lead to your demise, where those you wouldn't give a second look end up as your soul-mate. 


I left Phoenix not only refreshed by old friends but encouraged by new relationships that are forming in my life. Some that might take me to new places within the ministry and life. I cherish and love every single one of you...


xoxo-B


P.S. To the friends I was not able to connect with, I am so sorry. Unfortunately AT&T didn't like my decision to live in a convention center all week. 

disappointment

A wise man once said that "disappointments are to the soul what thunderstorms are to the atmosphere"....I'm sure his friends said he was just being dramatic, but deep inside everyone knows that feeling. Things don't work out with a guy. You're going through a break-up with the person you just knew was the right person for you. You lose your job. You don't get into grad school. That warm feeling that rises in your throat when you have to tell the people you love that you've once again fallen short of their expectations on your life. Disappointment is one of the most disheartening of emotions, but one that is constant to the entire human race.

I have recently been dealing with a great deal of feeling inadequate in my life. Overwhelmed and underprepared. Giving all I have and it still not being enough. Having hopes sky high plumet back to the grave. Like almost anyone, I have used disappointments most generally as a reason to throw myself a pity party, feel sorry for my plight, and consume too much sugar....Will anything I want or hope for ever work out?

It's times like these I am drawn back to the scriptures. Remember quoting Proverbs 3 in VBS that if we trusted in God, He would give us the desires of OUR heart? What ever happend to that? I'm pretty sure I knew what my heart wanted. What about Romans 8 where it says that "all things work together for the good for those who love god"???

Today I had a reality shock. As I was feeling sorry for myself once again, and drawn to my scriptures of selfish comfort I realized something. The entire idea that God would give us our heart's desires is firmly rooted in the belief that Christ is at the bottom of our joy, our happiness, our everything. If He truly is the thing form which all other emotions spring, then and only then can we trust our heart's desires. Maybe my heart and soul were disconnected without my knowing it because my mind was given to the control of the Master, but I wanted to hold onto my emotions.

Furthermore, Romans 8:28 reads, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." We like to think that "good" means things work out the way we want them to. We get the job, we get the boy, we get the raise. What this verse is actually speaking of, however is the "good" is "conformity to Christ." A better way of reading the verse might be, "And we know that to those who love God, all things work together to shape and mold them into the image of Christ."

Christ let us know from the beginning the price of following Him. It is an invitation to die, it points at the cross. In the midst of my disappointment, I must keep my eyes not on myself and my Ben and Jerry's, but at the cross. At what Christ did so that my ransom could be paid. At how Christ lived as an example to me. To allow my disappointment to "appoint'" me as a bearer of the name of Christ in the midst of my pain.

I rarely have been more inspired or encouraged by an individual than when they go through something earth-shattering and do not lose their faith. And I think all of us in Western Oklahoma, at least, know, the air is never fresher or full of more life and hope than right after a thunder storm.

scars.

Andre Maurois once said, "A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body." Can't say Andre was off target. The past. A chain of memories, victories, heartbreaks, triumph, and shame. I once heard it said that a truly single-minded person's life can be summed up in one word. If my past were any clue, my word is schizophrenic.

What is so amazing about my past (since I cannot speak for anyone else) is how little good I choose to recall or remember. Life is like a continual first-date, rehearsing the answers you have to different questions about where you came from and where you are going. When I meet a new person that I hope to make as friend, immediately future conversations start running through my head. "What will they think when they hear I did this?" "What will they say when they found out I dated them?" "How can I explain that?" It's like a job interview without parking validation or a 401 K. I feel that there is no way one can embrace my past or overlook it on the way to seeing my future. I couldn't help but wonder: Why are we so obsessed with the past?

I'll be the first to say that I have screwed up royally on many fronts of my life. I've said no when I should have said yes and vice versa. I've chosen the wrong friends, path, and ways to spend my money. I've dated boys that left me feeling damaged and insecure. I've hurt my physical body in the name of beauty. Why would anyone want to be my friend...much less, why would God want to use anyone like me??

I have started making goals for my 26th year of life. One of my priorities is to start and finish a book I have felt inspired to write since I was nineteen years old. Although I don't want to give the details away (since I don't even know them), I want to write about identity. The last 26 years of my life have seemed to be a nonstop search for acceptance both from others and ultimately myself. While I have overcome so many obstacles of the past, however, a frightening truth came to me this week: If I really write this book, I have to start living like I believe what it says.

It's amazing how frightening the truth is. I have struggled with feelings of inadequacy, insuffciency, and self-hatred since I was very young. These were the feelings and emotions that drove me to a place of self-destruction and self-gratification. Since then I have buried myself in what the Word of the Lord says about me and to me, counseling others going through similar trials. But how much of all of it am I REALLY buying?? My heart says, not enough. I know the truth, but I won't let it set me free. I've lived so long battling insecurity I don't know what I would be without it. Rather than allowing my past failures, mistakes, and heartbreaks to enhance my testimony, I use them to sink further into my familiar and comfortable bed of hating myself and feeling worthless. "I've messed up too much, God couldn't use me if He wanted." "Sure, at one point in my life there was a divine purpose for my existence, but I messed that up so I am going to settle for serving the Lord in the hole I've dug for myself."

Thoughts race through my mind at least 10 times a minute about how inadequate I am or how overly-qualified someone else is. Comparison is one of the hallmarks of insecurity and that seems to explain a lot. I've lived to compare myself to everyone and everything except what the word of God says about me. But more than that, I have compared myself to my own past, and that past to the perception of what a person should be. I come out looking scarred, used up, and defeated.

Tonight I got to thinking about my father's sermon on Sunday. He preached out of Hosea (props to any minister preaching from the minor prophets), about God making the Valley of Achor (literally "trouble") a "door of hope." The children of Israel, like Gomer, like me...had scars. They had forsaken Yahweh, they had made plans for themselves and the plans had failed. I think we need to be reminded, however, that our past does not determine our future and our present doesn't determine our end.

I felt called of God when I was eight years old to preach. I was steadfast in this plan until I was about 20, then life happened. I was disappointed. I got sick. I was deceived in a very abusive relationship. Finally, I gave up. Too many bad things were being harbored in my past for God to use me in the way He wanted to. But, just like Hosea, the past I bring to the table will be the hope that brings others to Christ and to freedom through me. It is easy to look at your past and judge yourself because we are very good at judging others, but when we do this we take on the idea we know the mind of God.

I am reminded of the verse in Isaiah 55 that talks about how much higher the ways of God are than ours. That maybe God's conception of justice, of mercy, of grace, is much higher, greater, and more advanced than ours could ever be. Maybe, just maybe God's hand was in the middle of my seemingly chaotic life the entire time, and I've never been so in step with His will than now, using my scars to help others who are hurting.

George Bernard Shaw once said, "We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but the responsibility for our future." I have a responsibility to not let my past ruin the plan of God or the lives I am meant to touch with the message of the identity only found through Christ.

It would probably scare us to see the change that could be wrought in our world if we'd chop our scars up to battle wounds, and keep fighting.

love.

It has been a while since my last blog...I tend to blog in waves. I've said before that one needs a certain emotion to write anything worth reading or singing and maybe I am just finding my way around the cycle of emotions. It's almost summer and there are so many new things knocking at my door. So many opportunities, so many challenges, so many questions. Something that frightens me but seems to be a pattern in life is the more we need God's direction, the less we talk to Him and the more time we spend wallowing in the midst of our finite thoughts.

Maybe I am alone here. Perhaps everyone else who keeps a running dialogue with the Almighty has it straight. Questions arise, life transitions, they spend more time in the prayer closet than when everything is a steady stream. At times even my periods of worship end up with me in silence, not enjoying the presence of God, but the uncertainty of my plight...swimming around in the spinning pool of my thoughts.

but this blog is supposed to be about love.

Here it goes. I'll be 26 in around 25 days. I'll be closer to 30 than 20, I'll be beyond the quarter of a century mark. My single friends have diminished to being able to count on my hands, and the majority of them are at least four years younger than me. My Facebook page has more baby photo updates than anything else, and I rehearse my answer to the question, "So Bre when are YOU getting married?" before every wedding or public event I attend.

All this being said I feel as though my life is filled with more love, passion, and emotion than almost anyone I've ever met. Tonight was the season finale of Glee and I watched Rachel Berry talk with so much passion about how she couldn't date Finn because when she graduated next year she was moving to  New York City and never coming back. She was determined to not give up on her dream of starring on Broadway, and despite her love for the boy, her real love was the stage. My mother and I couldn't help but laugh remembering my rational for breaking up with my high school boyfriend while I was in NYC because I had to move there, I had to follow out my dream.

Granted most think of Rachel Berry as an annoying TV character and the girl no one could stand in high school, nevertheless I think there is something very pure, honest, and direct about loving your destiny above all else. Yes, my passionate plans may have changed over the past decade. Where I am going isn't to be a news anchor and stage actress, but the passion, the drive, and the purpose in my life is the same. I'm determined to see my life's purpose accomplished. I'm driven to never give up.

That said, I still believe in love. I am an artist, and driven by strong, sometimes overwhelming emotions. Those who know me best are driven AWAY by these deep feelings. Joy that makes me hug complete strangers without warning, heartache that is so gut-wrenching I can't help but wail, even stress and confusion that makes my body physically ill. Overkill? Maybe. But my capacity to feel deeply I have no doubt will be a catalyst for accomplishing the Work I am on the earth to accomplish. Although I've grown up and harnessed these emotions to a great degree I can't help but wonder if maybe one of the reasons I've remained single all these years is the fear of what love could do to me.

C.S. Lewis, a kindred spirit from a different century once wrote, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless==it will change. It will not be broken; it will be unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

Love, feeling, commitment, by any definition, is terrifying. I recently got a maltese puppy and have to admit have been wrecked by fear on more than one occasion at the thought of losing her. Yes, I am aware that she is merely a dog, but I love this dog more than a lot of husbands love their wives. Maybe it's the actress in me, but I do not believe in having half-felt emotions. If I am going to love, it has to be without abandon and maybe after 26 years that makes the idea of love terrifying. I consider how much I love my puppy who I know is temporary and cannot imagine the type of love I am capable of having for another human being. So perhaps by that token, maybe I am scared.

Two weeks ago an elderly man who was a minister for many years and now is a janitor at our high school filled the pulpit for my father. I have to admit, I was a little irritated he didn't ask me to preach, but the Sunday absolutely changed me. He prayed specifically for me in front of our entire congregation a the close of his message. Albeit, he began the message with the line, "Lord, someday someone will love her." (to chuckles of laughter by all) Then said he wasn't joking.

This man, who knows nothing serious concerning my personal life prayed the most prophetic word I have ever had spoken over me. That the Lord would bring someone into my life that would let me fly, let me be me, let me live out the call of God on my life. Someone who would understand the reason I live my life the way I do...

And after that prayer by an eighty-year old janitor, I believe I don't have to be afraid any more.

God has a big plan. It's bigger than me swimming in my thoughts...and why would I rush Him and cheat myself of experiencing an emotion greater than anything I could ever experience by finding someone on my own??

.