Your blogger at a church "Bake-Off" session. Placed because it's the little things in life that bring joy.
She talks about something I've struggled with from time to time in life... when I set aside time to pray, I end up begging for forgiveness and pleading with You to help me never to make the same mistake again, fearing You see me as a sinner and nothing more because I keep putting myself back in the same position time after time.
That's not how You see me. That's not the LOVE You love me with. You're greater than that.
While I was a student at Lee, I was told by a few people I respected that my ideas of perfection and the drive I had within me to achieve it would always be a hindrance... My sophomore year, I read Leading with a Limp by Dan Allender in a Mike Hayes leadership class.
I began the journey of seeing my even my faults as tools to be used by God. Sticking a wrench in the Devil's plans for and lies to me, for the first time, was opening my eyes to a life of an overcomer.
Aren't we all called to be an overcomer?
I want to see and realize that when I ask You to come and take over, the mess is no longer in my heart. The icky-black is turned white as snow. And I know You won't allow any temptation (in attitude or in deed) to come into my life that I can't overcome.
Do I even have time in my life, do I even want to, am I at a point where dating would be the next step?
Do I enjoy dating? Sure. Sure because it gives me hope that there actually may be a man out there who is Godly, not perfect, but a man nonetheless who sees his calling as a man as something to be fought for and used to fight with in the Kingdom.
I don't care what he looks like. I don't care what he does. I don't care about his past. I don't care what he drives or where he lives. I don't even care about age anymore.
The only thing I need and am hoping for in a man is that he genuinely love You, making his relationship with You a priority.
That's something I haven't found with anyone I've had a relationship with.
And that's why I need a mini-break, a time of solace with God. If he happens along my path, then it happens. I'm going to relax.
As the woman, I can't be the spiritual leader. It makes a relationship messy and the trust isn't there from my end. Maybe I feel like I can't trust him because he isn't going to You for direction.
In the only two good lessons in the movie Valentine's Day: when Gigi puts her heart on the line in every relationship (try to ignore the clingyness of it) and the man in the end who says to his girlfriend something like, "I realized I want to marry you. Any chance I have at happiness [men and the pursuit of happiness...why?] comes from making you happy and putting you first in my life."
I don't want someone who ranks the pursuit of happiness high on his list (because the more he pursues it the emptier he'll get). I want a man who pursues You and trusts You know best.
But, more and more, I've seen sparks of my former (dare I say) man-hater phase returning, the likes of a person I am no longer and no longer want to know or remember. But, as I get let down more and more, it returns. Really, to bite me lol like I realized it did on a date last week.
All the more reason for me to relax and refresh my heart with You, be entirely entwined in You, so I'll see the real thing when he comes along.
God, I need you to restore the GRACE and the PEACE and the HOPE in me that helped me see You everyday, everywhere and in everything. I want to be quick to forgive, to see, to love, to experience, to treasure, to respect and to discover what You've placed here for me.
Call me Grace. That's how I'll live and breathe and love.
Teach me. Give me hope as I partake in a time of solace with You.
4 comments:
"As the woman, I can't be the spiritual leader. It makes a relationship messy and the trust isn't there from my end." I think this a statement that describes the majority of single Christian women in this generation. I pray fervently that men will be men and step into the calling that they have to be leader in their whole hearted devotion to following Jesus!
This is great.
LOVE this post!!! I have a problem with perfectionism and your post spoke directly to my heart. Thank you for your honesty!
I'm SOOOO glad I came over to your blog today!!! Visiting from our east tn FB group :)
Blessings,
Melanie
My Dear Friend Ashley,
I do like this post... Perfection is not what God looks for in us. In fact, if being perfect were possible there would have been no need for the cross. But Christ, in His great love for us sent His son Jesus into the world to obliterate our sins and our need for "perfection".
Hebrews: 10: 1-10
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming- not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshippers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no *longer have felt guilty for their sins*. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am - it is written about me in the scroll- I have come to do your will, O God'"
First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, "here I am, I have come to do your will." He *sets aside* the first (the law) to establish the second. And by that will we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus *once and for all*. (!!!!)
I love how you mentioned how you would find yourself constantly going before God begging Him to forgive you of your sin, etc... BUT, the great news is He forgave ALL sins ONCE AND FOR ALL at the CROSS!!!! It's done... it's over... you're forgiven!!!
Grace to you sister!!! GRACE to you!
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