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.
