Another year, another dollar

So, I hit the big 35 yesterday.  It bothered me up until today.  This age was kind of a goal age for me.  If I wasn't married with kids by this age, I probably would never be:  all the rigmarole about having kids after 35 and the increased risk of birth defects, and other things added in.  I know, I know.  God's plans are bigger than my plans and I have know plenty of people that have had successful pregnancies after age 35.  It was just a milestone for me.  I have a feeling things in my life are going to change for the better in the next few months.  So who knows what will happen by my next birthday....

Bucket list revised...

I need to revise my bucket list.  It wasn't very well thought through and I will be updating it soon!

Is the wait worth it?

This blog post has shown up in my life twice in one week.  It makes a very good point.  But it also tells me that I need to change my way of thinking from the last 35 years.  As a little girl, I dreamed of the day I would put on a white dress and walk down the aisle to my prince charming.  Barbie and Ken got married many times at my house.  :-)  Or maybe "renewed their vows" would be the right term.  Barbie always wore white, because she had waited for her wedding night.  (On a tangent, I really like how the Duggar girls talked about waiting a couple of weeks ago on their show). 

Growing up in a Christian home, I heard this a lot.  I heard it at church.  I heard it at church camp.  Youth rallies.  I even went to a True Love Waits lock-in and signed the card.  I never had a purity ring because I am not much of a jewelry wearer. 

Save yourself for your spouse and God will bring the right person into your life.

Become the person you want to marry and the right person will come along.

God has a perfect person out there for everyone.

Have you tried (insert name of dating website here)?

My neighbor's son's girlfriend's hairdresser's preschool teacher's daughter's coworker is a nice young man.  I should set you guys up.

If you're single, I'm sure you could insert several more phrases into the list above.  I've heard the above, met the coworker, neighbor, etc.  I've waited, signed the pledge, etc.  Yet year after year, no one has shown up.  My 35th birthday is in a month.  I was looking back and thinking that I have really not accomplished anything.  I'm not married, I don't have any children, I don't have a lot of material things.  I do have a college degree and a decent job, but the world tells me that this is not enough.  The world tells me that I need more to be happy. 

I think what bothers me more about this is that I've waiting for an invisible man that's not going to show up.  I've waited.  I've sat on my hands and I've not been living my life because I've been waiting.  I shouldn't be listening to the world.  I need to be listening to God.  God says I have a full life in Him.  Looking at my life from God's perspective, I've taught children about Jesus in several ways.  I've got to go as a sponsor to camp (with my heart daughter aka niece).  I handed out Bibles in a foreign country.  I've seen God's hand at work in my life in many ways.  I've got to share this with people.  I haven't done this as much as I should, but it's been there.

That was another tangent.  God made people to bring Him glory.  I've often thought that if a marriage in my life would bring God more glory, He will bring it to pass.  Or if I can bring more glory to Him as a single, that is the way I need to stay.  It's a very hard pill to swallow at times, the thought that I may and will likely be single the rest of my life.  Especially when it happens to others around me, or when people keep telling me that it will happen.  It makes me doubt God's plan and blessings in my life. 

So that's where I'm at right now.  I'm almost 35, and I have to change my thinking.  God's plan is best.  God has good things planned for me.  God can use me whether I'm single or married.  Will I ever know why He has kept me single?  Maybe not, but I can say this.  The wait HAS been worth it.  I've missed out on a lot of heartbreak by waiting, among other things.  I have a lot of opportunities to serve God because I am single (not that you can't serve God as a married person, but take care that you don't work your single church members too much just because they are single).

Not too long ago, my niece mentioned marriage.  Hopefully I can teach her, and my nephew, that waiting is good because it brings glory to God and not just wait because it will bring the right person along at some point.  I think I've said enough so I will sign off.  I've got a lot of reading and praying to do...

 

 

 

 

 



Aching in this life

Back to the Laura Story song I mentioned yesterday: 

Part of the song towards the end mentions "disappointments" and "aching in the life" that points towards a need in our life that only God can fill.  God created man and woman to be in relationship with Him.  When God first created Adam and Eve, he would come walk with them everyday.  They communed with God.  I think the majority of my "aching" and "disappointments" come from the fact that in my relationship with God, He does the communicating and I listen for a couple of minutes and gone on about my way.  I expect Him to know everything that I need and the things others have asked me to pray for, but I don't take enough time to actually tell Him everything.  A relationship doesn't work if one person does all the work and the other person pops in every once in a while and says Hello.  That's my life story for the last few weeks.  I'm the popper that says "Hello" and then goes on about my merry way.  And I wonder why my relationship with God seems to be at a standstill.

Hmmmmm......

the desires of my heart

There is something that I have been wanting for a while now.

I just figured that if I kept going, eventually it would show up.

Yeah, I probably could have gone out and found it on my own.

I probably could have asked someone to find some for me.

But I didn't ask, I didn't find, I didn't get any of my own.

Sunday morning, fighting my usual "don't want to get out of bed"ness,

I finally got going and on my way to church.

Walking through the back door, I met what I never expected to see that morning.

Right there, right in front of me, that thing my heart had been wanting.

Brought to church by my good friends.

I spent some time with this desire tonight. 

It made my evening so much better. 

I hope you get to enjoy some in your life as well.

Home grown too.  How often do you see that in the city?

Fresh, home-grown,


OKRA

Midnight Mind Mumblings

I sit here, at 2:15 AM, wondering why I am still wide awake.  I'm checking off the events of the evening in my mind: no caffeine, didn't eat late, classical music before bed usually relaxes me.  I'm not sure what is keeping me awake.  I do have some things on my mind and wonder if I don't need to get the out in the open.  Maybe not the world-wide-web open, but maybe if I get the generalization of them off my chest I'll be able to sleep.  Although I highly doubt it. 

My life has not turned out the way I thought it would.  As little girls, we dream of white picket fences and white wedding gowns.  My dream did not turn out that way.  Instead, I got white walls and stacks of white paper.  Does that mean that my life has less meaning?  Sometimes I feel that way but when I step back and look at the whole of my life and at the hands that created my life and know the path that I am going down, I get a different perspective.  When I made the decision to accept Christ as my Saviour, my life became His to do with as He will.  My dreams are no longer my own.  The vision I had for my life becomes obtuse, and a different vision begins to form.  God has a plan for me (this is NOT a reference to Jeremiah 29:11) and that involves me telling as many people about Him and what He can do for them that I can.

However, that doesn't mean that my ugly selfish human nature will not kick in.  I've been thinking a lot this week on past decisions that I have made and how that affects the future.  No condemnation towards myself is intended, but there are some decisions that are made in a quick instant that become easier and easier to make.  The more I make them, the less I feel bad about them.  They are not necessarily bad decisions, depending on how one looks at them, but they do have lasting consequences.  It's not something I can ignore because they keep coming back to haunt me.  I'm on a different path now, trying to correct them but these mistakes will take a long time to correct. 

This is time that I feel I no longer have to accomplish some of the dreams that I once had for myself.  Dreams for a family.  I think it's bothered me more this week because I turn 35 in a couple of months.  It's like I'm suddenly staring 40 in the face and it's made me take a look back at where my life has gone.  I've had a good like, it just didn't turn out the way I thought it would.

So what do I do now?  I take another look at the future, consult God, and see where the next few years of my life take me.  So what if my white picket fence is a church pew full of children?  Or what if my white dress is a blue t-shirt that matches 30 other blue t-shirts?  I guess my dreams really didn't die.  God just fulfilled them in a different way.  It's time to seek new dreams and see where the path goes.  At the end of my life, I'll be able to look back and see the picture that only God can see now.  I'm glad the paintbrush is not in my hand because there is not telling what the painting would look like if it was....

Coming down from a church camp high...

I love being up on the moutaintops of KBA with God.  This week I got to share that experience with my niece and three other girls from church.  It was the girls' first time to go.  It's always a great time for me to get away from the world for a short while and spend some time focused on God.  I think the girls really benefited as well.  We were blessed to be joined by our pastor this week who made sure that we stayed hydrated in the heat. 

The lack of sleep was nothing compared to watching these girls go deeper in the Word and learn more about God.  To watch them sing in the worship services, and raise their hands to worship God brought great joy to me as well.  It was awesome to watch the girls make new friends, and to make new friends myself (or meet fellow brothers and sisters in Christ) and to see old friends again.

We had excellent preaching all week, awesome music, great classes, thought-provoking cabin devotionals at night.  The theme throughout the week was staying connected to Jesus.  Johnny Montgomery did an excellent job of bringing things down to the kids' level. 

In the afternoon, we spent some time playing games and on the Ropes course, learning that we have to work together, that we have to watch out which voices we are listening for, and that our brothers and sisters in Christ are here to help us along the way.  I'm trying to get a slide show to work which I'll post later.