Adoption

Over at MOHL, the ladies there have been discussing the different names that Scripture gives the Church.  Since I'm in love with the theology of adoption, I'm sharing about how we have been adopted as "sons of the living God" (Romans 9:25-26).

Taste & See...

This month, the ladies at Meditations of His Love are speaking on Psalm 34.

Today, I scribble on why we need faith to taste,

how a faithless world needs to see us satisfied in Jesus,

and about that one time Peter Pan started a food fight.

It's Been a Journey - my singleness story

Part Seven of the Letters from Singleness series

Anyone who knows Melinda knows how easy it was to just love her.  She has a gracious and generous spirit, peppered with adorable quirk and humor.  I was a distant witness of this journey she's been traipsing.  A very blessed witness, because I've been a recipient of the joy of the Lord that she has radiated in all her difficulties.  You can't get this girl down; she loves Jesus too much.  You can find her scribblings at her personal blog and as administrator of Meditations of His Love; or as her hilarious self on Twitter.

 

August 4, 2013: I hadn’t slept for several nights. I was horribly sick. I was at my lowest point; discouraged, faint-hearted, and depressed. A month before tonight, I had lost my grandpa after several years of deterioration because of Parkinson’s disease. The last few nights, I had been dealing with the shock of an abrupt ending to an 8 month relationship.

 

That night, I was struggling for hope and whispering prayers for grace and faith. It wasn’t until I did something that I had been resisting that the peace came to my heart. I thanked the Lord for the heartbreak and the breakup. I saw no reason or purpose for this whole situation, but I accepted it from the Lord’s hand that night and chose to trust Him.

 

And I’ve done that again and again over the months since my breakup. Choosing trust and thankfulness in the midst of pain and loneliness is something that is not natural. Some days, I have to force myself to thank the Lord and surrender to His plan in my singleness. However, I’m surprised to find that I’ve been my happiest and contented about my single state since my breakup than I’ve ever been.

 

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let’s fast forward to my younger years of blissful childhood dreams of marriage. I honestly thought I’d be married by age 19. I laugh now at the thought. I was widely discontent in those years of 17-20. I thought about getting married all.the.time. I’m pretty embarrassed about how I revolved my life around my romantic notions marriage and family. Thankfully, I’ve grown a bit since then in maturity and brain cells. ;-)

 

Those early years of adult singleness were blessed years of learning and growing, being stretched and growing up. I know I didn’t deal with my tendency toward bitterness well and I’m thankful for God’s grace during those years. The biggest lesson I learned in my pre-dating adult years was diligence. God used that time to instill some habits and skills.

 

The year I turned 22, I entered into my first relationship. I thought I had arrived. Come to find out, I hadn’t. :-) That relationship was a huge wakeup call for me. It was a gentle push from God to take my relationship with Him to another level.

 

Even still, after that relationship ended, I still struggled with my single state in a less than godly way at times. I was bitter, sad, angry, and frustrated with the lack of manly, godly, single guys. I had good days, and really bad days. I felt guilty at my wrong attitude, but I didn’t seek to right it. I resisted the peace and joy the Lord offered and chose to display a frightful lack of trust in the Lord.

 

This last relationship shattered the last of my fairytale dreams about romance, love, and relationships. After I prayed that prayer of thankfulness in my desperately discouraged state, a tiny spark was lit in my heart. I’m slowly realizing that Christ is sufficient, even in the most difficult and lonely days, if I allow Him to be all in all in me.

 

This journey of singleness isn’t easy and it doesn’t get easier as I get older. However, with the Lord’s grace the pain is being used for much good in my life, and for that, I’m grateful. Recently, the Lord revealed my tendency to act like hurtful things (like breakups and loneliness) don’t bother me and to stuff my grief. It’s been a huge step for me to start admitting my pain and allowing myself to grieve. I find it odd that it’s difficult for me to embrace the grace of God and instead resist His love and peace, comfort and hope when I’m hurting.

 

My journey of singleness has taught me that this time, though difficult, is needful, beneficial, and only a tiny glimpse of all that the Lord has in store for me. It’s not for me to know what my future holds right now, but instead it’s a time for learning to embrace the grace of the Lord today, to abide in His joy at this moment, and to rest in His peace in the present. Marriage isn’t a fairytale romance dream, it’s a calling to embrace with joy, just like my present single state.

 

My daily prayer is for grace to admit the hurt, embrace the grace, rejoice in God’s hope, trust His plan, and allow the Lord to lead me in paths of righteousness. I pray the same for each of you, dear single friends!

Romantic Interest

Part Six in the Letters from Singleness series

 

So I have this problem with movies. Look at a movie poster for your typical “romantic movie”. You’ll see your lead actor or actress smiling impishly, usually in the middle of the poster, with the “romantic interest” smiling at the lead character. And this isn’t limited to just chick flicks. Anymore, any superhero or action movie poster has “the hero”, looking bold and heroic, and “the girl” either looking intently at the lead character or staring off to their left. Now here’s the thing, when you go in to watch one of these movies, it’s a practical certainty that these two people will end up together. There’s no surprise in it at all. In fact you would be a pretty disappointed if it didn’t happen the way you expected.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge movie fan. I think they’re great. My problem isn’t really with the movies themselves, but how we let the fiction inform how we want to live our own lives. For a single person, there’s hardly anything certain about finding a spouse. We can’t just look at the poster and say “Oh there’s the love of my life”.

 

I’ve spent countless hours worrying and agonizing over singleness and when I will meet my wife. I see my friends dating and getting married, seeing the amazing story that their life is unfolding into, then I sit back and stew over how boring my life feels in comparison. It’s far too easy to get impatient and wonder when my love story is going to begin. I’ll be at a coffee shop or strolling through Barnes & Noble, looking around the room and think “maybe she’s in here”.

 

What’s worse is when I start looking around among my female friends and wondering if I’ll end up marrying one of them. Now I do believe that it’s smart for people to hang out as friends before they date (and eventually get married) and I believe that God appoints certain people to play great parts in our lives. But of all the people you know and all the (much as I hate to use the word) “prospects” you might have, the truth is you will only marry one person. The rest are just your friends.

 

It was a little bit like this with the last girl I dated. We had coffee at Starbucks a few times and got along great. As it turned out we were both big movie buffs. Our first real date was watching Star Wars at her house. The best part was when I got her a toy light saber and she completely flipped out (in a good, excited nerdy way). Now most guys like me would say “She likes Star Wars? Marry…her…now!”

 

Obviously things didn’t go that direction. It became clear after a few months that things weren’t going to work out, so, painful as it was, we broke it off. But, oddly enough it we were still able to be friends. It took several months of keeping our distance and healing up, but we figured out that we could be really good friends…just not anything more than that.

 

Sometimes, a lot of times, God puts amazing people in our lives who are just supposed to be our friends. Great Friends. Amazing friends. Friends who treat you like they’re your brother or sister. Friends who help you out of a jam and give us a shoulder to cry on. Friends who you can talk to about anything, even about that one thing that nobody else gets, but you both love. They’ll be that friend that shows up on your wedding day, super excited to see you get married to the person God has designed you to be with for the rest of your life.

 

If you want to take a lesson away from the movies, it should be this: don’t confuse your “best friend” for your “romantic interest”. Just because they’re not your knight in shining armor doesn’t mean they won’t save your life once or twice. God will put men or women in your life who will have a huge part to play and if you try to make that friendship more than it’s supposed to be, then you’ll miss out on something great.

 

After all think of what would have happened if Mary Jane Watson had settled for her high school flame Flash Thompson and never fell in love with Peter Parker. What if Aragorn had given up hope of marrying Arwen and decided that the Lady Eowyn would be the next best thing. And of course let’s not forget the awkward debacle that would have ensued if Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker had gotten together.

 

Just remember that you’re not the one writing the story. I genuinely believe that God puts the desire to be married in our heart, and He wouldn’t do that if He didn’t have a plan for how to satisfy that desire. So hang in there. Our Father in Heaven is quite the storyteller and He is turning your life into an amazing story. Just buckle your seatbelt, because like any good storyteller He likes to throw in a few plot twists. Just roll with punches and…please do what you can to stick to the storyline, because you’d hate to end up accidently kissing your brother.

 

 

 ______________________________________________________________________________

 

Andrew Swearingen is an aspiring writer and a graduate of Southern Illinois University. He currently lives in Carbondale, Illinois. For a "real job" he works in landscaping and occasionally works as a substitute teacher. He attends Vine Church in Carbondale where he serves in the kid's program as well as various other service areas.

 

Dear Single Girl...

Part Five of the Letters from Singleness series

I met Meghan by discovering her blog for writers, Every Good Word through a mutual friend.  I quickly fell in love with the community she had created there & became a happy follower of her personal blog as well.  Soon, I would learn that I would have the honor of joining her as a co-contributor for Meditations of His Love.  As an aspiring novelist, Meghan has an immense love for written words and writing words.  It's been a pleasure knowing such a beautiful person, and witnessing her love for Christ in her work.

 

To you,

     The one who stands as a bridesmaid more than thrice. The one who slips a smile in place for yet another engaged friend or a new baby, while your hand is bereft of a ring and your arms empty of a child. In spite of doing singleness right, as unto the Lord—you're left wondering while you wait.

To you,
      The one who's looking for love in all the wrong places. The one who's settling for just a good enough guy. The one who's had her heart broken enough times to know better—but falls back into the same whirlwind thrill of romance while her heart aches for a breath of hope, surety and a love that places God first—while at the same time hoping this guy could be The One.

To you,
      The one who's gotten her heart shattered—perhaps more than once. In spite of patience, following all the do's and don't's in your relationship. In spite of all the right signs, coincidences too big to be chance—it fell through and you were left to sweep up the pieces of a shattered dreams.

To all of us with no relationship status to speak of,
       I hear your hearts. While it goes against it's own definition—the season of singleness was never meant to be walked alone. Don't think you're the only one going through this season—reach out beyond yourself and you will be sure to find others who not only will be blessed by you—but your heart will be touched by them.

      Too often we can slowly but surely retreat inward lest we get hurt or dare hope only to have those hopes deferred or worse yet—our hearts broken. For some of us, myself included—it's easier to dive head first into being the best bridesmaid/friend/wedding planner combo package your engaged friend could ever ask for. And, though genuinely thrilled, live vicariously through them thinking, It'll never happen for me. I'm too—fill in the blank. Think Katherine Heigl in the movie, 27 Dresses.

      Living in fear is what it boils down to, sisters. Regardless of what or who passed through your life to cause your heart to shrink back from living life to the fullest hope in this single season—living in fear is a direct affront to the Lord Who is the author and finisher ... of our love stories?     Yes, but more importantly—our faith.

      I'm a firm believer in the fact that these dreams of The One, marriage and children are God-given. They are not wrong—but beautiful! But God will make them beautiful in His time—not ours. Therein lies the struggle; how to we find the balance between contentment in living life to the fullest joy, yet with not mere confident, but expectant hope for the future God has planned for us? I'm coming to you here as one who's never had a guy express interest in me. My heart has never been broken, nor my hopes deferred ... nor have I been waiting on Mr. Right for years on end. I have however upheld friends in prayer who have gotten their hearts truly shattered. Some who have been in relationships a time or two—but for some reason or another despite all the very good signs, it hasn't worked out.

     Being single is lonely—no matter how big a family you have or how busy of a social life you lead. That's just the fact of the matter—our hearts do not have a loneliness switch we can flip on and off. It's what we do with this relationship status and heart-state that matters, sisters. We can close off our hearts or chase after the first pair of pants we notice that just may happen to meet our criteria. We can pridefully lock up our heart and pretend to toss away the key to the Lord when in reality we want to be in control because we don't believe God will pull through. After all—if He is such a good God, why does He allow heartache/bad things happen to good people? Why does He not give us the desires of our hearts when we're ready?

      To show how much He cherishes our reluctant, wondering, oh-so human hearts. To show us that His plans are better. In essence—to teach us that He is God and we are not. Whose love alone reaches the heavens in height, down to the bottom of the sea in depth. His is the only perfect love we will ever experience in our existence here on earth, all our days, whether we are single or married.

      All He's ever wanted was our hearts. All the jagged pieces. All the deferred dreams still beating strong deep down. All the mess of our past. He longs for us to surrender every bit of our work in progress hearts to Him and Him alone. This does not mean giving up our dreams of marriage and children, sisters—but committing those hopes and dreams to the One who placed them in our hearts in the first place.

      This Valentines Day—let us thank God for His abundant love and grace that colors every moment of our stories—past, present and future.