Bride? Yes please!

So, you know that saying that roughly goes like this: "A girl's heart should be so wrapped up in God that a guy has to seek God to find her"?

It seems like a great quote. It's nice and fluffy and offers hope to any girl out there who thinks that romance is not going to ever be part of her life. It also seems to encourage the girl to pursue her creator who loves her more than any guy ever would, or could. I thought this for a long time.

Recently while talking with a friend of mine, she mentioned that she had brought up that saying while trying to counsel one of her friends in what her friend thought might be a hopeless romantic endeavor, and little red flags went up in my head. The only reason they did was because I had once had someone tell me the same thing. I'm not saying I had disastrous results with it, but there were some cautions I would give to anyone who tried to follow the sayings advice.

First my own experience with the saying. You might have read previously on this blog how I am a hopeless romantic, and in my freshmen year of college I became aware that the romance in my life was probably not going anywhere any time soon. I became despondent and depressed, worrying more about why guys weren't taking an interest in me that what my Savior thought of my moods.

So, I heard this saying from a couple different places and thought it was really a lovely idea. I swore off of guys and hoped that if I pursued my Savior, he would bring romance into my life. Let me say that again. I hoped that if I pursued my Savior, he would bring romance into my life. If you haven't already caught it, there's a problem with that statement. I was pursuing God to get an end that I wanted and not an end that my Savior wanted for me.

Now the good news is that God honored even that small misguided pursuit of him and drew me towards him, finally showing me that he was all I would ever need, no matter what. What I wish I'd done differently is just pursue God for who he is and not what he could have done for me.

So to those young women out there, I would caution you about that saying. Pursue God, yes. Bury your heart in his, yes. But don't do it with the hopes of an amazing romance on the horizon. What you will find instead is the most amazing romance of your life. The God of the universe, the one who spoke it into being, and yet cares about even the tiniest of life forms, knows you deeper than you even know yourself, your brokenness, your ugliness, your valid reasons for being unlovable, and yet loves you way more than you could ever know. He has died to bring you into a relationship with him. And it's not like we as sinners wanted relationships with him. Imagine the best romance you can and then times it by 1000 at least.

I'm trying to say with words that which is unsayable. Girls, it's okay to struggle with the fact that a God who is infinitely glorious and holy would love you. I struggle with it myself. But never stop preaching the gospel to yourself. In time you'll come to see him better and love him more and believe that he loves you as well. I am praying for each of you as you read this that you might see him who is more beautiful than you can imagine.

To all my girl friends out there who have been struggling with romance, your bridegroom awaits. All you have to do is walk down the isle. :)

~H

God is Good, part 3, or On Peeling a Sunburn

I went to the beach on Saturday with my sister and a mutual friend of ours. I've been lifeguarding so much this summer that I have a fairly decent tan, though, as I've been telling people it's not my cute suit tan. Well, after this Saturday, I no longer have a guard suit tan. I have a cute suit sunburn that is turning into a tan.

Now why bring up a sunburn? Well, I started peeling yesterday. And because I started peeling, I started thinking about snakes and their shedding their skin. The way my brain works, I automatically started thinking about my favorite part in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third book in the series, The Chronicles of Narnia, by CS Lewis. Many of you probably have already guessed which part that is. As it is, I'd like to put some of it here.

Eustace has been turned into a dragon, and when he appears at camp a boy again, he tells Edmund what happened. How a lion found him and let him up a mountain to a well where Eustace thought he could bathe and soothe the pain of the golden arm band that was hurting his dragon arm because it was made for a human. Eustace tells Edmund,

"The water [in the well] was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.

"I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

"But just as I was going to put my foot into the water I looked down and saw that it was all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this under skin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, o dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

"Then the lion said -- but I don't know if it spoke -- You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know -- if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off -- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt -- and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there I was smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me -- I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on -- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment."

The thing I love about this, is that Eustace says that when he was peeling of his skin it didn't hurt him. He only felt proud of himself. But when Aslan (because we all know the lion was Aslan) went and undressed him it hurt like crazy, but Aslan only had to do it once. It probably would have taken Eustace just about forever to get to the point that Aslan did in one go.

The whole moral of all this peeling is that, no matter how much I try to change myself and recognize my sinfulness by myself, I won't be able to change. It takes Aslan sinking his claws into my selfishness and sin to make it go away, and it probably will hurt like the dickens, but it's the only way forward. In the end it's good. Aslan is not a tame lion, but he is Good.

For that, if only for that, I am glad I got burned and started peeling. God is good.

God is Good, part 2

So, I went to title this blog (sometimes I title it before I write it, and other times I title it after I write it... this time it is before it's completely written) "God is Good" and then realized that the title sounded familiar. Sure enough, I found that I had written a blog that was already entitled that. So I read it.

First, it was written many months ago. It was during a time where Michael and I were hanging out regularly because our relationship had not yet gone "long distance", nothing much was hard in my life, in a sense that I was still in college and all I had to worry about were grades and whether or not my senior recital was going to go well. Since then I have student taught, graduated from college, and my relationship with Michael has "gone long distance." He is currently 5 hours away, and during the school year, he's 3 hours away.

It's funny how several months will change your perspective on things. Now, I'm not about to say that God's not good. That's definitely not true. But I am going to say that it's very easy to say that God is good when everything around you is good too. I'm also not saying that I'm not surrounded by good things. I am. I am surrounded by things that are good. A family that loves me, a job (though sometimes I wish it were more), the prospectiveness of jobs, life, a bed to sleep in, dentist appointments, communication with Michael, etc.

And yet, at the same time I feel like I'm learning more about the difference between saying God is good and knowing God is good. Right now, I'm having a hard time translating "God is good" from my head to my heart. What does living like you know God is good look like? I'm not sure. I think part of it looks like leaving everything to Him. Trusting that He's got a plan for whatever's happening right now. Being content (NOT the same as happy, more along the lines of joyful) with where He's put you, knowing that here and now He's trying to teach you something. It's not easy. I don't think it's supposed to be easy. But it is supposed to bring us closer to Him, and that is something that is easy. Drawing nearer to God should be easy because He is so beautiful.

Why all this wordage? What am I trying to say? Well, here. Help me. Pray that God would give me a spirit of contentment, and ease me through this time in my life where things are hard, but not terrible. Merely uncomfortable. Pray that God would enable me to see and know with my heart that He is indeed good and that He has got some massive awesome plan in mind for this. I'm sure, 100% positive, that in the future I'll look back and know that God had this for a reason, but I want to know that now.

I know. Patience isn't one of my strong suits, but this is something different. I want to know in my heart of hearts that God has something in store for me. It's called walking by faith, and not by sight. Walking through the dark night of the tunnel when you're not sure that there is light at the end, but you're trusting that there is. It's a fool's hope. A fool's trust. But then I'm trusting in the God who used the foolish things to shame the strong. Maybe there's some hope there after all.

This is me publicly declaring in the midst of stuff that God is GOOD.

~H