Two years ago I had a dream.
I was running to the train station to meet a friend. As I sprinted across the tracks I saw a massive, powerful train blazing forward. I thought for sure this was the train that my friend was on and I raced toward the train even as it failed to slow down. Just in time, I noticed the train would hurt me and before I was crushed to death I spun out of the way, realizing that it contained betrayal, manipulation, control and abuse.
The next train was not as impressive, but still, I thought for sure this would be “the one”. It was moving fast as well but as I stepped closer to the train, I noticed that the train was full of passivity and disrespect. I moved out of the way just in time.
I decided after the second fiasco that it was better to go wait at the train station than to risk running recklessly across the train tracks looking for my friend. So I positioned myself in a safe place and saw in the distance… the last train. It was moving more slowly but there was peace hovering around it. I waited patiently and the train eventually pulled to a stop where I stood expectantly outside the door, waiting for my friend to get off.
I realize that I have come to a point where though I wish I hadn’t made the mistakes I have made, I have been given an opportunity to share the wisdom I have learned with young women.
We as women, because of our vulnerable hearts, are easy targets for bad relationships. In my own experience, I have turned a blind eye to many “red flags” and turned away from wisdom because I didn’t remember how deceitful my heart was. The Word of God is a useful tool in discernment regarding relationships: “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians 13.
This week I had an opportunity to make a comparison. (Before you jump to conclusions, I am NOT dating anyone nor do I believe that anyone is in love with me– based on the verse above… nor am I in love with anyone. Blogs are how rumors get started.) The first person, though we have been friends for awhile (on and off) and have sort of an awkward history, I noticed, rather annoyingly this week that I was feeling manipulated by this person. I noticed that this person had indeed not been kind, dishonored me, had only thought of himself, had not protected me (though at that point I had been over our awkward history for a year) and certainly had not persevered by pursuing me in a godly way… and he suddenly wants to reconcile his behavior two months before I leave the state. How convenient for him.
The second person? Well, I’m not ready to say anything too specific but I have observed, so far as I can tell, kindness, patience, humility, and most importantly the protection of my heart as a brother in Christ. Because this friend demonstrated these qualities to me, I was able to recognize the deception (easily) in the other friendship.
Another truth that has struck my heart recently is the need for longing in my relationship with Jesus. This year has been one of the most fruitful, giddy-in-love years of my life. It has been an extremely dry season in regard to romantic relationships but in that, I have discovered my need for Jesus far out-weighs my angst with boys.
The truth is, a healthy romantic relationship is IMPOSSIBLE without truly giving our hearts to Jesus first. I personally believe it’s so important for young women, especially teenage girls (and guys for that matter) to give a few years getting to know the Man Jesus before walking into a relationship. Jesus needs to be the standard that we should be looking for in a dude and without knowing what that standard looks like, without knowing His heart, it is virtually impossible to recognize these qualities in someone else AS WELL AS obtaining these own qualities in ourselves.
Filed under: Dating
A guy friend of mine gave me a handy quote tonight. He said “girls build up walls so guys can tear them down.” It sounds so simple but to me it’s rather profound. It makes sense, right? Boys may feel scared about attempting to tear down the walls girls build up but in the end, when the walls come crashing to the ground, they are pretty pleased with themselves at what they have accomplished.
Filed under: Dating
I had my sacred trust in the prayer room last night and I just have to say… it was one of the more awkward evenings I’ve had at the House of Prayer. Why? I will explain.
The prayer room was almost entirely filled with date-less, single twenty-somethings. I found myself feeling very insecure about appearing emotional. I consciously refrained from shedding a tear in case someone might take it as pathetic emotionalism due to the fact that I was hopelessly single on Valentines Day. I wasn’t feeling any of these emotions actually. I was very cool with hanging out with Jesus on V-Day, but I found myself being distracted by the fact that others might assume this of me. How weird is that? Especially when no one else in the prayer room seemed to have a date last night either.
And then I began doing the things that all of you single folks do but just don’t admit that you do. I began peering around the room and found myself many times thinking the same thought… “oh wow… I’ve never seen this person before… and he’s single” or “hmmm… he doesn’t have a date on V-Day either”. Shallow, I know, and I can honestly say that I don’t do this often at all but it is rather humorous observing the events of last night.
I did actually receive some interesting communication yesterday and I responded with my usual defense-mechanism of complete indifference. One of these days I’ll learn to respond in a way that will actually encourage a guy to ask me out. But for now, I realize that I am a hopeless case when it comes to dating.
Filed under: Biblical love, Dating, Purity, Spirit of the Age, True Beauty
A couple of years ago I broke up with this guy for several reasons. A) he wasn’t a believer B) I wasn’t all that attracted to him C) our personalities clashed… A) being the most obvious reason I broke up with him.
A few months after, this guy started dating someone else. He began giving her all kinds of attention and I think at first, he was dating her to make me jealous. The result? I DID get jealous. It absolutely ate me alive to see them together all the time. It wasn’t that I even liked him anymore (however much convinced I was that I was still in love with him) it was just that I wasn’t getting showered with attention like I had been before this other girl came along. Previously, he had tried everything in his power to keep us together and now he seemed to be moving on… without me. While this went on I managed to make some rather stupid choices and DID get his attention back a few times just so that my ego could be stroked. It wasn’t a healthy situation and I regret stringing him along immensley. Afterall, I have been in the “other girl’s” shoes before as well and it is a very painful place.
Why are we women like this? Why do we insist on competing over male attention? Why is it such a big deal when we have the focused eye of the creator of the universe upon us? Shouldn’t that fill us with more satisfaction?
Just something I’ve been pondering today…
Filed under: Bible Study, Biblical love, Dating, Friendship, Jesus Loves Me, Marriage, Maturity, The Church
As I said in an earlier post, I’m going to be doing my own study on the correlation between Jesus as our Bridegroom and human marriage. I realize marriage is an unpopular subject here. It’s not looked at as bad but just… unpopular in some respects. Celibacy has gotten to be a trend at IHOP and in my opinion probably a little more trendy than it should be. Though it is honorable to be celibate, to set yourself apart for the Lord, it’s also healthy to recognize how beautiful the covenant of marriage is and what it represents. There needs to be this balance of being celibate because you have too much fear of rejection and being overly-obsessed with getting married.
I have, unfortunately, had a sour attitude about the whole institution of marriage for awhile now. I remember in one of my early PR teams discussing this subject. One of the “moms” in our group said that she was going to put me on the list for her prayer group. Her group apparently prays for all of the singles at IHOP, that they would find the right spouse. I rolled my eyes (very rudely, I realize), and replied with “I don’t need no stinkin’ man”. Everyone in the room stared at me with gaping mouths and then KJ replied with “yes you do!”
Now being single is not a bad thing. I definitely feel like I could make it on my own for the rest of my life, if I needed to. Marriage comes with a lot of responsibility and it is sort of a painful place where all of your weaknesses are exposed. It’s hard to hide inadequacies from your spouse and it is inevitable that you will HAVE to be vulnerable continually. I personally like to have all of my time to myself. I like to spend my money in ways that I enjoy and not having to answer to anyone else (other than Jesus, of course). You can serve the church and the lost more than you would if you were married. You are able to build healthy friendships and relationships with people that you wouldn’t ordinarily have. Being single has a lot of amazing advantages so why the heck would I get married? Well, I plan to have this question answered, the more I continue in this study.
“23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”
Ephesians 5:23-25 (TNIV)
This verse use to make me really mad until I heard Stuart Greaves comment on it while I was in Fire in the Night. He said, “submission is just letting your husband love you.”. Dang, that’s good. Submission isn’t something we should fear but it’s something we should embrace… it gives us an oppurtunity to be loved more. Why didn’t I think of that? This virtually elimates much of the fear that I’ve had over marriage, itself. I’m a strong woman and God created me this way. I don’t want to lose who I am as a woman just because of marriage.
Something else that has been really stirring me from this verse is that if you look at it… Jesus is our standard here, ladies. I think one of the reasons I’ve had such a bad attitude towards this is the fact that I have set low standards for myself and have set myself up for some very ungodly behavior from men. We should be looking for guys that closely resemble Jesus but at the same time strive to resemble Jesus ourselves. It’s such an amazing concept to me. We should be choosing meek, merciful, patient, passionate and powerful men and realize that they might make mistakes some times and this is when we have to mirror Jesus by being merciful and patient.
I don’t know all the reasons for God creating marriage but the overwhelming theme I continue to observe is that God created romantic love and marriage as symbol of his jealous, passionate, persistant covenant of love with us. It’s a very holy thing and something that should not be taken lightly. Our spouses (if we are suppose to get married) should be chosen with wisdom and we should be patient for God’s perfect timing in everything. And because we are the bride of Christ as well… we should know that He would want us to be treated with honor and dignity and to not settle for anything less than what He desires for us.
Filed under: Dating, Forgiveness, Friendship, Humility, Leadership, Maturity
“Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.” 1 Timothy 4:11
A girl I know here at IHOP got engaged last week. When she was telling me all about the exciting details, I have to say that I am increasingly impressed by the bars that continue to be raised by the men around this place. This guy, her fiance, secretly flew to her parents home in another state, asked for their daughter’s hand in marriage, video-taped the whole thing and then surprised her with an extravagant, romantic meal. I started to get that feeling that only a 27 year old female would get after hearing something like that: how the heck am I going to find a guy like that? Then it dawned me me. God’s been speaking to me a lot this year about the answer to that question. Not that I’m overly concerned with the idea of getting married but the older I get the more nervous I get… anyway. The Lord spoke to me and said “you find that guy by becoming that girl.”
But I don’t want to become “that girl” just so I can find a man. That’s lame. Paul is writing to Timothy in the verse above and one thing that struck me is that by Timothy, setting a mature example in his church, he was virtually eliminating the critical spirits of other believers. Obviously, there are always going to be cynics and heresy hunters running around but if we act and speak from a Spirit of truth, we are resisting the rejection of man.
Mike has been speaking to us about this for awhile now. There is something massive coming. I may not be in an official leadership office at the moment but I’m still in a place of leadership. I need to be an example. Let’s even take it up a notch higher. Yes, we need to show up at meetings when we are suppose to. Yes, we need to keep our word even when it hurts. Yes, we need to give even when we are low on cash. But what about the second commandment? What about when we feel like making that sarcastic comment in response to rejection and instead we turn around and bless? What about when we hear gossip and instead of joining in, we steer the conversation towards Jesus? What if we hear someone being struck down by another’s words and we decide to jump in and put our arms around the person being hurt? What if we make choices to be transparent instead of making everyone think we have it all together? What if in the moment of pain, we choose to forgive? What if we decide to assume the best out of someone instead of the worst? What if we stopped being competitive and let someone else be honored?
Now those are some hard pills to swallow.
Filed under: Dating
Why does spring always bring up the subject of romantic love and dating? Barf. I happen to be the worst dater perhaps EVER. I have come to the realization that I should no longer pick who I date and well, maybe I shouldn’t date at all. Why? Because I always end up dating someone that is so ridiculously wrong for me and lack the common sense in this area to discern if they are actually worth the effort. Lucky for me, Jesus usually jumps in supernaturally to save me from total disastor. When I say supernaturally… I mean it.
Last year I was working at a used book/record store in Dallas. It’s a little suspicious that it was about four months before God called me to be an intercessory missionary. I was working with a guy who had just graduated from California College of Arts in San Francisco. He was an artist… which is why he was working at a used book store. Anyway, he was pretty cute, very sweet, about five years older than me, and extremely talented, however, I didn’t even consider dating him because he wasn’t saved. Not that I was super mature in my faith at the time but I knew this was a big “no no”. This little rule of mine didn’t stop him though. He would ask me out and I would try to find some excuse and then he would ask me out again and I would feel bad so I would let him buy me dinner at a Spanish resteraunt off McKinney… or take me to the Nasher Sculpture Museum. My roommates would try to tell me that I was dating him but I would say, “of course not! He’s not even saved!” (this makes me sound like a terrible person doesn’t it?). Well after the few bouquets of flowers he bought me, the few gourmet dinners he cooked up for me, and the beautiful art work he gave me for Christmas…I started falling for the guy. I would have sobbing conversations with him on the phone late at night saying: “I just can’t do this! You’re agnostic! Jesus is suppose to be more important to me than you!” It went back and forth like this for months.
One afternoon I was having lunch with a pastor and his wife in Grapevine Texas. They didn’t know much about me at all and certainly didn’t know what was going on in my life. I was discussing the online intercession ministry that I was involved in when David (the pastor) suddenly stops me mid-sentence and says, “I feel like the Holy Spirit is telling me something right now…. who’s been hitting on you? Who’s been pursuing you?”
My jaw dropped… literally wide open.
He saw my reaction and pointed straight at me and said, “you need to stay away from him!”
Have I mentioned that this is not the first time something like this has happened? Yeah… I’m not kidding about that by the way. I don’t trust my own wisdom to make decisions like this for me anymore. Even with other believers, I seem to pick people that are totally wrong for me and I end up wanting to kick myself after it’s all said and done. I think I give up. I am holding up the white flag of surrender and well spring… spring for me is going to be about flowers and Jesus.
