Love is Patient

"Arise my love, my fair one, and come away..." - Song of Solomon 2:13

It's what I like to call "Princess Syndrome", and is a common affliction amongst Christian girls. As we grow in our faith and start to become women, the need for a prince on a white stallion to whisk us away and promptly marry us grows exponentially. We all go through it, and the impatience in waiting for our destined knight in shining armor increases extremely fast.

I could go in to immense detail over why this is, but it really comes down to one fact: we will always be in need of a man (or in some cases a woman, but that's another matter). It's part of our curse as the 'fairer' of the sexes and goes back to the infamous Eve in Genesis, and the original sin of humanity.
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they committed the original sin, and with that sin God bestowed on all of us curses. For men it's harder to grow stuff.
Women? "In pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you," (Gen. 3:16).

Lame, I know, but this is the root of us girls needing a guy. We have a desire for a husband that is a part of being a woman, a part of our very identity as a female.

Some girls will ask "but why is it wrong to have a boyfriend then?" I hear from a lot of friends involved in youth that this is a constant question from the young ladies, and isn't a surprise. Many people have different ideas on why this is, and how some girls have different reasons, but our curse is the reason.

However, this 'reason' does NOT mean that we should jump up and go out with the first pretty boy that catches our eye, girls. God is constantly redeeming us of our curse (the original sin and His punishments) through our Prince, Jesus Christ. Our need for someone to fill that role of husband is a constant need but it will only be properly filled by the right person at the right time who is chosen by our Father King.
We all have our moments thinking it's the right time and the right guy, but we have to be careful. A popular Superchick song goes "You found him is what you say and we all want you to feel that way, but the frog you've got seems cute enough to kiss and maybe frogs seem like that's all there is." We have to be careful, guard our hearts and wait for the right guy because they may all say that they are a prince, but there is someone waiting out there for you and you must take your time otherwise you might just end up having kissed a slimy amphibian.

There is no need to rush into romance. All the young celebrities are dating, and it seems like all the girls at school have a 'boyfriend', but that's not you. We as Christians are not followers of society, and we as Christian women are not to be followers of what society says is normal for relationships and romance. I have only met one couple in my entire life that started dating in high school and are still together, my parents. All of their friends that dated in high school either broke up by graduation or got divorced less than three years into marriage.

Is that what you want? Or do you want to save your precious treasure of a heart for someone who is worthy of it and live happily ever after? Don't go for that frog that's standing at your window claiming to be a prince, because your prince is on the way in all his white-horse-riding, gorgeous prince-ness. He just may take a little longer to battle his way to his waiting princess.

"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!" - Song of Solomon 3:5

An early morning mind blowing...

Something that has been constantly in my face lately is the pain of our broken world, and the beauty of people that are crying out for God even though they don't know it. It's a strange kind of beauty, not unlike that which you find in the desert. It's powerful, it's heartbreaking, and is the cause for so much of the disbelief in God in our post-modern society.

But I realized today that this cycle of pain is what led me to God. If you know me and know my story, you're probably thinking "Well, duh," but allow me to elaborate. There were many factors that led to my depression and countless attempts at suicide in my young to middle teens, but one of the ones that really stands out at the moment was the pain at seeing so much pain in the world. I remember the feeling of my heart snapping in half as I listened to the radio a few days after the 9/11 attack and hearing that war was officially being declared on terrorism. I remember the feeling of my heart breaking apart when I watched other kids that I had gone to school with begin down the destructive path of substance abuse.

The night I broke down and my heart finally called out for help when my mother confronted me, I remember thinking "There's so much wrong with the world, and I feel like I'm the only one that sees it. I feel so alone."

The last few classes in Spiritual Formation we have been watching "Soul Project" presentations. I have seen souls filled with so much scar tissue that the soul is unrecognizable from what it used to be, and souls that are still in the process of healing. A young man yesterday shared his soul, and the beauty of his lament, his cry out to God brought me to tears.
Pondering this, I realized how I have made a complete 180 from how much I have changed with God in my life. Years ago, this would have simply made me feel even more depressed and would have been on my mind as I tried to down a whole bottle of Tylenol, but now instead it gives me a little more insight into how God has transformed my heart.
It makes me love our broken humanity even more, and it gives me resolve to change this and show the broken ones that there is hope. Hope is real.

And today, I am making a concrete promise to this. I have known ever since I became a Christian that I live for loving others, but I must learn to love myself as well.

Today, I promise to love the broken. Today, I promise to love myself. Today, I promise to keep my love for God as number one. Today, I promise to live for love as best as my own recovering soul can.

Ramblings after being struck by a little inspiration...

My Soul

My soul is me;
growing, breaking, healing, loving.

My soul is l o n g i n g;
thirsting, y e a r n i n g to take flight
and bringmeclosertotheONE who set me free,
and mended my wings when they were
b
r
o
k
e
n.

My soul is fragile;
healing,
growing STRONGER after being set free
by Him.

Freed from the evil one who sat on my shoulders,
s
n
a
p
p
i
n
g
my bones
and
p
l
u
c
k
i
n
g
my feathers.

My soul is taking flight;
growing, working to become STRONGER
that I might enjoy
free
flight,
to go as high
andasclosetomyLoveaspossible.
And so that
others
might see my wings, my soul
and want to fly closer to
Him, too.

Heartbreak

For centuries Christians have been at the epicenter of pain, from before the Crusades to someone carelessly flinging a judgemental word at their neighbor today.

As I grow in my faith, more and more I hear stories about so-called 'followers' of Christ causing more pain and heartache than I can possibly imagine, much of this through the rejection of someone.
Frankly, there are too many verses to quote from the Bible about loving one's neighbor etc. to do it proper justice. And yet I hear about a priest sending anonymous death threats to one of his young parishioners who just declared his homosexuality to his family and friends; a church cutting off a family member, a fellow child of God, who committed adultery; a girl that carries a past filled with misguided beliefs and dark ritual hearing slanderous rumors created about herself by those she thought her friends.

So much pain. If I feel like this when I hear about these sorts of things, I can't begin to imagine how God must feel.

I have so many questions for these people. Why do you feel they are not worthy of your love if they are worthy of the love of God? What gives us the right to judge them if one deems them 'unworthy' of God's love? The Bible commands us not to judge others. Possibly one of my favorite parts in the Bible is of the woman who was to be stoned for adultery, Jesus halts her persecutors who came in the name of the law by asking them "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." No-one threw one measly pebble at the woman.

Everyone sins, no sin is worse than another in the eyes of God. Sounds scandalous? Not really, it's because He doesn't care.

God came down in the form of man and Jesus and died on the cross for all of us, not just the ones who go to church on Sunday, not just the ones who go to a certain kind of church, not just the ones who met their conversion quota for the week, but every single last person who has and who ever will exist. It doesn't matter how much someone has 'sinned', He loves every single one of us regardless of what we have done or will do.

I ask again, who are we to deny someone love? It's not as though that will keep God from loving them, but it will certainly hurt Him when we do not demonstrate love the way He intended. It was God that gave us the ability to love in the first place.

No-one is unworthy, no-one is not deserving. Please love.

Twisted?

I came to an odd realization today. Whenever I see someone close to me hurting I'll often daydream about trying to alleviate thier pain in some way, but it is always with my death.

Now, as a Christian I wonder is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is it a good thing that I would so willingly give up my own life to make someone happy, or am I insane? It's not as though I jump to the thought of dying immediately, but when I feel like there's nothing left for me to do it's what my mind seems to find as an answer.
It made me wonder if this is what God did for all of us when Jesus died on the cross. There wasn't any other way, so he died to save us. I'm not saying that I'm Him or anything, but isn't to be more like Him what all of His followers wish for? If I had the chance I would certainly die to save any person I know or to heal thier pain.

Or am I just twisted?

Bonzai!

It's pretty much a standard for young people in mainstream Christian culture these days, having been through the all consuming, fire and brimstone, tears and laughter filled mountaintop experience.

But what happens after you descend down the rocky mountain side and begin your new life as a follower of Christ?

A friend of mine had this, but once he began attending church regularly after giving his life to Christ he became conflicted, his beliefs of his previous life fighting for control with the new ones which were being spoken to him from the Bible.
Some stuck, most did not. As a fellow Christian, I begin to question my own newer beliefs which have become a part of my heart as much as my love for Christ.

Jesus Christ died for our sins, but only if we accept Him into our lives as our Saviour we are given a new life free of sin.
But what happens when the new morals and beliefs of our new life with Christ conflict with those that we've held onto for so long, or when society tells us that what He is saying is wrong?

My friend says that he doesn't hate God, he hates 'religion' because it tells him what to believe. To a degree, I both agree and disagree with this. I agree that some institutions of religion can be misleading and it is up to us (with the help of God) to recognize these misconceptions about life as a follower of Christ (Matthew 7:15).

But I also disagree with my friend. The Bible is the Word of God and teaches us many things. More than anything the church is for fellowship, but along with that fellowship comes guidance and a community in which one should be able to find not only protection and love but also friends who will call someone out if they aren't living the way they're supposed to (1 Timothy 5:20). Society as a whole may not agree with what the Bible says, some of your old beliefs may not coincide with what the minister was talking about in church last sunday, but if we are to have a true relationship with Jesus than we need to jump into our new life with both feet and leave behind our old selves.
You can't just dip your toe in to test the temperature, God wants you to full on cannonball into His love.