The comment:

When your friend is dating someone you don’t like and you don’t agree with it, do you say something OR do you abide by this supposed code and keep your mouth shut because they are “happy”? 

Great question.
If I had a nickel for every time I got out a relationship and the immediate reaction from close friends and family was elation, I’d be…well, richer.

But, seriously… sometimes I feel like the whole world around me is holding their breath while I’m in a relationship, secretly hoping that this isn’t the guy I end up with. When it’s over, it’s as though they can breathe again and that often includes a barrage of reasons why he just wasn’t ‘right’ for me. Sometimes tears of relief are shed (by people who aren’t even my mom). I can’t help but think, ‘If you were that emotionally distraught by the thought of me being with him, why didn’t you just say something?!?’

I get it. I get why people don’t. When I asked my family and friends why they didn’t say anything when I was in these various relationships, I’m often met with some sort of answer like, ‘Just because I don’t like him doesn’t mean that you don’t… you clearly do, so I wasn’t going to let my dislike of him get in the way of that.’  That’s fair…if you just don’t like him but think that he’s good for me, I guess.

OR, there’s the common, ‘It’s not my business to say anything.’…or, ‘You’re going to be the one to have to live with him your whole life, and I’m not going to try to tell you that I know him better than you.’…or, ‘I trust your judgment.’

Okay… sure. But it’s a little infuriating when the vast majority of the people in your life suddenly come forward after a relationship is over to confess all their concerns and fears about you spending the rest of your life with someone. That certainly doesn’t help me after there’s no need to even decide on whether or not being in the relationship is a good idea. It’s been decided and your two cents after the fact just makes me pissed that you didn’t have the nerve to tell me while we were dating. Even if you’re just trying to make me feel better about the relationship being over… a heads-up while I was all in would have been nice, too.

And some people did say stuff, and I wasn’t willing to listen (can’t we all identify with that?)…but I certainly appreciated them being honest with me, even if I didn’t like it at the time. I’m not really angry about it (whether people did or didn’t say things)… I mostly think it’s intriguing to think about why we don’t always say something and when, or if, we ever should.

There’s a lot of people that get into relationships that I think are terrible ideas. I don’t always tell them. So, at what point do you address concerns that you have? Is it ever appropriate? Is it ever received well?

Honestly–I have a hard time believing that it is ever received well. I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason for us to not be honest with those closest to us, though. I think, in confronting things of such a sensitive nature, we should probably always expect that we most likely won’t be met with open arms. In fact, people may try to distance themselves from us, they may not want to talk to us anymore, they may think we’re out to get them. It’s why it’s risky for us to say anything…and it’s probably why most of us don’t. Plus, we don’t want to meddle.

I think making a decision to say something or not boils down to your relationship with the other person, your reason for it not being a good idea, and how you approach said confrontation. Here are some things to consider:

• How close are you to this person? 
• Do you have the kind of friendship/relationship that withstands disagreements/tension? 
• Do they know that you love them, no matter what? That you have their best interest in mind? 
• In saying something, do you have any alternative motivation for this relationship not working out (i.e. are you in love with your best friend and so any relationship he/she gets in is automatically a bad idea if it’s not you…) 
• Does your dislike of the person have anything to do with you? (i.e. your best friend suddenly disappeared because they started dating someone and now you’re jealous, sad, lonely because you don’t get to see them anymore…you want your best friend back!) 

It sucks when they move on, doesn’t it?
Even if you don’t want them anymore…there’s still this pain that resurfaces when you realize that you’re no longer necessary, that you’re no longer part of the plan… that they no longer want you. It’s probably one of the hardest parts about breaking up. Admitting that there’s actually someone better out there for them than you.

The sting doesn’t ever seem to go away. Even though it’s been over a decade since some of my break-ups, there’s still the prick of a reminder that someone else was better suited for them. It fades, sure… but it’s still there.

It’s hard to not immediately go into my little pity party mode. It’s hard to look at things objectively and rationally and truly put others before myself. It’s hard to not think about the one million things that must be wrong with me that make me unable to maintain a relationship, or unable for someone to want to be with me for the long haul.

It’s actually funny how much I notice self-deprecation when it comes out in other people, but seem perfectly oblivious to it within myself. When others are hard on themselves or unable to see any sort of good that they have to offer, it’s so frustrating to me. How come they can’t see the good? How come they can’t believe in themselves? How come they have to be so consumed by the negative? I don’t get it. I’m not like that…

And then my eldest brother told me how I am like that. I am always putting myself down.
He’s right.
I do.
It’s this form of self-preservation, I think. Even the good things that happen to me, it can never happen because I’m actually good or talented or desirable–but there’s always a hidden motive, reason, excuse for why something good could actually happen to me. I’m too scared to ever hope for anything different.

I don’t believe in me.
And the break ups remind me that I wasn’t good enough. They’re proof that I cling to show the world I was right. The moving on allows me to believe that someone else will always be better than me. It perpetuates this spiral of thinking that I’ll always lose, I’ll always fail.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

There’s an opportunity for things to be different. For me to be different. There’s that opportunity for you, too. The question always becomes about whether or not we want to change. It seems easier for me to mope and be sad and lonely, believing that I’m ultimately incapable of anything good or that people don’t genuinely care about me without any hidden motive. It’s much harder to go through life hoping and believing…when the risk of disappointment is so high. It’s much harder to keep going through life hoping and believing…even when there is disappointment and heartache.

I want to change.
Do you?
The self-loathing has to stop.  We can’t keep searching for every reason to feel sorry for ourselves, to think we’re failures, to feel like we’ll never get it right. From our ex’s moving on, to not getting a job, to getting a bad grade, to messing up a recipe… whatever big or small thing: these are not the things that define us.

My circumstances shouldn’t change who I am. My feelings shouldn’t change who I am.
I suppose it’s about time to start really believing that.
Let’s seize this opportunity for a second chance… another chance to be different, to believe in who we really are. And may that transform everything else…even when they move on.

It’s windy.
And rainy.
Somewhat of an ominous feeling–particularly exciting for a Salem night a few days before Halloween. This place is witch city and the additional impending hurricane makes it all the more crazy (like a ghost town, actually). Fortunately we’re not really within the line of fire (although we attempted to make it into the NYC area today but the threats of squalls and floods deterred us).

Life has been pretty low-key lately. Filled with babies and television and family and food… can you really complain about that? It’s like one really long vacation, only less stressful and with some work stuff on the side.

The last few days I’ve realized how terrified I am about the future. Too terrified to want to make a decision that seems like a long-term commitment. It seems easier to play things by ear, to not settle down, to not decide on anything at all. Time is going by quickly though, and I’m left with some pretty big-time decisions ahead of me.

In the midst of this, I’ve also become very aware that I want a family. It’s something I always said I wanted, but, truth be told, I think I knew I always wanted a husband but felt okay without the additional responsibility of what kids would mean. Babies were frightening and unfamiliar, toddlers were screaming, walking, needy monsters, and teenagers were out of control, near-sighted mistake-makers. No part of raising children seemed super exciting… it only seemed like one sacrifice after another. I never felt competent enough to successfully get kids to adulthood, either.

But then I started hanging out with babies. And one of my brothers introduced me to Parenthood. And then I’ve spent the last 2 months with my family… and I’ve been increasingly thankful for each of them.

I want a family.
I want to have kids. I want to adopt kids. I want to be married. I want to go through the hard stuff of everything that entails…because I’ve seen the joy that also accompanies it. I see the way it refines and changes you and the way you learn to live a life outside of yourself.

And so I’m scared.
I’m scared that as I’m in this period of transition that I’m just waiting for a season of marriage and family to finally kick in. It seems stupid to be waiting though. It’s like I’m wasting time. I don’t want to live life waiting. I want to be proactively doing things that I know I am called to, that I know I am passionate about. So, in the process of trying to sort through what that even means for me, I want to erase this thought in the back of my mind that I’m still just biding my time…that I’m still just waiting.

My oldest brother and I talked a bit about it the other night. He said, ‘It seems like God has a best plan possible for you right now and for you to say that your plan is better than His is ridiculous.’  Which is true. And it’s what I’m doing. I’m essentially saying, ‘Okay God…I’ll do this other thing until you decide to do things my way…. because my plan is the better plan. My plan is what I want more than your plan’.

The hilarious part is that everything is different in hindsight. Looking back at the last ten years of my life, I don’t regret being single for a moment. I love the opportunities that I’ve been able to have, I love the job that I was able to do, I love the people that I got to meet, the places I was able to go… and so much of that was possible because I didn’t have a spouse or a family to worry about or to take care of. It was only what the Lord had for me.

So why can’t that continue to be my mindset?
Why can’t I continue to trust that the Lord is taking care of me, that His plan is best… even if that never entails the things I think I want right now? Why can’t I live that way without having to look back and acknowledge it was better?

It’s kind of this vulnerable spot for me right now.
Still admitting that I don’t have these things and that sometimes I desperately want them…and hoping that people don’t ever feel sorry for me in the process. 

The good news is that I don’t have to make any big-time decisions about my life today. But, when I do (which is sooner than I wish)…I’m going to walk in faith that the Lord does have a best possible plan for me right now, even if it doesn’t include what I think I want. I don’t have to live my life feeling like I’m waiting for something better to come along. Perhaps I might live, instead, with the mindset that wherever I am… it’s good. A balance of being content, yet still pushing on toward what lies ahead…without some preconceived notion of what that actually is.

It’s a funny, complicated thing.
In the meantime?
My big decision will be what kind of topping I want on my pizza. I do love pizza.

Don’t feel sorry for me.
I’m doing exactly what I need to be doing right now.
And it’s good. 

Can you talk about the big ‘M’ without offending someone? Can you talk about it without being too crass or perverse or inappropriate?

I’m going to try to today…and I hope I don’t offend any of my readers. It’s been a topic that’s been brought up more than once and I’ve been too much of a coward to blog about it. I want to talk about it now because I fear the stigma surrounding it lends itself to something we only avoid discussing, when maybe we should do the opposite.

Masturbation.
The word itself is hard to say, look at, type.
I remember the first time that I heard it in a movie and I innocently asked my three older brothers and my mom what it meant. They told me to look it up in the dictionary. I did, but the words failed me. I didn’t grasp the meaning behind it and so I lost interest.

It wasn’t until a few years later when it all started clicking. ‘Oh, that means that??’
I can’t say I blamed my family for avoiding the awkward conversation in the middle of enjoyable family time…I probably would have done the same.

It’s a word that is dirty, shameful, repulsive.
Or, at least that’s what many of us have been trained to think.

There’s much debate over the issue, especially in Christian circles. It seems you either stand on the side of it being undoubtedly a sin, or you stand on the side of it being no big deal. There’s probably a few of us in the middle… and that’s where I stand.

I see both sides of the argument–but I’m not convinced that either are entirely correct. There’s not a lot (or any) biblical stance on this specific issue either. Many might argue that the scriptures on lust are applicable to masturbation…and sometimes they probably are. I could never say that they always are though. There are instances where I think it can be especially harmful to someone, but sometimes I think our bodies are in need of a sexual release.

I’ve had many a girl shamefully confide in me about this secret habit…and my heart breaks for them. Not necessarily because of what they are doing/have done, but because of the shame and humiliation that surrounds it. There are usually always tears, and there’s always the fears of being thought of differently that accompanies such a confession. It makes me ticked off at society… probably our Christian world than anything else. Masturbation, especially among women, is simply not something we do.. let alone something we ever talk about, right? And so, rather than exist in a fellowship where we can openly discuss hard topics and figure out where we stand on these issues, so many women vow to never speak of it. No one else has to know…it’s soon a hidden, dark secret. The more hidden it is, the more it affects us in negative ways. It becomes a slippery slope.

I usually approach conversations with girls about masturbation in whatever way I feel like they need me to. Meaning, if you think it’s a sin…I’m not going to tell you it’s not. If you don’t think it is, I’m not going to tell you that it is. I think both can be true. Most importantly, I want you to know why you think it’s a sin….just like I want you to know why you think anything might be a sin. Sometimes I think we get too carried away in what other people are telling us is sin vs. finding out for ourselves what is and what isn’t. And… isn’t it possible (or just true) that sometimes what’s sin for me is not sin for you and vice versa??

But, as far as masturbation goes…
Here are the instances where I think it can be especially harmful:

• in Lust (I would say if you’re masturbating to pornography, this would be a big clue… or if you’re thinking about someone while doing it)
• Addiction (the lack of self-control… of feeling like you need to do it all the time, that you can’t stop)
• Loneliness (letting it fill some sort of void, trying to get fulfillment from it)
• Impatience (not wanting to wait for the pleasure of what sex can bring)
• Control (doubting God’s goodness in your life and His desire for you to ever have sex…so you’ll just take matters into your own hands)

It’s pretty sweet to walk a few blocks, jump on a bus and less than thirty minutes later be smack-dab in the middle of New York City. I’m not sure if I’d want it to be my entire life, but for a month? I love it. Add in the fact that it’s fall and the weather has been a-m-a-z-i-n-g and I’m finding out more about the true joys of aunthood every day… it’s so good.

My brother and I ventured into the city yesterday and were able to get into a Broadway show for $27.00 each. We won the lottery. The show? We hadn’t really ever heard of it before, but with five Tony’s and some high recommendations from people in the business, we thought we’d give Peter and the Starcatchers a chance. We weren’t disappointed.

I laughed a lot at the witty lines and ridiculous facial expressions and while the show painted a new picture of Peter Pan’s life for us to consider, the following line was the one that really stuck with me.

‘It’s supposed to hurt. That’s how you know it meant something.’ 

In a dialogue between Peter and Molly (the ‘Wendy-like’ character in a story about how Peter got to Neverland in the first place) where good-byes are painful and heart-wrenching, Molly spouts this out.

As I sat in my seat, I churned these words over and over again in my head. Is that a true statement? Do the things that mean more, hurt more? I reflected over my past wounds and deepest heartaches, recognizing on some level there’s some truth to it.

The people that hurt me the most are often the ones that matter most to me.
The hardest people to leave are the ones that I care the most about.
The things I love doing are the things that break my heart when I think about never doing them again.

So, really… the pain results in the absence of the thing that matters most. It results in the absence of loyalty or love, or the absence of someone’s physical presence, or the absence of getting to do what you feel like you were made to do. But perhaps it’s not ever ‘supposed’ to hurt at all…it’s the just the reality of how things are. It would seem that the ‘supposed’ to should actually be that the people we love/love us would never hurt us, that we would never have to leave those we care about, and we would always be able to do the things we love. Right?

I wonder if the ‘supposed to hurt’ is the way we now dictate how much something or someone means to us. Sometimes it’s probably how we decide whether or not to remain in relationships: ‘the thought of not being with you is too painful to bear, so I must care about you too much to ever let you go’. Perhaps the pain we feel can actually be the result of other things, too…and we too easily mix it up with love and passion (maybe we have an unhealthy attachment/addiction and the thought of releasing is devastating…even though the thing/person didn’t necessarily mean as much as we thought it did).

This is the kind of quote from something that you remember and then take with you other places. You make it your facebook status. You tweet it. You make it look all cool and decorated and put it on your mirror. You remind yourself each day that you’re supposed to hurt because that’s how you know things matter.

And, I kind of think that’s bogus and dangerous–especially the more I think about it.
It’s not supposed to hurt…. even if it does sometimes. Pain shouldn’t be the norm, it shouldn’t be what we settle for, it shouldn’t be what we expect. It’s okay (and I think good) for us to believe that sometimes the people we love/love us won’t hurt us, that sometimes we won’t have to say good-bye, that sometimes we can do the things we love for the rest of our lives.

I think this kind of quote enables me to feel sorry for myself and brings out my inner drama queen. It causes me to think more about my current circumstances and forget about the eternal and the joy I have in that….all the time. A place where I’m reminded that there’s no pain, no suffering, no tears.

Do the things that matter most hurt most?
Maybe sometimes.
But not all the time…
And pain should never be our gauge for how much something/someone means to us.

It’s not supposed to hurt.
It can still mean something even without the pain.

Be wary of the words that can so easily be written on our hearts if they are not truth….even if it sounds catchy and witty and, well, true. Dig deeper.

We must.

There’s no telling what’s going to flow from my fingers tonight.
There’s no agenda. There’s no plan.

I continue to wonder how honest I am with this online community. How well do you feel like you really know me? How much do you trust me? Am I more concerned with the amount of hits I receive each day over the quality of what I’m writing? Probably sometimes, unfortunately.

I sometimes want to write about things that I’m too scared for you to see. Controversial subjects–things that may sway you to never read my blog again. Things having to do with sex, and image, and God, and doubt, and fear, and hopelessness, and hopefulness, and love. Things that are raw and honest. Things you might disagree with. Things that might make my mother cringe.

I don’t think we’re open-minded enough though. I think we, all too often, walk around too confident in what we believe to be true, without allowing ourselves to consider that something else might actually be true. To some extent this can be good–being firm in our beliefs. But, sometimes…. sometimes I think that our inability to even hear others out without judgement and condemnation makes us hateful and more self-righteous than ever.

I feel like I know less than I did ten years ago. I feel like I’m less sure of things…but, simultaneously more confident. It’s a great paradox, I realize. Maybe it’s because before I was claiming to believe things without taking the time to really know why or if I even did. Now, I’d rather tell someone I don’t honestly know before taking a stance on something. Now, I’d rather hear someone else out and what they think before projecting my own thoughts and opinions on them.

For the last year I’ve longed to be absolutely stripped of what isn’t true. To be shed of the things within me that I’ve ignorantly believed because it’s what I was told to believe. Some of those things are true…and I cling to them. Some of them are not…and I want nothing to do with them any longer. I don’t want to exist in a place where I am solely defined by American Christianity…because sometimes I think we’ve just completely missed the mark. Because sometimes (ironically so), this Christianity seems void of Christ….which makes me realize how, as I sought to be a ‘solid Christian girl’, that there are parts of me void of Him too. My strife was more about achieving a great Christian status over being more in love with Jesus.

We care too much what people think.
I care too much what you think.
I care about disappointing you.

But, I know I will. I hope you know that, too.
I hope that no matter what I post and no matter what I think, that you would be willing to hear me out. That you would be willing to consider a view that might be different than yours. That you wouldn’t hesitate to challenge me or tell me your own thoughts/opinions on any subject.

I hope, in the end, that you trust that my desire is to unveil truth and to stop living according to the lies…whether that’s found in the religion or in the profane. It’s a journey that I’m constantly inviting you to join me in…as I hope to be constantly different, better, more in love with Jesus and who He really is.

I want to be stripped.
May everything else fall away other than what is true, and good, and pure. In the process, I pray that I learn the fullness of what it means to love and what it means to truly follow Jesus. Because, in my heart, I fear I have yet to know the magnitude of how much this changes everything.

I want to be more raw and real with you than ever before. I want the same from you.
I’m a little scared.
Maybe you are, too.
So… what do you say? Can I be honest with you?

I went to youth group last night.
It’s been a while…and it wasn’t my youth group, and it was comprised of strangers. But, I went. I was a judge for a pumpkin carving contest. I also helped lead a brief discussion with some teenager girls. It was a little awkward.

The topic? Feasting.
What does it mean to really taste and see that the Lord is good…in conjunction with the things we actually feast upon in our day-to-day life. We talked about food. We talked about eating disorders. We talked about going from one extreme to another and forgetting balance and moderation. We talked about how this isn’t just applicable to food.

Mostly, my sister-in-law and I talked. It was a weighty subject for only a few minutes of time and when you’re a newly-introduced, temporary person… I found myself struggling in how to relate. How much do I share of my own story? How directly can I ask them questions? What can I possibly say in these fifteen minutes to establish that this is a safe place, that there’s no judgment, that there is hope?

I don’t know how successful any of my attempts with them were, but I’ve been thinking a bit more about this idea of feasting…and just how much food actually consumes us. It’s everywhere. My sister-in-law and I joked today about the commercials that attack us on television. Every other one is sending an opposite message and we’re caught in a bipolar whirlwind of seduction. It’s as though our subconscious is screaming, ‘Eat more! You’re fat! Eat more! You’re fat!’ as we go back and forth between delicious food opportunities and dieting ads.

How could we ever fully break away from the things our world tells us? How could we, when we are fully inundated by everything around us, be convinced that image doesn’t matter? Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it sometimes matter what we wear? Doesn’t it sometimes matter how much we weigh? Doesn’t it sometimes matter whether or not we fix our hair? Doesn’t it sometimes matter how active we are?

There has to be something to recognizing what ultimately matters…and still existing in the world and not being of it. We still have interviews, we still have jobs, we still have health to maintain. I think this is where moderation has to come in. I don’t think women need to feel guilty about caring about how they look. I think the problem comes when it turns into something that is obsessed over. There’s nothing wrong with looking presentable, with putting on make-up, with shedding some excess weight.

It’s when we become all-consumed with what we look like…it’s when our worth comes from how we appear to others that problems arise. It’s when we lose sight of what really matters.In the grand scheme of eternity, how we look doesn’t matter. I don’t think we can ignore that it matters here though.

It’s tricky.
It’s tricky because it requires us existing in a place of uncertainty, a place where it’s easy to waiver too far in one direction. It almost seems more straight-forward to simply abstain from anything having to do with your external appearance–because then you’re not getting sucked into temptation and obsession over how you look. How do you concern yourself far more with matters of the heart while simultaneously tending to the outside in such a way that you are not solely driven by it?

Honestly-working at a camp made it easier to avoid this struggle. In an environment where it is acceptable to roll out of bed, throw on some shorts and a t-shirt, brush my teeth and walk into the office there wasn’t as much pressure to look a certain way. Now that I’m entering the ‘real’ world, I find myself longing to live within this balance of looking good without letting it consume me. Rather than hiding behind what I’ve always known and staying away from fashion, I think I’m moving into circumstances where I’ll need to put more effort into all of it.

But, there’s a greater confidence in who I am beyond what I look like.
I hope that’s true for you, too. As you figure out for yourself what your own boundaries are in terms of how much effort you can place into your appearance without letting it become all-consuming… I pray that you don’t ever lose sight of what matters. I pray that as you dress, as you apply make-up, as you purchase new things, as you freak out about grey hairs and wrinkles and a few extra pounds… that you would remember that there is more than this.

Live, remembering what fades away.
Be in the world, but not of it.
Find moderation in the things you live too excessively in, or too absently from.

Every good and perfect gift is from above.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
He has invited us to feast.
Shall we?

The comment:

Maybe there’s a part of me that doesn’t actually want to stay single forever. But it sounds easier, for sure. How can I relinquish control of that area of my heart without doing a 180 and turning into one of “those” girls who is obsessed with finding a husband? I don’t even want that – I just want a person to do life with, to have adventures with. I just want a normal, jesus-loving, awesome dude who happens to fall in love with me. How can I find that without settling for a “normal” relationship, am I allowed to maintain my creative, independent, stubborn nature while simultaneously hoping God will send the perfect guy my way who loves me for all that i am? And what if He doesn’t… what then?

I think there’s always something to being really honest with the Lord and with yourself. It’s often easier for us to deny things that we feel, think, want because we don’t want to face the reality of what that could mean for our life.

In your instance, admitting that you might not want to be single forever means that you’re opening yourself up to a lot of risk…and perhaps the biggest risk of all is choosing to believe that God might actually be good and give you something that you want, and then not having it happen, for whatever reason. Then what happens…? So, rather than face all of that, it always seems easier to deny that there are parts of you that may want something different for yourself.

It also sounds as though you live in extremes. You’ll either want nothing to do with the prospect of marriage or you’ll become obsessed with the very thought of meeting the right guy. Instead of maintaining a balance (which is attainable), you jump from one extreme to the other. I think this is where one of the first steps is just admitting to yourself and the Lord that you might not want to be single forever. I think this allows you to open your heart to the idea. Not become obsessed…but to be open to the idea that it is possible.

I suppose I don’t know what you mean by a ‘normal’ relationship. There’s probably the reality that at the end of the day, if you find someone who is ‘normal’ (does that exist?), Jesus-loving, and awesome that you’re probably still going to have conflict and challenges. There will be moments when life might be mundane or tedious. Ultimately, I think choosing to live life with someone means choosing to love them and you’ll have to let that look however that needs to look. At some point you’ll have to shed expectations of your ‘normal’ relationship and allow the relationship to take it’s own form, knowing that two people coming together are bringing two very different things into the equation.

I think you’re always allowed to maintain pieces of who you are… as long as they are in line with who God says that you are. Some of the independence and stubbornness that you cling to might actually be some of the very things that the Lord longs to chip away at. Would you be open to that? Would you be open to the Lord using a partner in life to help with that refining process?

One of my favorite Oswald Chambers quotes is below:

“When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”

It’s kind of this beautiful reminder to me that the more pressed into Christ we are (which always means the shedding of our flesh and sometimes the very things we tend to cling to about ourselves) then we will actually be more ourselves than ever before.
So, with that, I guess my question to you is are you willing to abandon aspects of your nature that might need to be abandoned? Not for the sake of marriage, but so you might find a better version of yourself for the sake of Christ? Could there ever be the possibility that a partner in life might help bring you into this place as you are being sanctified daily?

I guess all I’m trying to say is that I’d urge you toward openness… in your own heart, in your conversations with the Lord, with possibilities of what could be, with what a relationship can look like, with what a man you could spend the rest of your life is like, with what being single on this earth could look like. Openness toward yourself being refined, changed and growing and becoming more yourself than ever (which might be very different from the girl you remember being) and letting that be okay. Openness that the unknown to all your questions could even be better than denying a desire that might exist.

And ultimately?
Ultimately trusting in the Lord’s goodness and sovereignty and being willing to trust that when it looks different than anything you might have imagined–it’s always better.

Be open.
Trust.