Be it

Breath in each solitary breath, encapsulate each moment with gratefulness

 

Shake the sandman from your eyes, quench the thirst in your spirit

 

 Do you hear your passion? You can’t miss it when you listen

 

We all have a rich craving to whittle out our own mission

 

The endeavor may seem steep, too long and hard

 

But every boundless journey comes with some resistance

 

Grace stretches beyond the horizon, let faith help you believe it

 

Be mesmerized that you are capable, your fashioned with the means

 

Appreciate with intention each seemingly futile step

 

Don’t take for granted the desire of what makes your spirit rise

 

It’s yours to claim, no one else can shape it the way you see it

 

Whatever it is that awakens your senses to pureness and beauty

 

God will give you what you need to go out and be it.

Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist anymore

If you know me and my blog you will know I’m a single mom and I’ve never been married. I have crossed the boundaries of intimacy with men many times. I hid in shame over crossing the boundaries and I even started to believe this was the way it had to be. I couldn’t have a relationship that wouldn’t be built upon anything but lust. Sure, I had met some strong Christian men before and there was that hope within me that maybe this time I met a leader. I so badly wanted to be with someone who took physical temptations seriously, someone who dared to not live by what is considered the norm. As I would date these Christian men, I would soon discover that purity had been thrown out the window. And honestly without a man leading in this area, I knew I was a sunken ship. But even still I would stay in these relationships because I started to believe this was the way it was now. The area of purity had turned gray and I stopped praying about the desire to stay pure myself.  It was one of those things where I could hear God calling me to purity but I was letting myself be defeated by what I could see vs. what I believed was the right thing to do. I could see that everyday more limits are being pushed in the entertainment world, I could see that sex sells and I need to be sexier, I could see that a lot of men didn’t want to lead or be held responsible. I stopped looking for the truth, I stopped seeking values, I started to see gray.

 

Yet amid the gray areas God still lived in me and he started to be bold with me about purity through other people. My hair stylist began talking about purity. I mean she was the last girl I expected to be talking about it. She just didn’t fit the mold. She was sassy, had a glamorous tattoo sleeve, she wore bright red lipstick, and if I didn’t know her from doing my hair I would be intimidated to talk to her. Yet as I  was getting my hair done one day she pours out her story and journey to purity. She met a man that wanted to honor her and God. She told me to fight for purity, that it was worth the wait. As I left the salon I felt a little surprised how God was showing up in the unexpected places to tell me that purity maybe is not dead. Then two of my close friends who shared the same struggles as me recently met a man that wanted to lead in purity. One is now married and the other one on her way to the alter in the next couple months. I can’t even describe the joy that exudes from both of them because they waited.

 

So, I decided that God doesn’t want me to brush off purity. He doesn’t want me to stop fighting the battle. The things I didn’t think existed anymore were beginning to show up right before my very eyes…value, respect, love, honor, obedience. Maybe I could experience what my hair stylist was talking about, maybe I could experience what my friends now had. Maybe I wouldn’t have to settle for what was the norm. And sure enough God showed up even more by bringing men into my life that stood for purity. In the past several months I have met grown men that were saving themselves for marriage and being completely open about it. And to make it even better, these men are not urcles- they are amazing men that have so much to offer.

 

I think God is showing me the redemption of creation. Yes we come from fallen people (hence Adam and Eve) but that doesn’t mean we have to keep the excuses that it’s too hard or they did so it’s not bad if I do too. Just because some people have stopped caring about purity doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. I’m learning to invest more time in seeking what is not the “norm”, I’m trying to figure out how to separate myself from the cycles of defeat. I recently went to see the play “The Great Divorce” by C.S Lewis. One of the scenes depicted a man holding tight onto one of his possessions- which happened to be a scaly lizard. He was asked to let it go and have it killed, but he was terrified to release this lizard that went everywhere with him, like an appendage. He couldn’t imagine what his life would look like without this lizard. In actuality he really didn’t want the lizard as it was bothersome and held him captive.  As I watched this man struggle to give up this possession I could see myself in his struggle to let go of what I know and what I see. After much turmoil and doubt, the man finally decided to give the lizard away to have it killed so he wouldn’t have to live with it anymore.  I believe that his greatest fear was that he thought if the lizard was to die he would surely die too. However, in an instant the lizard was gone and in its place there was a beautiful white stallion. He decided to give up his stronghold to what he didn’t see or what was not familiar to him and found that something far greater was available to him all along.

 

I think I forgot what could that something far greater could be available to me if I choose to believe in something that may not be prevalent these days. God didn’t give up the battle and desires for us to be restored. He wants us to trust that there is more than what we have grown accustomed to. The right thing can just be a little harder to find and takes a little bit of removing the dust to uncover the beauty that was intended for each one of us to experience. God has started to surround me with a lot of people that want to fight for purity. So, if you are struggling with purity in your life I urge you to call for him and he will show up with an army. I want to shout out to my friends and the wonderful men I know that are fighting for purity- thanks from the bottom of my heart for being a leader in a not so easy area of life.

 

This post is not meant to be preachy because I have struggled with my fight for purity for years. God knows my struggle, I turned away from him many times in my pursuit of restoring purity. But I hope for anyone that reads and struggles with this to know that you are not alone. It’s hard to not sit in the gray area but I have been shown recently that purity is alive we just have to look and fight a little harder for it. Peace and LOVE.

 

 

How I Learned to Be Loved

Like a lot of people I based my worth or how I was good based on my performance. But last year I had a breakthrough and found that performance doesn’t get me anywhere but frustrated at myself.  Sure, its easy to say that God doesn’t love us based on performance, but when we walk or stumble into our next failure the urge to hide in shame ultimately creeps up again regardless of the knowledge that his grace can’t be earned.  My natural instinct used to be to feel like an outcast that wasn’t supposed to pray to God because I messed up over the same thing again and again. I started to condemn myself and it dragged my heart down into a deep place of numbness because there were some strongholds that I just couldn’t conquer. I felt embarrassed to go back to God with the same request. So I just didn’t anymore because I felt like a hypocrite and that I might as well not ask for forgiveness because I would never get things right. And I knew if I was to really want to be changed that would mean God would expect something of me that I couldn’t accomplish- which would equal greater disappointment. Ultimately, I was living in fear of failure and fear of never being the woman he created me to be. But this thinking just kept me in a vicious cycle of feeling afraid, ashamed, embarrassed, burdened, and insufficient.

After years of hiding out I decided that I would try approaching God with the truth in my mind that he loved me no matter what.  I stood before God and poured out my failures each time they happened. I didn’t pray with fear but instead I prayed with confidence that God loved me regardless of my performance. I have to say at first it was really weird to boldly trust that the Lord accepted me and loved me even in my shortcomings. But something started to change, the condemnation I felt started to turned into a calm presence that I can do all things through Christ.  What started as a training of my mind to approach God in confidence that he loved me, over time a truth my heart trusted. I started to fall in love with God in a much more authentic way because he was able to love me in a more authentic way,the way he desired to love me all along- completely.  His love is the most sincere, the most genuine and he desires to be in the muck with us as crazy as that sounds. And those fears that God would expect more of me than I felt I could deliver was blown away because I felt embraced for me, even in my lifeless sin. His spirit was renewed in me because I let him love me in my weakness and found I was made stronger.