The Key; For the Girls, Part 1

In every life there are defining moments. Moments, when looked back upon, you can say there, there is when everything changed. These moments either thrill us or devastate us, but one thing is certain, they forever alter the patterns of our lives. I’ve had moments like these within my own life. Like the night I became a child of God, the year my parents chose to have more children, the day I headed off to college, or the summer I chose to work at a camp eight hours away from everything I knew. Each event crept up on me. None were made with deliberate effort in advance, and yet, in each of the moments I can see God’s hand at work, shaping me for a future I couldn’t see. Amongst these moments sits one (apart from the night I accepted Christ as my Savior) that has changed and molded my life in more ways than I can possibly explain or even understand.

               

 I was twelve that summer. I remember it as one of the best summers of my childhood. My friend and her family had just moved back to Minnesota from Virginia and they were staying at her grandparents for the summer. My brother and I spent almost every day that summer hanging out with her and her younger brother. We swam, rode bikes, watched Star Wars more times than I could count (I’ve never seen the Death Star blow up as many times as I did that summer. The boys loved to watch it blow up in slow motion over and over again), ate so many warheads that our tongues went numb and raw, collected pop bottle caps in hopes that we’d win something (of course we never did), and even did school (we were homeschooled) and I didn’t even mind! We built houses out of cardboard boxes, looked for household items in the JCPenney catalog, and cut out scrapbook paper for the wallpaper. I think we even planned out vegetable and flower gardens. It was a glorious, sun baked, laughter filled, friendship cementing, memory making summer. It was the type of summer where, looking back, you wish you could live it all again. 

                It was in the midst of these moments that something extraordinary happened—although at the time it seemed completely ordinary. There was no way I could have known that one simple decision would have a rippling effect that would slowly change and shape my life over the next fifteen years. 

                I have always a passion, boarding on obsession, for reading and it was no different that summer. My friend and I probably spent half that summer either at the library or reading what we'd checked out. The one series I remember most vividly was the Christy Miller books by Robin Jones Gunn. We instantly fell in love with them and spent years afterwards reading and rereading the books. I remember long phone conversations where we would sit forever just talking about them. To this day they hold a special place in my heart.

                The series followed the life of a girl named Christy through her high school and college years. At the beginning of the series Christy’s relationship with the Lord isn’t the greatest but her relationship with him slowly grows through each book. By the end of the series she has transformed into a young woman who loves the Lord and desires to follow his will no matter where it might lead her.

                In book twelve Christy is in Europe on a mission trip with some of her friends. Halfway through her friend Tracy shares a poem with her that she had written years ago for the guy she liked. 

Within my heart a garden grows,

Wild with violets and fragrant rose.

Bright daffodils line the narrow path,

My footsteps silent as I pass.

Sweet tulips nod their heads in rest;

I kneel in prayer to seek God’s best.

For ‘round my garden a fence stands firm

 To guard my heart so I can learn

Who should enter and who should wait

on the other side of my locked gate.

I clasp the key around my neck and wonder if the time is yet.

If I unlock the gate today,

Would you come in? Or run away?

                The poem sits heavy on Christy’s heart and over the next couple of chapters she begins to think about what it means in relation to her relationship with God and guys. In one of the very last chapters of the book she prays this prayer: 

“Lord Jesus I want you to hold the key. I want You to decide what should happen
in my heart’s garden. I want You to let in or send out anything or anybody You want. Especially with guys. I don’t want to ever unlock that gate again. I want You to open it only when the right man comes along. Take the key, Lord. Take all my keys. I’ll wait for You.”

Christy’s decision resonated within my own heart and I found myself praying the same prayer. I don’t remember the exact words I used, but I remember handing the key over to God freely giving up my rights to the key and the door to my heart. I didn’t know it at the time but that simple prayer changed my life forever. There are days when I wonder if I would have so willingly given up the key had I truly understood what I was giving up and what it meant for my future. However, looking back, I am immensely glad my teenage-self made that promise. It may have altered my life forever and led me down paths I would never have chosen for myself, but it has also deepened my relationship with God and set me on an amazing journey I would never have traveled if I hadn’t given up the key.

                I’d given up the key but I still fully expected to grow up and get married quickly. I had always believed I didn’t need to date until I was at least eighteen because the relationship couldn’t go anywhere until then. However, I’d also believed I would date at eighteen or shortly thereafter. I hadn’t planned on going to college or living by myself. No, my dream was to grow up (18 or 19 being grown-up), meet the man God had for me, get married, and we’d start our lives together. Only thing was, in the midst of my dreaming I apparently never stopped to ask what God’s plan was. 

                Eighteen quickly passed and then nineteen with no prospects in sight. I left for college and expected to meet someone. Twenty came and went as did twenty-one. Twenty-two quickly followed with twenty-three close behind. Still there was no one and I began to wonder what God was doing. 

Years passed and never once did God even hint he was going to open the gate. At some point I began to imagine the walls surrounding my heart resembled the walls of the garden from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Overgrown with ivy and hidden from the world. The gate, previously easily found, now seemed to be firmly concealed by solid inches of green foliage. 

I’m not going to say I understand what God was doing or that I fully accepted it at times. In fact there have been days and nights over the years where I have ranted and raved at God and there have been many, many, many tears shed over his decision, but each time God has calmly held out the key and asked if I would like it back. However, despite the days when I bemoan my single state, I’ve never wanted possession of the key. I want to know that when the gate finally opens it was because God chose to open it not me.

                Despite my reluctance in God’s plan from time to time I’ve always had the reassurance that should he ever open the gate it would because a guy cared enough to search for my heart in God and all the pain and questioning in the world could never measure up to this knowledge.

                Twenty-six years of life have passed without a single hint of God moving to open the gate. I’ve never been in love. I’ve never even had a crush on a boy. Oh sure, I’ve thought boys where cute and I wouldn’t mind if they decided to look my way, but I was never hurt when they didn’t. There are days when I’ve wondered if I’m normal. If my lack of feelings means there’s something wrong with me, but I’ve finally come to the understanding that I am perfectly normal, only God has locked up my heart and when the time is right he’ll know. I know it sounds funny, but somehow I know I’m just waiting for his permission to finally fall in love.

                I don’t always like sharing my story because people cast me funny looks when I tell them and look at me as though I’m a little crazy. It’s easier to just let it be and let people think I’m really picky or prefer to be single, but God has placed a burden on my heart to share my story. Over the past two years he has been demonstrating how he is lover of my soul and the relentless pursuer of my heart. He wants me to understand all I need is him and place him first within my life. There is nothing that I should long for more than him.

                Two years ago I read Captivated by Grace by Dr. David Jeremiah followed by Captivating by John and Stacy Eldredge. What God showed me there was absolutely, life-stopping, astounding. From those pages I began to see a God who desired me above all else. A God who’d spent every moment of my life pursuing me, looking for my attention. I’d always wanted a man to notice me, to love me, and to pursue me. As a woman this something God has engrained into my heart and I’d spent my life searching for it when all along God was whispering What about me? I want you. Notice me.

My female heart longed for someone who would go to the ends of the world for me. Someone who would fight dragons in my name, bring me flowers, call me up just to say he’s thinking about me, and brag to everyone he knew that I was his girl. I have yet to find an earthly man who will do these things for me, but I have found someone else who will. Instead of bringing me flowers he makes them sprout just for me. He never has to call me up because he never leaves my side. Angels rejoice because he calls me his. And he really did go to the ends of the world and fight dragons for me. His love is incomparable and I am covered in it.

And that is what this series is about. It’s about the God who wants you more than life itself and will fight death just for you. His love is immeasurable and overflowing. Make no mistake he’s not passively waiting for you; he’s actively at work pursuing you just waiting for the day you wake up and notice.