When Lies Become the Truth

I just heard on the radio that 63% of Christian singles on Mingle.com and similar dating sites say they'd have sex before marriage. It breaks my heart that so many young people don't see anything wrong with that. I think what hurts the most is knowledge that a living breathing relationship with God is missing from so many young people's lives.

I also realize, however, that we, as Christians, are often deceived and tempted into sin. Just because in the past you slept with someone outside of marriage doesn't mean you don't have a real relationship with God. It's when you enter into the dating scene believing from the start that it’s okay to have premarital sex that something vital is missing from your relationship with God. And it's that fact that hurts that most. 

When the Lord's presence is real and at work in your life you know when you're living in disobedience. You know because he won't leave you alone. He brings people and things into your life to show you. There's a shadow that seems to hover over your heart and never goes away, at least not until you acknowledge your sin and start to change.

I originally started writing about my experiences as young single Christian woman for reasons just like this. I wanted others to know and experience the joys of a relationship with a Savior who died to know them. Yes, it can be hard at times, but no other relationship even comes close to the one found in Jesus. When I hear stories and statistics like this one my heart breaks because there are so many "Christians" out there who are obviously lacking that relationship.

How have we come so far from the truth? When did we start substituting lies for truth? When did we let what the world tells us become our basis for moral living rather that what God tells us? I wish I could put into words the hurt I feel at lack of a living relationship with God so many people have in their lives, especially when I know the joys of being in God's presence, but words tend to fall so short.

I didn't write this today to judge anyone or make anyone feel bad, because I am the last person to judge, but only because I wish so much more for our culture.

The 5 Stages; For the Girls, Part 3: Singleness

I’ve given up on the idea that I will ever meet the right guy. Well, that’s not completely true, I’m more… ambivalent to the whole idea. However, that may stem from the fact that I’ve been way too busy to give it more than a passing thought. That, coupled with the realization that 27 lies at few short months away, leaves me with the growing belief that my chances of meeting “the one” is found somewhere in the vicinity of one in a number filled with way to many zeroes. Why do I believe this? Well let’s see: number one, I live in Bemidji which, let’s face it, pretty much means that the chances of finding a suitable guy lies somewhere in the range of nil. Number two: all I seem to do is go to work, come home, go to church, come home, go to work, come home, visit family, come home, go to work, go to church, come home, go to work, come home, hang out with girlfriends, come home, go to work- and well, you get the picture. So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my chances of finding a suitable guy who loves Jesus, is single, is somewhat near my age, and finds me attractive has about as much probability as me finding an elephant munching on leaves in my backyard.

A couple of months ago a close friend revealed she’s admired the grace with which I’ve accepted my single state over the years. Her words were nice to hear, but a part of me laughed because I know it’s not true. I know I haven’t accepted my singleness with grace or even with a good attitude half the time. I know most of time I fluctuate between feelings of loneliness, insecurity, anger, hurt, and unfairness. Only I hide these feelings in the quiet of my own heart rather than show them to the world at large. Sure the years have tempered my feelings and there are many days where I like being single, but that doesn’t mean I always accept it with grace. 

In the last two years God has operated a lot of changes in my attitude. He’s changed the way I view both my singleness and him; but that doesn’t mean I don’t have days where I feel like crying from loneliness or days were I feel like railing at God because he’s graced me with singleness rather than a family of my own.  

Coming to grips with the idea God has called me to singleness isn’t always easy. Through the years I’ve built up dreams and made plans for what my life would look like if God would only send the “right one” along. Many of these dreams first began when I was little. They’ve grown with me over the years, slowly entwining around my heart and mind until the thought of losing them feels like losing a part of myself. And yet God asks me to hand over the dream.  And when he does it feels like a part of me is being ripped out. That’s why the process of accepting God’s call of singleness upon my life (whether it’s temporary or permanent) has required a grieving process. I’m learning to let go of something I’ve held dear to my heart for years, something that God, in his wisdom, is asking me to let go of.

From this painful experience I’ve discovered the process follows many of the steps of grieving a loved one. I’m not saying it’s exactly the same because nothing compares to losing a loved one, but we are grieving the loss of something dear and precious to us. We try to deny and ignore singleness has been thrust upon us, we bargain with God and when that fails we sink into depression and loneliness. We harbor anger, bitterness, and resentment, until finally, in spurts, we begin to accept and move on.

                 We all experience the stages of grieving differently. Some may process the loss quickly and move on easily, others may have a hard time letting go and accepting the reality of their seemingly endless single state. For me the stages have happened slowly over the length of almost a decade. Even now there are times when I feel like I regress and fall into a stage I thought I’d left long ago. 

                Each of the stages entwines with the others. Denial may be one stage and anger another, but just because they’re listed separately doesn’t mean they can’t be felt together. Often times the emotions we go through collide together making us feel as though we’re a giant ball of string fated to forever be tied in an impossibly tangled mess.

Denial- Singleness is a wave that silently washes over us. We don’t always notice it at first, not until we’ve been pulled far from what we always thought we wanted. Friends and family members are dating and getting married and yet we've been left alone to drift by ourselves. Each month and year that passes seems to pull us further and further away from what we always wanted. Despite this we like to convince ourselves we’re really not that far. We embrace the comfort of denial because we’d rather believe we’re closer to our desire than we truly are. We don’t want to accept the reality of living life alone and so we warmly and willingly welcome denial. Denial makes the pain bearable. Denial is what keeps us going some days. We don’t want to believe God may being calling us to singleness so we deflect, we deny the truth, and we hide from the knowledge we may be forever alone.

Bargaining- Years pass however and the longer we’re alone the harder it is to accept that the “one” even exists. As a result we begin to barter with God. We promise him we’ll spend more time with him, we offer to give more of our time and money to church and charities, we even promise to change our habits if that’s what God asks of us as along as he finally sends our significant other along. We offer everything we can think of, and yet, no matter how much we plead and beg it seems as though nothing we offer budges him in the right direction. It’s in these moments, when God doesn’t seem to care about our prayers, that we let anger, bitterness, and resentment seep in.

                Anger, Bitterness, and Resentment- Of all the stages this one offers the most danger. Let free upon the heart it will wreck more destruction than a tornado through Chicago. It is also the most seductive of the five stages. We believe we’ve been treated unfairly which leads us to believe that we have a right to feel cheated and angry. We see others who are happily together and we wonder how God could give them such a gift when he withholds it from us. Our friends begin to marry, build lives together, and have children while we feel left on the outskirts of life. Unfairness towards God’s (seemingly) lackadaisy approach on our lives builds and bitterness quietly (or for some of us, not so quietly) begins to take root. Anger and bitterness let free on our hearts and lives will slowly destroy our relationship with God and others. 

                The summer after my brother got married I moved in with both him and his wife (not something I’d recommend by the way, especially when they’re practically newlyweds, even if you are best friends with said brother. But I digress…). Despite having difficulties I enjoyed that summer because I got a chance to know my sister-in-law, we had a large yard with a garden, an actual house (not an apartment!), and I got to go fishing quite a few times. On one of those fishing trips I remember sitting in the boat looking at my brother and his wife thinking how badly I wanted to get married and have kids. I knew they’d being having children soon and I so badly wanted our kids to grow up together. I could see us going camping every summer, spending holidays enjoying the laughter of our children, and of course watching them grow up together. 

It was on that sunny July afternoon that I first felt the beginnings of true bitterness take root in my heart. It crept in so quietly I hardly knew it was there at first, but as it grew I began to realize something was wrong. I was angry all the time and no matter how much I prayed or read my bible all I felt towards God was overwhelming resentment. I had no idea what was wrong. I felt horrible and I couldn’t figure out why. I honestly had no idea why I felt such anger and resentment in my heart, all I knew was that I couldn’t live with it festering inside me. 

It was tearing me away from God and it was affecting my relationships.  Despite all of this it took me over a month and half before I truly turned to God in desperation. It was then that he revealed how much I’d begun to resent him because I’d felt he was withholding something I wanted. I couldn’t believe how much anger and bitterness I’d built up in such a small amount of time. In shock and pain I fell to my knees in front of him and begged for his forgiveness. 

Since that day I’ve learned to check my heart. I’ve learned to notice when bitterness seeps in and anger beat at the walls. Over the years I no longer struggle with them as much, but Satan knows my weaknesses and he will exploit them given the chance. So with God’s help I learn to keep a vigil. When I feel bitterness, anger, or resentment begin to take hold I’ve learned the only thing I can do is turn to God for cleansing and healing. It’s not always easy but it is necessary if I wish to build a relationship with him.

Depression and Loneliness- Despite our best endeavors to accept our singleness with joy there are days and weeks where loneliness and depression are our closest companions. I’ve found over the years that these moments seem to revolve around two things. The first tends to happen when friends (especially those whom I remember being ten year old kids) get engaged and married. The second seems to occur when my hormones go crazy rather like atoms in a boiling pot of water, completely out of whack and no idea where to go so they proceed to wreak havoc on my normally peaceful life.

Of the five stages I think this one bears the most pain. It's in these moments that you are keenly reminded of your singleness and how alone you truly feel. These are the moments where you notice every couple who passes you on the street, every pregnant woman, and every young mother with her children. No matter how hard you try not to see them you can’t avoid it; not unless you choose to sit at home alone on the couch eating Oreos and butter pecan ice cream out the container, but not even that helps. All it does is remind you all the more of your single state.

Acceptance- Ah, the elusive acceptance of our single state. I must admit I’m a little bit jealous of those who step onto the path of singleness with a blithe step and happy countenance. I wish it had been that easy for me. Instead it took me years to even come close to a point where I could start to accept it. Apparently, I have been a remarkably slow learner! 

Acceptance can be the hardest of the stages to acquire and many times we make it there only to fall back to one of the previous steps. I know there are multiple times where, despite my best efforts and desires, I slip away from my contentment in God’s plan for my life. For me, the easiest stage to fall back on is depression and loneliness. When these moments come I have to remind myself that God has plan. Maybe it’s not a plan I can see or understand but it’s an amazing plan none the less. 

Isaiah 14:24 says “The Lord almighty has sworn, surely as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.” (emphasis mine). God has a plan for my life. One he’s laid out and planned just for me. Is it the one I had picked out for myself? No, in fact it’s strayed quite a bit from where I thought I’d be, but I know that he has set forth a plan for my life and despite how I think it should be his plan is infinitely better. 

After years of struggling against God’s plans I’ve finally come to a place where I find I can accept his call upon my life. Yes, there are days where I still struggle and wonder why he’s called me to be alone, but on those days I’ve learned that the best thing I can do is turn to him and hand over the worries and hurts I carry inside. He is my resting place. The one who constantly reminds me of how much I am loved and wanted by a God who doesn’t need me but wants me anyway. And that, that is the best part of any day.

None of the emotions flowing through these stages are easy and yet so many times we don’t want to give them up when confronted with them (I’m not saying that there aren’t days where we wouldn’t give anything to be rid of them. There have definitely been days where I have prayed, begging God, to take away the emotions running through me). It just that some days we want to have a pity party or days where we can just feel angry because we feel we’ve been treated unfairly. We feel we have the right to feel the way we do. Despite these moments each of us must be confronted by the painful truth- that by holding unto these emotions we are willingly accepting a part of our sinful natures. Our feelings of anger, denial, unfairness, and depression stem from a direct lack of trust in God’s plan for our lives. Is it easy to learn to let go of these negative emotions? No, it’s not. Is necessary to let them go? Yes, if we want to continue building a stronger relationship with God.

However, I’m not belittling these emotions either. I know how hard it is to walk through the dark moments when it feels like anger is eating you up, denial your strongest ally, and depression the enemy knocking down your door. Some days it’s easier to let the emotions rule us rather than fight them-especially when we feel we’re fighting alone. It’s easy for me to say that you’re not alone. That God is at your side willing and able to fight your battles with you, but just because I say it doesn’t make the war any easier to fight. I know this, but still I want to say it because I know he will fight your battles with you, he’ll hold you up when you’re too tired to carry on, and he’ll bind up the wounds you may encounter along the way. I know I've said it before, that the journey is going to be hard, but take it from someone who’s still traveling along the path, the moments may be hard but the relationship you build with God is worth more than any painful situation you may face.

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.