The past two months have radically changed my life. But before I get into what the Lord has done in me, let me give you a little background information:
I, like many other girls my age, have struggled desperately with identity and fulfillment. Its so common for women to get caught up in relationships with men and allowing those relationships to run our lives. We put our worth in whether or not we get attention from guys. Its a downward spiral of bad relationships, of demeening ourselves for the satisfaction of men, and becoming people we are ashamed of on the inside. The men in our lives have put us down, have trashed us, and have fueled insecurities we didnt even know we had.
With that said, God has done wonders in my identity the past two months. Steadily I am seeing my value and worth in our amazing Father, being a daughter of Him and not someone of this world. I can say that even if I went home today I couldn't even comprehend going back to the life I was living.
As I could have guessed, the enemy is not enjoying that one little bit and is using my past and the people in it to drag me backwards. I'll admit that even after I saw it I became stubborn and unwilling to let go of the people in my past, even though its clear we just cant understand each other anymore, but after some much needed encouragement I took a step.
I officially dub this No Guys November.
Let me clarify, for the next month I will not be communicating with unrelated men that are outside of Vietnam (yes I have to talk to my daddy, and I would like to effectively communicate with my team and people in my ministry here, so there has to be some exceptions).
Here's some encouragement for you if you are feeling stubborn about taking a path God is leading you to, when God moves HE REALLY MOVES! The night I made this decision was the last night of debrief, where the guys of our squad put the women in a circle and one by one we had to look each man in the eyes and let them tell us what they really thought about us. Seems scary right? Well it was. Have you ever been told by 19 guys in a row that you are beautiful, worthy, loved, valued, important, graceful, delicate? Has any guy ever told you that before? Yeah, me either, until last night. When I completely surrendered the worldly view I had of men God showed me real men of God in a BIG WAY.
This is how our lives should look as women, life should be poured into us by our men, and as women we need to lift up, encourage, and pray our men into their heavenly appointed places, which is exactly what we did! One by one our men came around so that we could just pray for them and I have never felt the presence of the Lord so strong before! His sons and daughters coming together in pure love for one another, that's what brings joy to our Daddy's heart!
