That's right, you read that correctly. I'm in love.
I have found the love of my life.
The one who "completes me."
My soul mate.
Oh, and you might know him. His name? God.
For well as long as I can remember, I have had this desire to fill a void in my life with men. I just wanted to be wanted by a man, I wanted a man to see me and want me to be his. And to do that I would change who I really was. I would pretend to be whatever someone else wanted, whatever they wanted as a friend, as a person. But in Thailand God showed me that who I am isn't in who I am friends with or if I have a boyfriend or what things I'm interested in.
Who I am is in Christ and nothing else, my identity is in God ALONE.
When He showed me this, I realized I have no idea who I am, I don't know what I like, or what my personality is, or just who I am in general. I am still learning about who I am. Even with learning about my identity I had this crazy desire to be married and to have a man in my life all the time. It was crazy distracting too. But in Cambodia God asked me to give that up, to give that desire for love, for a man to God and allow Him to have control of it and completely trust Him in it and allow Him to take that distraction away.
Valentine's Day this year God showed me that everything I had been seeking in an earthly man, I had in Him. In fact, I have been asking God to be that for me for so long, to be my strength, my shield, my protector. And that's the point, God is all that we need, we don't need a man because everything we want from them, we get from God in an even greater amount! All the love, comfort, and protection we think we can get from men, women, friends, or any kind of earthly thing, we get, and more, from God.
Isn't that crazy!
On our crazy bus ride from Tanzania to Malawi (that's a story for another blog) I was reading "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldredge which is all about the beauty of women and the love that God has for us. There is one part in the book that reads "You are the one that overwhelms his heart with just 'one glance of your eyes' (Song 4:9b). You are the one he sings over with delight and longs to dance with across mountaintops and ballroom floors (Zeph. 3:17). You are the one who takes his breath away by your beautiful heart that, agains all odds, hopes in him." That's just crazy, right! Why would the creator of the universe love me that much!? But he does, he loves us all that much! The part about Him wanting to dance with me "across mountaintops and ballroom floors" is what got me the most. I have never been one of those girls who wants to be a princess and all that stuff but when I read that I realized that I want that, I want a man to dance with me across the mountaintops and across ballroom floors. And guess what, I have that, my man wants to do that, and we dance together ALL THE TIME!!!!
While at debrief this month in Malawi, God taught me something else about me and His love. I was watching Runaway Bride with a friend for the first time. If you haven't seen the movie before, it's basically about this girl that falls in love with men by being exactly what they want, she says she enjoys the same things they do, she says she is basically them. But every time she goes to get married she runs, she can never go through with the wedding. She does this a grand total of 5 times. But it's the 5th man that she learns she is actually completely herself with and is truly in love with. At the end of the movie she is confessing her love to Ike Graham and he just gets up and asks her to dance with him and the first thing that I think about is how God wants to dance with me. As I think about this and the movie, I realize:
I AM THE RUNAWAY BRIDE
I tried finding love in all the wrong places, I have tried making myself into what I think my love wants. But it's all worthless because God is my Ike Graham, God is the groom I can be completely ME with, I don't have to pretend to be anything because I am exactly what my groom wants me to be… ME.
I am done running, I HAVE FOUND MY GROOM!
