and talk about how good the Lord is.
(i'm exhausted; drained. emotional and thoughtful. i'm excited and apprehensive about the quickly upcoming months//weeks//days, and contemplative about the past. i've cried more and laughed harder in the last few weeks than i have in a long, long time. and i'm a female... what did you expect?)
i decided that i am going to pay t.j. five or ten or so dollars to draw me something to hang in my still-way-too-bleak-looking room. he stole my notebook tonight and started sketching, and came out with something i'd more expect to see on sweetman's blog than a piece of binder paper. (but i guess that's where much of creativity is honed?). anyway, he is getting really, really good. natalie, marcus and i all ended up semi-fighting over who would get to keep the drawing. marcus won, since it was much more of a masculine figure, and i decided that t.j. could just as easily draw me something closer to my personal taste than some random idea he just "had to get out of his head". not that what is in his head is by any means insufficient, but he was pretty excited at the idea of doing something "for commission" by request, as well. i am, too.
i think right now i just really don't feel like reading about the theology of christian counseling, making a forum post about the foundations of science, finishing something i have been making for a few days now, or, the thing i really need to do above all these: cleaning off my bed//cleaning up my room. yeah. every other day, it goes from looking like i am the biggest perfectionist to the sloppiest, laziest, "wow, i feel so bad for lauren" roommate ever, in a span of like, five minutes.
i am excited about tomorrow. tomorrow is wednesday. my easy day. last wednesday, i had chapel, did room checks, drove out to hollywood-ish area, worked for a lady for many more hours than expected, and then had coffee with peter, which led into the dinner hour, and after we visited kee-hyon at the church and jeremy at the house, we subsequently went to in and out. i honestly think that was the first time i had hung out with him just one-on-one since my junior year in high school, after we broke up. we continued to be alone a lot together initially after the break-up, as we were still committed to finishing our job at sacred heart fellowship doing the music worship together, but those were some of the hardest, most awkward times in my life. uhm, i guess until my sophomore year of college, that is.
however, those times, in high school i mean, were also some of the sweetest memories i have with my Lord. seriously. i cried nearly every day; i remember getting so excited the first time i didn't bawl my eyes out for a span of more than two days. i saw the Lord working in my heart like never before, and not at all because i knew the eventual outcome of my situation; i thought that peter breaking up with me was actually satan trying to ruin our wonderful, God-glorifying relationship that would someday lead into marriage. but i had no idea if i was right, of course. i guess i just knew i had nothing else. all my plans had been stripped away from me, and i only had two options: curse the Lord, run away from Him, blame Him for my unhappiness, because it isn't fair, or; run towards Him with everything i have and everything i am, because i have nothing left, and i have no one else. it was then that the Psalms became real to me:
"You are my Lord; apart from You i have no good thing" (16)
"the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (34)
"find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him" (62)
- my anthems.
the verses are still marked up in my pink and black checkered NIV bible, with semi-visible tear stains over the print. i finally knew Jesus as my lover, my comforter, my healer, my everything. He became real to me in a way that i had never known before, not even in my all-too-easily-glorified sophomore year of high school. i always knew that Jesus SHOULD be enough for me. and for a time, He was. that is, until he brought an amazing, godly, handsome, whatever-else-i-thought-at-the-time man into my life. then i thought, "this is what i've been missing, and i cannot live without him." so, he took him away.
just kidding.
that's not the only reason the Lord allowed that relationship to end. i will point out here, that i do not say, "allowed that relationship to fail." this is because, i do not believe it did so. someone might argue that all relationships that do not end in marriage fail, but i would like to challenge that notion. what is the definition of success? more so, what should be the definition of success for a Christian? from what i read in scripture, success is not measured by whether something has the outcome that we expected, desired, or makes sense - nor is it what others around us expect, desire, or makes sense to them. real, true success is measured by whether our decisions, actions, and reactions to the circumstances around us are filtered through a desire to honor the Lord or not. if we are all about our wants, our agendas, our personal plans and dreams, we can so easily forget the Lord. but, if we can pursue something and always be able to say as Christ demonstrated for us, "not as i will, but may Your will be done" - then, in whatever we do, we will succeed.
and once the Lord opened my eyes and revealed this to me, it was about same time that i was finally able to "let go" of peter. i realized that just because our relationship ended did not mean that it was a failure. if, in fact, we had done the best of our ability to honor the Lord in our relationship (in purity, speech, action, etc.), which i can confidently say that we did, what is it that i feared? God used this, then, to expose the real the heart of the issue: my fear of never getting married, never "finding someone" else, never having my dream life. etc.
so there it is. and the reality is plain and simple.
is my life about my desires, or God's desires for me?
is my life about my plans, or following God's plan for my life?
if my life about my life, or being an example of the life of my Redeemer, Jesus Christ, to everyone around me?
the answer is pretty obvious.
but every day i see myself failing to live this way.
and this -
this!
THIS, my friend
is why
our good, great, gracious God allows us to go through painful circumstances
awkward situations
heartbreaking trials
confusion and consequences
because He knows that we will not automatically live the way He intends us to.
the way we were created to.
He uses this to change us
to glorify Himself
to make us love Him more
which, in turn,
gives us more hope and peace
joy and purpose
than we would ever have experienced
had we gotten our own way in the first place.
and because of this truth, i can sit down with my ex-boyfriend, over four years later
and talk about what God has done - is doing in our lives
sympathize with one another about friends who have turned their backs on Him
encourage one another to persevere in the faith; to never loose sight of the call
and he can listen to me joyfully talk about the relationship the Lord has placed me in right now, at this time; all the while knowing in my heart that i do not need this relationship for my life to have meaning, purpose, or joy
and instead, it is because of the love of the Lord, for His glory, and His purpose that he has placed me where i am
and were this to ever change, as it did four years ago when i was seventeen,
then i will do the same as i did then, and cry out to my God
run to Him with all that i am
knowing that what i have on this earth, i do not need
but what i truly need, i will have for all of eternity
and oh, my God
because of this beautiful truth
i will sleep in peace tonight.
(psalm 4:7-8)
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