A quiet moment

I guess I'm feeling introspective at the moment. A little melancholy maybe. That's not the word I want. Wistful? Longing? I don't know. There are so many things I've always wanted in my life that I don't have (yet) and sometimes it catches up to me and I wonder. Maybe I won't have them. Maybe it's not part of the plan for me. I don't know. I'm not sad exactly, just contemplating how things could be different, the path I have followed and where I'm going. I don't know what my future holds, or if I will get all the things I long to have. Listening to the radio this morning they played a song I needed to hear, just to remind me. I get those a lot. So I'm going to share here.

It has taken me a long to time to reach the place I'm in now. Knowing how much I'm loved by God and knowing ultimately that's all I need. No one can give me what He gives me. He is the only one who will never let me down.

I have a good life. I love my life, I really do. I enjoy being relatively free of responsibilities and having some of my burdens shared. Having a roommate is working out well for me. Maybe this is unusual, but we have fun and talk about all kinds of things. I have someone there to support me and keep me accountable. It's good. Is this where I pictured myself at almost 30? No, but that doesn't make it bad. Still, I have moments when I wish... I don't even know. That I were further along in my journey? That I were ready for the things I've always wanted? Maybe.

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

But are the desires of my heart what they should be? I don't believe they will be fulfilled if they are not in line with God's purpose. I also believe that if it is not in His plan, He will remove the desire from my heart, so that makes me think that one day, whenever that may be, I'll be ready. I just hate that it feels so difficult and never ending sometimes. I began praying a little while ago that He would remove the things that I have held higher than Him in my heart. Scary. But I don't want anything in the way, no matter how much I might feel like I do. That's just a lie to hold me back, and I don't want to hold on to it. I know God has so many things for me if I will only let go of the old things so I can receive His blessings.

Several weeks ago, my roomie and I went to church on Sunday so we could be in the service (we often miss the service on Saturdays because we volunteer in the nursery). After service we had this incredible prayer time with two of our friends. Just the four of us in a side room praying over each other and crying - like, we need extra boxes of tissue crying. It was intense and emotional and amazing. I was sobbing listening to my friend pray over me. I knew what she said came straight from God because there was no other way for her to know those things. And I carry that prayer with me and hold it tight, knowing He will fulfill his promises. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it. Someday, someday, I will be ready. I won't be fully healed and whole in this life, not until I go home to be with Jesus, but I have hope that there will be a time that I will receive the blessings God has for me to enjoy here.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13 

For now I just keep holding on to the hope I have in the Lord, that He will continue to heal me from the inside out so I can be who He created me to be. And when I'm ready, He will place me where I need to be to receive the things I long for in the deepest part of my heart. They don't need to be spoken; He knows them. But I still pray for them every day. And pray that He continues to work in me to move and grow; to reach out and share the love He has given me.