Suffering Well

Someone told me this week that the word patience means long suffering. With that in mind, when I ask God for patience, I am actually asking him to help me suffer well over a long period of time. Sounds funny, doesn't it? Of course there are other ways to describe patience such as persistent courage in trying circumstances. That description sounds a little bit better, a bit sweeter, but it's still the same meaning underneath. No matter how you look at it, patience implies something painful, something unwanted, something people do not want to have to use in their vocabulary. 

I used to think to myself, "So what's the point of being patient? Why wait for things, why not make them happen when I want them to happen? If I wait I very well may miss out on what I want, right?" Yes more or less that is the dialogue that would go around in my head. And the outcome of my not waiting, although at first felt great, ended in disaster. I traded God's truth and accepted the lie that I knew what was best for me. That I could supply my happiness and that somehow it would all work out. 

What I am starting to see is that the Lord sees patience differently then I do. Patience, much like pain, can have a multi-faceted purpose. When looking at it at face value, patience sucks. Honestly, no matter how you look at it it's going to suck, but there's another part to it. Take verse 3 in Psalm 37 for example,"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture." Even though waiting is difficult, and it hurts, according to God it's also a safe place to be. He invites us to dwell in the safety of trusting in him.

In waiting, we have time to think about what we want, we have space to grow and mature..even heal. We learn how to really enjoy what the Lord has put in our lives.Sometimes having to be patient makes us branch out and explore other avenues, going down paths we never would have had we gotten what we wanted right when we wanted it. 

Patience refines us. It teaches us to take refuge in the Lord instead of relying on our own strength. Patience protects us from doing life our own way. And even though it can be very painful, because of God's great love for us, our pain always has a purpose.

Psalm 37

The Responsibility of Royalty

I know this post is long, and probably difficult to follow. These are just all my thoughts spilling out at once. Enjoy!

You know when you're struggling, and God just wakes you up and really makes you think about your life and the decisions you're making, and the thoughts you have? Like a loving parent he chastises us with his word in order to make us understand that there is a better way than the way we are choosing. He showed me that today.

Every day I get a short verse sent to my e-mail. And every day I check my e-mail and see what little piece of scripture has been left in my inbox. This was today's verse:“As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should!” Psalm 119:7 NLT. It's a great verse, but I read it quickly and moved on to my other e-mails. I guess God wasn't satisfied by that short read, and he knew it didn't make it to my heart. About an hour later I was looking something up on biblegateway.com; I like to look up verses in the message version, just to get a different (albeit paraphrased) version of God's word. I like to think of it as a friend discussing God's word with me in their own words.

Anyway, I saw that same verse Psalm 119.:7 in the message version, and all I can say is it definitely made it's way to my heart. Here it is:

“You're blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by God. You're blessed when you follow his directions, doing your best to find him. That's right—you don't go off on your own; you walk straight along the road he set. You, God, prescribed the right way to live; now you expect us to live it. Oh, that my steps might be steady, keeping to the course you set; Then I'd never have any regrets in comparing my life with your counsel. I thank you for speaking straight from your heart; I learn the pattern of your righteous ways. I'm going to do what you tell me to do; don't ever walk off and leave me.” Psalm 119:7 MSG


I heard some really upsetting news yesterday,  I was angry and confused. I knew I was letting my anger control me and I let myself get bitter for a while. At that point I was definitely refusing to think about God's regulations, and I really contemplated walking a different road than the one he's set for me. But today, praise God, he reminded me of who I am and how important I am to him. Along with Psalm 119:7, he led me to another verse, 1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

I realized that I need to live my life worthy of my calling. I am an heir to a royal bloodline, and I have been made righteous. I need to live in the light of the grace God has given me, and not in the bondage of darkness that he freed me from. I now have a responsibility to uphold my Queenliness (yes I made that word up).

I like to compare this to Kate Middleton's life. The girl was in every way born to a normal family, she was "a commoner". But now this girl is ROYALTY.
  And because of that she has to live her life differently. She has to think about her actions and act in a way worthy of her title. In becoming a part of the royal family, she accepted the responsibilities that come with that.

In the same way (minus the stuffiness plus eternal life) we are now royalty in Christ Jesus. Therefore, we have to accept the responsibilities that come with this privilege. For me that means letting God be God, and surrendering my feelings to him. That means taking seriously what his death means for how I live my life. It means I need to walk the path he's designed for my life even when the road seems steep and  treacherous.

Letting God Lead

 This past Sunday night I went to a Milonga at the Philadelphia Tango School. A Milonga is a social gathering of sorts. This is characterized by dancing to three songs (called a set) and then resting for a song in between. During this rest, a brilliant Jazz pianist would play a song. When he was finished, the Tango music would come back on, and people would begin dancing.

I have only danced Tango one other time before this Sunday, and it was at the Tango school during one of their free lesson nights. On Sunday night however, there were no lessons, and only dancing. Because of the unequal number of guys and girls, many girls waited to dance. The men are always gracious and make sure all the women have a few dances.

Looking around the room at all of these brilliant dancers, I wondered how they made it look so easy. Especially after my difficult first dance of the night. When my lead would move, I found myself not moving in time with him and it would result in stepped on toes or having to pause and start again. After a few times I did this, my lead told me to focus on him, and so I did. I just focused on him and nothing else. And what started to happen was that I found myself moving almost gracefully about the room. When I stopped thinking about my steps and I focused on my partner, my body was able to read the slight movements of his body. I was alert and ready to step when he stepped, to move when he moved, I was ready to follow. It was only in completely letting go of everything else and following that we were able to glide around the room. It was in following that I learned things about myself, such as that I can do a cross, and a figure eight ( I think that's what it's called).

All I could think of the whole night was how this dance partner relationship is such an allegory to our relationship with God. When we focus on ourselves we end up fumbling, don't we? When we try and take our own steps outside of the glorious dance of our lives that God has prepared for us we find ourselves falling. But when we FOCUS on our God, letting everything else go, keeping our eye on him, it is then that we are able to move. When we are following God attentively, and expectantly, we begin to learn more about ourselves. We learn we can do things we never could on our own, we learn to take steps that seemed impossible to take by ourselves. When we let go and follow God's lead, we get to see how beautiful a dance our lives become.

Image from the Philadelphia Tango School

Beyoncé - Best Thing I Never Had

Please don't fight these hands that are holding you

Tenth Avenue North. If you haven't heard of the band, you need to. I am not a music fanatic by any means, but their songs have gotten me through many hard days and many lonely nights. A line from their song, "By Your Side" goes like this: "Please don't fight these hands that are holding you". It gets me every time I listen to it because I don't usually think about all the ways I resist God. But by not trusting him to lead me to what is best for me, I am fighting him. He is the ultimate  husband. If I can't trust God's leadership, how can I trust another man's? Obviously I still have a lot to work on.

Lately I have been struggling with feeling like a failure. Insecurities abound every time I look in the mirror. I feel like I failed my family by being engaged to someone and now having broken up with him. I feel like I failed myself in choosing a partner who wasn't right for me. And my insecurities win more than I would like them to.

I have tried to be proactive about this, such as exercising more, and going to therapy. But as with every aspect of my life I am severely impatient. I want change to happen right now. It kind of goes like this, "I want to stop being in pain right now", "I want to be a size 4 again right now", "I want someone to be interested in me right now", and so on and so forth.

Contentment in the in-between times of my life is very difficult. But God is teaching me that he is calling everyone to that. Whether you are in between jobs, or sizes, God wants you to turn and praise him with where you are. I need to work on praising him when I'd rather complain, and be content with what he's giving me now rather than focus on what he hasn't. I heard a sermon online today and the pastor said, "satan wants you to focus on your restrictions" because when you do that, you miss out on what you have.

When we are in between God knows our struggle. And even when we are not happy with the way things are right now we can trust that the Lord ordered our lives for a reason, for his purpose, and for his glory. As soon as we stop fighting him we have the freedom to look and see what God is teaching us by having us here.

Rising from the Ashes

This is my first blog post, ever! I am interested to see how this journey plays out and if I will keep up with it.

My attempt for this blog is to be a cathartic release for my thoughts and emotions, but also an opportunity to share with people about what God is teaching me. This period in my walk with God has been a struggle, to say the least. For the first time in my life as a mature Christ follower I am really searching for my identity in Christ, and looking to him for my worth.

Life has taken a lot of devastating twists and turns for me recently. I am newly single after a three year long relationship, and seven month engagement. The reason for the ending of the relationship is something my close friends know, and most others have an idea of. I don't think it's necessary to divulge it here. What I will say though is that this period in my life has been the most painful that I have ever experienced. 

The grief is still consistent, and the loneliness is just about crippling sometimes. I wondered at first why God allowed this to happen. But I realize now that the person I wanted to marry so badly was not in the right place to be a husband. And I understand now that I was settling for less than what God wants for me. I also understand I am "better off" without him even though it is incredibly painful. 

This time in my life has definitely been a refining process. God has shown me a lot of my weaknesses through this experience. I know now that I was using my relationship as my sense of security, and that is where I found my worth, instead of in the Lord. Honestly, a big fear was being alone with just me and God. I found that I don't know how to be completely dependent on  him, and now I am clinging to him because when one's life is ripped out from under them God is the only constant thing they have.

The term, "single" makes me cringe a little bit. I said to someone once that it feels awkward and uncomfortable for me. It's like a tight itchy sweater that I can't take off. I don't remember how to be single, and I haven't been consistently single in the last 5 years. So it is safe to say, I really don't know how to do this.  For the first few weeks after the break up I would just repeat to myself over and over that this is my life now and I have to get used to it. I'll admit that I still have to say that out loud to myself from time to time.

I am still in the muddy part of this pain and a lot of times I feel like there isn't a way out of it. However that doesn't define who I am. I have good days and really bad days. Circumstances aside, I know that I am called a child of God. While I may not feel that way every day, and I may not believe that his promises are real all of the time, ultimately I know that he is an almighty and all powerful God and that he loves me more than I could possibly imagine.

A few days before the break up I wrote in my journal something like this: "Jesus, please grow me closer to you. Put to death anything in my life that is preventing me from knowing you more Lord. And when you do, please give me the strength to rise up out of those ashes."

Don't you know that's exactly what he did? He put to death a relationship that he knew wouldn't bear fruit for his kingdom, and he is giving me strength and encouragement to rise up from the ashes of this time in my life.