It's time to tell our story.

This is a post that has been rumbling in my heart for weeks and ages but it's never felt like the right time. Or really, I've just been scared. But after reading words by a friend today, I knew it was time. 

I wrote the following words, just the italized ones, to that friend in an email just now, and then I came here and wrote the rest. It's loosely edited and all my heart.

I'm excited to hear the parts of your story that you share. I too have felt this similar rumble in my heart, one that's making my knees tremble with fear because it's terrifying to say yes to the story God puts us in. There is so much of my life I like sharing, and that's easy, but I feel this tension to start sharing the parts that don't shine quite so pretty, but that just absolutely wreak of the Gospel. 

I feel this tension right now. So strongly. To tell the stories of what is actually happening. I’ve never lied here, and I’ve never painted a perfect life, but I’ve also written little about some of the biggest things going on in my life.

I want to write more about being a worship leader. How I prepare and how I love it. How it’s hard and beautiful and how it’s changed so very much over the past year or so. How my prep is some of the most important work I do for my church.

I want to write more about being a community group leader at my church. It’s one of the sweetest challenges in my life right now. I told some friends recently that during group I usually have the tensest stomach because I feel such a need to make sure the Gospel is spoken, and how it’s also one of my biggest joys. I’m more aware of my failures than my successes as a leader, and I want to write about those things too. I want to share the ways I’ve really failed, the spiritual battle that shows up every single time I prepare for group, the words that the Lord has given me in the midst of it all.

And then there’s the things I don’t want to write about. But that I have to.

I don’t want to but need to and will be writing about being single. The past few weeks have held some of the clearest words from God I have ever heard. And it’s been terrifying. I’m always good at the beginning of things and terrible with the follow-through so I’m trying to listen to Him with such a heart of obedience. Because I’d like to follow through with the call I’m hearing Him tell me, even if it utterly terrifies me.

In the talks of singleness, I’ve got a whole bunch of subjects I’ve been writing on, and trying to study up on. I think there are a whole lot of lies that we’ve been told as singles, and as marrieds, and as everybody in the church. I don’t think anybody set out to lie deliberately  but I think Satan set out to just put confusion on top of singleness and I really believe that he has been succeeding. I want to write about the lies I’m hearing and I want to more so write out the truth that the Gospel shares.

In the talks of singleness, I want to talk about what it looks like to trust God fully with your life and also be so very lonely. Not incomplete, because Jesus completes, but definitely lonely. And how that’s not sinful. Oh friends, lonely is not a sin. What we do with our lonely can be (and often is) sinful, but the feeling of being lonely really isn’t sinful.

I want to talk about how Jesus has shifted my heart over the past few months. I want to talk about how Jesus has changed my life. I want to talk about the Gospel and how I was dead and now I am alive!

Yesterday the pastor said: God is not a god who makes bad people good. He makes dead people alive.

That’s what I want to share. I want to share what it means to be alive in Christ.

So I am going to!

Will you join me? Will you start writing the words that are scary to pen but necessary to hear? Your heart needs to be willing to write them, but even if you’re not willing to share them yet, will you write them?

Will you grab a new journal and a pen, or use your typing fingers, and will you start writing?

Because I need your story. I need it so desperately. I need to know I’m not the only one living in the tensions of this life.

Will you join me?

Because it's time we all tell our story.

she.

I'm linking up with five minute friday today. The prompt of she inspired these words.

Something in me always hesitates when I start to share about being single. Something called fear crumples my words and makes me delete the already typed words. Single girl thoughts typically arrive as I lie awake at night, longing for different moments.

I've felt compelled for weeks, maybe even a few months, to share more. To share deeper and longer, wider and higher about the complex mystery that makes up my heart.

I'm not quite sure how a word prompt of she is the thing pushing me to share, but I might as well.

There is a song that I wrote just about two years ago called wither. I shared in that song my hurts of a girl who had so recently had her heart broken. (It's also my favourite song that I've ever written)

Since then my heart has been broken numerous times, but all the boys have been oblivious. Isn't that like the biggest hurt of all sometimes? The oblivious hurts. The longings that nobody knows about. The boys who we crush on for weeks and months, who we pray for daily, about whom we seek genuine wisdom from above about?

I'm done being silent. I hesitate to get loud, but maybe it's time I start using at least an inside voice on the topic of singleness.

Because I know I'm not the only one crying in my bed at night, and that I'm not the only one who sometimes goes week upon week without missing the hypothetical boyfriend.

I think there is a balance, a sweet trust that is built.

I've texted my sister Kirsten something akin to this before:

Is it normal to trust God fully about my future in relationship and yet also really really want something to happen really soon?

I'm still learning that balance, that sweet trust. I haven't arrived, but I'm certainly on my way.

How's your story? What's your story?

One of my most visited posts is this one here, which is all about ways a single girl can pray for her future (hypothetical) husband.

even on the loneliest of nights

I go through seasons of singleness where I'm content, not content, joyous, sorrowful, and right smack in the middle. I vary from day to day, week to week, month to month. They're seasons so they're often changing.

After hosting a bridal shower Saturday, for a friend who I am SO excited to see married, two of the girls stayed for a while and we just talked girl stuff. Some of my heart issues came out into the light, and after they left, I wept with Jesus for a while.

I'm so grateful that Jesus does satisfy.
Even on the loneliest of nights, Jesus is the only One I want holding me.

How is Jesus satisfying you today? Where are you turning to other things instead of Him? I feel you if you are, but instead of going to those things that aren't glorying out God, let's turn away from them right now, walk to the cross, repent of our wandering hearts, and be met by grace. Wow. Yes. Let's do that.

From the Perspective of a Single Girl: How to Honour your (future) Husband

SO! I am so very excited and honoured (little note about all these "u"'s that I use in my writing. I'm Canadian so I write like a Canadian - okay? cooooool. I write things like colour, honour, favourite, and the like. Some of my sweet twitter friends have mocked me for it, but I stand firm in my "u"sage. hahaha, I'm so funny right? Also, this little note is getting long . . . whoa) to be a part of a beautiful thing happening this month, and truly, this year! Jac of babEblessings heard a call from the Lord to host a series over 2013 called Godly Wife, and I get to be a writer this month. I'm so excited. Over the past few weeks as I've prayed and tried to discern what to share, I've already learned much. I love how God is always ready to teach me more.

So for this month, the word is Honour.

Now, hold up, wait a minute (put a little . . .), why oh why am I being featured in a Godly Wife series? I'm single!

Yes.

And so I have decided to call all of my sweet readers to fast and pray until I get a husband.

Just kidding. (but if you feel called to do so, I won't stop you)

Jac asked me to share on how I am working to honour my future husband. What am I doing now for then, if then arrives?

So. Honouring my future husband.

If you've been around here for a while, you've probably caught on to this fact that I'm a sinner. At least I hope so. If I'm not pointing out my total depravity of salvation, I'll never rightly point to Jesus.

I sin today, and everyday, and my past is littered with sin. I can truly, only look forward, because like I shared recently, I was in a situation a bit ago when I was rejected because of my past sins.

I can't honour my future husband with my past, other than to walk in freedom from the chains that once held me.

Honour means a lot. I see honour as respect, love, and as one definition I saw read, allegiance. I want to be an ally with my future spouse. In order to be their ally in the future, I need to ready my heart for that.

Part of that comes in praying for him now. I pray for him often; for his purity, for his safety, for his faith, for opportunity for him to speak much of Jesus. I pray that if he does not yet know Jesus, that he will soon. I pray for his work; that he works hard and finds joy in what he does. I pray for his love; that he will love much and that he will be ready to love me. I know that my personality requires a husband who loves my words, because I love to talk, so I pray that he is patient, a good listener, and that he is ready to challenge me to love Jesus more each day.

I also pray for the marriages around me. I don't know the challenges they face, but I pray often. I figure that way, if someday I do get to face those challenges, I'll be able to ask them for wisdom. And God will have aided them to confidently walk me through the things they faced.

I make my best attempt to live with modesty. I know this looks different for everyone, but I try to cover my body more than I want to. Mostly because  I want to save all of myself for him. My past sins took away a lot of my purity, but I have opportunity to walk forward in purity. I dated a guy who said something that has always stayed with me: "I don't want to take anything from you that is your husbands". He didn't know if he would be my husband, and when our relationship ended, we both were able to walk away with pure hands. We were honouring our future spouses by honouring each other.

I wasn't go to add this, but then I read this article and just felt like I really needed to. I don't pray for this potential dude every single (pun intended) day. Sometimes I go weeks (and probably even months) without even thinking about him. And that is a very good thing. I don't know if God has a future husband for me. And even if God does, I want to live in the now. I heard a very convicting sermon when I was in grade 12 with one very strong phrase that has stuck with me throughout all seasons. BE PRESENT. The future is fun to consider, but TODAY is where God has me. That doesn't mean that I get to stop honouring my future husband or God for that matter. That means that I'm faithful in whatever God has for me.

I truly think that the best way I can honour my potential future husband is to faithfully live in the now, not constantly dwelling on the maybe of tomorrow.

Maybe you're thinking, because as I added this portion I had to ask myself if this was true: This seems to be in opposition with what the initial idea of this post seems to be.

But they don't contradict each other. They compliment.

Faithfulness for forever paired with faithfulness for the now.

This is truly just a start. There is much more I could do and probably should do. I'm excited to pray much this month and listen faithfully to what I hear from God.




How do you honour your husband, your future husband, or simply the people who are in your life? If you're single, what are you doing to prepare for the future and to be present in the now? If you're married, what did you do prepare your heart for the future and how do you look forward (to children, new jobs, moving somewhere with your husband, planting a church, whatever it is) and yet remain present in what God has you in now? Share your hearts. I'm truly looking forward to hearing varied perspectives.

unequal eggs

Let's talk about something. K? Cool.

It's the thing that legitimately  propelled me both out of my faith and back into it, both at the same moment and also a year after I committed it, and even now as I reflect on it. WHOA.

It's that SUPER odd Christian thing about the unequal eggs. You know what I mean right? Unequally yoked.

Don't date a non-Christian.
It's bad.
End of story.
Nobody (at least when I was younger, when I was struggling with it, or even very often now) taking time to unpack the Gospel wisdom of why not, and the heart of what we're called to.


. . .

oh. No. That's not the end of the post. This isn't a rant about how I think the idea is wrong.

I think the idea is right. But only because I spent time not believing it and fighting it.

It's that I spent the first 19 years of my life knowing that it was wrong but never knowing any reason.

So. I'm going to try to unpack the Gospel wisdom of this idea.

. . .


Unequal eggs.

So is that like one yoke is bigger? Or like different coloured? Or . . . ?


I watched a sermon once and in it, the pastor shed light on this topic. And it BLEW my mind.

Because for one, I already knew what he meant. As in, I'd seen it in practice in my own life.

He said something along the lines of:

The reason we don't date people who believe differently is because neither will fully accept the other.

Like, what?

Read that idea again.

A relationship NOT built on full acceptance will never be correct.
Because it can't be.

Even if the person really cares for you, and you really care for the, both of you will be wanting the other to change. You'll always be praying that they'll become a Christian (aka not accepting them) and they'll probably hope that one of these Sunday mornings you'll just stay home with them.

I met a guy while I was questioning my faith and not living for Jesus. He didn't love Jesus, and looking at how my life was lived in that season, neither did I.

We met in a club.
I headed home with him.
As we waited for the bus I said, while fully intoxicated, "but we can't have sex cause I'm a Christian".

And God has grace that for some reason kept me safe.
And sent me home with a guy who somehow honoured that request.

But of course we didn't last.
We tried. We made it work for a month or so where I would drive up to where he lived, or we'd meet in the city that was in the middle, and each time Jesus protected me.  

((( the story is a lot longer and more complicated than all of that, but that's the gist I'm sharing today )))


I never understand grace because it is so much bigger than I can ever even hope for.

But, like I said, we didn't last. While he respected my belief system and thought it was great, he didn't accept the things I believed.

And though I really wasn't living for God, I still knew God's truths deep within my heart.

A year later was about the time that I actually gave my life back to Jesus.

In February, it'll have been 3 years since I gave my life back to Jesus and I now get what that pastor was saying.

This guy was a miracle in that he respected me, but I still made sexual decisions in that relationship, and in the ones that followed over that year while I floundered around not knowing what to believe, that impact me even to today.

I had a guy not date me because I had a past. His attitude towards my sins, my fully forgiven by a Jesus who never offers condemnation to those who call upon His name, taught me that my sins put me in a category called "dirty" and for a very long time I thought I would probably only be able to date/marry someone who had as dirty of sexual sins as I, or who had "worse" ones.

And reading these words that only recently I've been freed from, I shudder because so many people feel this way too.

Both those who have given away and/or lost parts of their purity and feel dirty.
And then those who don't have sexual sins in this past and have therefore decided that their lack of sexual sin makes them better.

I really believe that that is another form of unequally yoked. The person who is only willing to be given a "pure" person.

Or who has been taught that their sin makes them only available to same/worse sinners.

Gross!!!
I'm SERIOUS!

Haven't we figured out that we all suck?


Does every newscast filled with more horror, and every sorrow that plagues our world not show us?
And while my sexual sins are long past, my sins of complacency, jealousy, and fear all compromise my purity.

I'M the worst sinner.
Me.
I'm the one who deserves Hell.

But grace redeems.


The grace of Jesus alone.
Jesus lived a perfect life. NO sin. Not at all.
And He was hated. And killed. In the most brutal way.
And then He rose from the dead.
And because of that, even me, even you, we're redeemed when we call upon the name of Jesus.

So.
What now?



Who are we to be yoked with?

Someone who has been transformed by the Gospel is the one to look for.
And not only to look for, but is the one to be.

And honestly, and I'm speaking to my single (and those dating/engaged) female friends - it's not worth it to date the ones who don't love Jesus.

It's easier to date non-Christians because sometimes we get tired of waiting for these silly Christian boys to get their act together (and to stop playing video games) and to ask us out (and actually pay for a date) - but we have got to trust that God's desire for our life is better than our wish for some dude.

Because only Jesus satisfies.

So someone finding satisfaction in anything other than Jesus is just plain 'ol not right for our sweet and sinful hearts.

Wait for the one who loves you and recognizes a redeemed soul when he sees one.
And who also, whether his sin "level" matches (ugh, even writing that out makes me want to shower because it's so dirty of a thinking process) yours or not, considers himself the worst of all sinners.


We all need Jesus.
We are all broken.
Never forget that.


Jesus forgives.

Live in that joyful truth.

until tomorrow

One day I'm content.
The  next I'm restless.

The next I'm complete in Him.
The next I've completely forgotten.

And it all revolves around this relationship that isn't arriving.

And yet I know that the lowercase "he" will never satisfy.

Until the uppercase "He" is the one I love

with my whole heart
with all my emotion
with my soul
and entire being
and mind
and strength
and tears

Until then

Even

the most romantic moment
the most lovely date
the sweetest kiss
the tightest handhold
the deepest secrets told
the kindest love.

None.

None will satisfy like Jesus.

So I'll write these words today.

And pray that I can write them again tomorrow.

And on the tomorrow after, when I will forget

I'll read them again.

Jesus.

Oh sweet Jesus.

Hold me tighter than I hold anything

Shine brighter to me than any ring I desire.

Last longer than any kiss that will come.

Be who you already are.

Because in You, oh my King Jesus,

in you

I live.

But when tomorrow forgets

Remind me.

1. I'm not depressed. If you read this and heard that word in the tone, you're vastly wrong. I'm joyous in the Jesus who IS ENOUGH. 

2. I read an article on Desiring God on how the church should treat singles and I tweeted it (twice actually), put it out on facebook, and I'm telling you now - GO READ IT! NOW. Here is the link. Seriously. And then put it into action. If you're a single - put it into action. If you're married - put it into action.  I truly believe that if the church lived this out, singles would act vastly different, marriage would be viewed differently (aka maybe it wouldn't be glorified like it is salvation), and maybe, just maybe, hearts would come to know JESUS for who HE is - the ONE who satisfies.

Some of my favourite lines: 

"Conversely, unmarried men and women are not the church’s workhorses. As a new believer, I was in big demand as a new babysitting resource in the church." 

". . .we single adults need loving challenges when we have allowed a root of bitterness to spring up and block our prayers to God, our fellowship with others, and our service to the church. Deferred hopes cannot be allowed to corrode our thankfulness for the gift of salvation." 

"Through the years, I've observed that The Singles can be a prickly lot to pastor. Whatever leaders say from the pulpit about singleness is guaranteed to encourage some and offend more. I know because I’ve been in both camps, depending on where I am in the cycle of hope or despair and how I am working that out in my soul before God."

I love that line of depending on where in the cyle of hope or dispair - my heart so understands that cycle - hence this post today

3. If you're here. Comment. I see the numbers. I know you've made it this far. It's easy to live life and be lonely. To read things and not comment. But HONESTLY, silence builds nothing. Words build community. You are WELCOME here.

4. That's all.