I haven’t blogged in awhile, sometimes I feel as though I barely have time to eat, sleep and breathe with the schedule I have but I have had so many amazing things happen to me over the past few months, and God has revealed to me something that I never truly understood until know. What’s crazy about it is that it transcends every aspect of my life. If you would have asked me two years ago even one year ago that I would be involved in the lives of teenage girls I would have ran clear in the other direction… the fights, the drama, the cattiness. Ugh. I was through with that and wanted it to stay that way. But God has a funny way of showing us, “our ways are not His ways, nor our thoughts His thoughts.” We make plans and God laughs right? Well, He’s laughing big time if that’s the case in my life. Most of you know I have been involved a bit with the student ministry at Long Hollow and teach an incredible group of tenth grade girls on Sunday mornings. My passion for these girls to know the heart of Jesus and to fall deeper in love with Him everyday has almost consumed my life. I’d do anything for them.
On a side note I also just got back from Haiti with a team of women who went to basically love and pour out our hearts to the women who run the orphanage. These are the women who take care of 10-12 kids at a time making sure they are clothed, fed and taken care of. These women are more than moms. They are mighty, strong women of God. How selfless of them to take up this task. Throughout the week as I spent time with them and got to know them I became very heavily burdened by their struggles. Most of these women are my age some younger and two were older. One of my friends McLaine is working there for money to send back to her 8 kids at home. Yes, that’s right not only does she have kids of her own but she takes care of 12 boys in the orphanage. How she does it I will never comprehend? My other friend and momma to the boys Amentine I connect with because she always likes the newest fashions. We took her a pair of white pumps that she just loved. In speaking with her she said she needed prayer to face her loneliness and that she was praying for a Godly husband. When she said this I immediately thought wow, she’s just like me in every way. I traveled so far yet I found someone just like me. Our pursuit was the same… a heart for Jesus and a Godly man to pursue our hearts.
On the trip home I was consumed with thoughts of how incredibly alike all women are. My girls who share their problems and struggles with me actually want what girls in Haiti want too. Our common link in it all is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and sharing in His sufferings. Another common link was that all of these girls often looked to men to fill that void in their hearts.
1) I believe with everything that is in me that our core validation, our primary validation has to come from God FIRST. And until it does, until we look at Him for the healing of our souls, our relationships are really hurt by looking to each other for something only God can give.
2) As you increasingly become women of substance, women who offer true beauty, we find that our hearts grow in their capacity to love and be loved, to desire, to live. Our hearts will become enlarged by Jesus.
3) We cannot expect not to suffer through this time. God will not always rescue us from a painful season. He does not always give us what we so desperately want when we want it. He is after something so much more valuable than our happiness. He is restoring and growing in us an eternal weight of glory and sometimes…its hurts.
“To possess true beauty we must be willing to suffer… if Christ was perfected through His sufferings, why would we believe God would not do the same with us?? Women who are STUNNINGLY beautiful have had their hearts enlarged by suffering. By saying yes when the world says no. By paying the high price of loving truly and honestly without demanding that they be loved in return. They have come to know that when everyone and everything has left them, God is there.”
Abiding in Christ means paying attention to the voice within, nourishing our own hearts, and nourishing our own relationship with Him over time.
It is in the waiting that our hearts are enlarged…
