For my love

I am not damaged.
I am beautiful.
I am worthy of the love God has set aside for me, by grace.

That has become a sort of mantra for me in the last 2 days. In that time I have truly been blown away by how God works out even the smallest details to get the attention of those He loves. He is not a distant figurehead, keeping time like an uncaring conductor. No, He is loving, compassionate, jealous, real, ever present, and the orchestrator watching over each and every member of His great orchestra and every note and marking written on the score of eternity. (I'm a violinist, so that's where the orchestra stuff is coming from, haha)

In the last 3 years of my life I have heard the call of Jesus calling me back to Him. It is humbling and intense, yet I would not trade those moments for anything. He pulled me out of an incredibly toxic relationship, leaving me broken hearted on the floor looking upwards. He stopped my attempts to fill the void in my life with another man, and instead filled my heart with His ever present love. It was difficult. I fought it for a while. But God was more stubborn than I was. He won...He has a tendency of doing that.

So I began walking closely with Him. The problem was that instead of dealing with my feelings towards romantic relationships, I stuffed them deep down and pretended they did not exist. I locked down my heart and assumed that every sort of longing I had for love was wrong. It absolutely ate away at my heart. I would get feelings for a guy, bottle them up, and watch them explode months later instead of prayerfully considering them and finding a healthy way to deal with them. I almost destroyed 2 very good friendships that way because I was too stubborn to be honest about how I felt.

I would go through these phases of feeling depressed that no one was pursuing me in the least. It has been 3 years since the last time I went on a date (let's just go ahead and put that out there). And part of it truly has been God winning me back to Him. I needed to be completely in love with Him before anyone else. For that I am grateful. I never want to feel the way I did when I was immersed in the cycle of toxic relationships. But part of it has been the lock down of my heart from even the possibility of being pursued. I tried so hard to keep my relationships with guys "appropriate" while fighting off the feelings I had. Again, I tried to hide my feelings instead of dealing with them.

The thing about the salvation process that seems to get overlooked is this idea of being transformed. It is very true that when you accept Jesus as Lord you are no longer the same. But that doesn't mean that you become this perfect person who looks nothing like the person you were. You still have issues and scars that need to be dealt with rather than hidden. It hurts much more to have them yanked out of you from the deep dark corner of your heart than to be open and honest about them.
Think of them like a splinter...when it is close to the surface you can see it and get it out pretty easily and painlessly with a pair of tweezers. But if it goes deeper to the point where you can't see it but you feel it with every move you make, then getting it out is going to involve cutting in with a knife and it will hurt a heck of a lot more.

Two days ago God had to get out the knife and cut into a wound I had been ignoring for 3 years. It hurt...I think I burst into tears about 10 times. But afterwards...I have never felt so free. I made the decision to open up my heart again, but this time it was on His terms. I gave Him control over my love life. And I know He has a beautiful story for me. The difference is that now I am open to it. I am not called to be single, and it feels liberating to be able to say that.


"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.""
-Jeremiah 29:11-14 NIV


I am not damaged.
I am beautiful.
I am worthy of the love God has set aside for me, by grace.