I thought I would share my experiences with waiting as the second part of my "book". My first memory of waiting was when I was in high school and all of my friends had boyfriends but I did not. I felt like something was wrong with me because of this, and I was very sad and lonely. I wanted someone to sit with my at the lunch table, or call me every afternoon. I did have some girlfriends that would do this often of course, but I wanted a boy to like me. Then, my junior year of high school, one of my crushes ( I'll admit, I had a few) asked me to be his girlfriend. That lasted three weeks until he fooled around with my best friend. Both relationships were over for me after that.
I remember feeling so discouraged and heartbroken after this. I felt like my worth and my value was attached to if I had a boyfriend or not. In youth group, the girls were given a poem and I don't remember the poem itself, but I remember that it was written as if from God's point of view and it said that He wanted to be our first love. If we developed a relationship with Him first, the rest would all fall into place, and we would put other relationships in their proper place in our heart. I tried to do this, but I think at that time I was still in the "I will do this, if you will do this" bargaining phase with God, and that of course is not how a relationship should go.
After high school came college - more crushes but no relationships. I began to wonder if it would ever happen for me. I started to really seek God out - and not my parent's God or my church's God, but who God was for me. As I learned about Him in college, He became real to me and I started to develop a deeper relationship with Him.
However, it would take five years after college for me to really develop a relationship with God and I also found my husband during this time. It was a hard and dark time, and I won't get into all the details here and now. I learned that God needed to be first in my life and I learned that my worth and my value had nothing to do with if a boy liked me or if I was pretty or smart or funny. My identity was found in Christ, He had redeemed me with the blood of his precious son, and I was already as valuable as I would ever be, because I was His daughter. Once that became enough for me, I had some tough decisions to make in my life, and at the end of the tunnel - my husband and a daughter of my own.
Looking back, I wish I had not cared so much about if I had a boyfriend or not, and I really wish I didn't view my importance through the lens of a relationship with another person here on earth. I wish that I had spent more time in his word and in prayer. I am thankful that God fulfilled the desires of my heart, and I am thankful that He used my waiting season to bring me closer to Him, but it was a long and painful road.
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