Days 113, 114, and 115: Already a Bride

This blog is to cover the couple days that I've been away from my life in PDX. The same things have been going through my mind while I've been gone, so I decided to just do one blog for my time away...

------------------------------------

I catch myself daydreaming sometimes. I think of what my life will be like years from now. I think about kids, soccer games, juice-stained grins, mud tracked in from a fun day in the park. I think about being a newlywed and what it's like. I think about being 70 and looking into my husbands eyes still trying to figure out how I got to be so blessed.

I think a lot.

And I know you do, too.

Humanity was created for relationship, with God and creation. We were created for love, passion, peace, joy...deep, intense feelings. We were created to work, to put action to our passion. Why is it, then, that we spend so much of our time sitting around?

Waiting.

As I look at my life as a single, 24 year old woman, I can't help but think in terms of my future as a woman. Will I ever be a wife? A mother? Will I ever further the Kingdom in a great way? I build so many things on top of one another, questions that no one but God can answer.

I never stop to realize one key truth: I'm already a bride.

In the scripture, Christ is described as a bridegroom, and the church is His bride. And, although we are sometimes lost in this broken world, it is incredibly important to remember our foundation in God because He is greater than the world.

I don't thank God enough for loving me enough.

I hope to be married, and to have children, but so much of that is rooted in my desire to be loved and to pour out the love that I have.

I forget that God's love is sufficient, as is His grace, and that pouring out my love for Him is something that will not only satisfy my soul, but will further the kingdom.

Pouring out my love for God means being kind, loving other people, sacrificing, having mercy.

It means being fruitful.

It means being faithful.

If there is one thing I have witnessed first hand about God is His unwavering, and undeniable, faithfulness. In church today, I heard that we need to cultivate His faithfulness. We need to reach deep down in the soil of our lives and work the ground to remain faithful.

We need to show up, everyday, and be faithful.

So, instead of thinking about what I want from God, I need to focus my thoughts on what I need to be doing for God. I am not a hopeless girl, waiting to be rescued by a man in order to have my life fulfilled.

Does this mean I don't want to get married? NO! I can't wait for the day...but it does mean that until that day comes (if it ever does), I will not be worrying or thinking about it. I will be focused on the fact that I am already His bride, and that His love is faithful and will spur me on to pour my entire heart out into the calling that He has in, and for, my life.

His love is a beautiful thing.

In Christ,

Lilia