Thoughts on Singleness Pt 2

As I proceeded on this journey of restoration, healing and discovery, I was completely content in my single status. I had no need, nor any desire to be in a romantic relationship. I had friendships with people of both sexes that fulfilled my need for community and connection. I was learning so much about myself and about God and a romantic relationship was the furthest thing from my mind.

I moved around A LOT in that time period, spending no longer than 9 months to a year in one place. Even if I had felt a desire to be in a romantic relationship, my lifestyle all but excluded the possibility of that happening.

And, I will be quite honest, after my last relationship I was downright terrified of becoming that emotionally intimate with another person again. I avoided emotionally intimacy at all costs. Even with girls whom I considered to be close friends. Emotionally intimacy was not a safe place for me, so I thought. It opened me up to more hurt and pain and I did not want to take that risk.

An Army Unashamed Pt. 2

Last night I had the opportunity to speak at my church's youth group. I had been given about three weeks to prepare which is more notice than I usually have. I began to pray and ask God what He wanted me to share with these kids.

Right away I got one word. Shame. So I began to work on fleshing that out into a message. I looked up scripture verse after scripture verse on shame. I did word studies and read articles and portions of books I have sitting in my book case. I knew this message was going to come together and it was going to be great.

He Is Not Safe..... (pt2)

I have discovered over the past few years that journeying with God is never boring and sometimes painful. We tend to have this idea that God never causes us pain but I know this is not true. He most definitely brings pain into our lives but it is not without purpose and beauty of it's own.

I remember asking my mom when I was about four or five why God made pain. I wondered why things hurt. The way she explained it me has forever becoming cemented in my memory. She asked me to imagine walking barefoot on a sandy beach. In the sand there are shards of glass. As you walk your feet are being continually cut open by the glass. If we did not feel pain, we would have no idea that we are being cut and could end up bleeding to death. Because of pain, we know that something is wrong. I love what C.S. Lewis has to say about pain in his book The Problem of Pain. He says, "We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."