This weekend, my sorority’s chapter celebrated its 20th anniversary with a reunion. It was a great opportunity for me to visit my old college campus and reminisce with old friends while making some new acquaintances. I had a great time, though, at first, I was a little disoriented. The school has grown and changed so much; I hardly recognized it. There were new buildings everywhere and I couldn’t seem to find the old familiar spots that I had once known. I guess I should have probably visited the campus more than twice in the past fifteen years. Once I got my bearings, though, I had a fantastic time. I felt nineteen again! When my line sisters and friends started showing up, it was as if we all fell back into our old roles and time had stood still.
As I was leaving, I passed by my old townhouse and some old hangouts, and I just had to thank God. Now, this isn’t going to be one of those times when I spill all of my business, but let’s just say God is a keeper. And, boy did He keep me. He kept me from death, danger, and destruction. As I drove off that campus and down the street and recalled some of the absolutely stupid things I did as a college student, I couldn’t help but praise Him for second chances (and third ones and fourth ones and twenty-fifth ones). It’s not that being saved gives us a license to sin and do crazy things. There are always consequences. I feel as if I still deal with some consequences for choices I made in my past. But, and thank God, that with my God, there is always a ‘but,’ God can and will deliver you when you are willing to take His hand and follow His lead. I am grateful for the old school me because she taught the present me a lot of valuable lessons. I pray that by being open and honest with the next generation, I can help them avoid some of my mistakes, but, even if they don’t, I can at least show them how God will turn your life around. Ms. EV
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I was looking for an old picture, and after I found it, and several pictures of my oldest nephews and niece that nearly brought me to tears, I ran across an old journal. I thought I would read through a couple of passages, but almost an hour later Joy Bella (my cat) and I were still in the spare bedroom sitting on the floor, as I wrapped up a glimpse into my past. Sometimes, it’s nice to look back. When I was looking at the pictures, they brought back memories of really happy times (of course, because no one would put sad pictures in a photo album). As I read the journals, I had mixed emotions. I call them journals, but they were actually prayers. As I looked over these outpourings to God, I was grateful for how far He has brought me. I was delighted at how much I have grown as a person and in my relationship with Him. But, I was also saddened because the dreams that I had almost a decade ago have fallen by the wayside.
The sadness I felt could have resulted in a couple of things. I could have thrown a huge pity party celebrating my non-achievements and biggest failures. Or, I could use it as a moment to figure out where I went off course. I chose the latter, although, I was tempted by the former because I am the world’s greatest pity party planner. I have heard my pastor preach that we can compare looking in the past with driving. When you are driving, you have a rearview mirror and side-view mirrors. Those mirrors are helpful for figuring out if it is safe to change lanes, or if you’re lost, you can look in the rearview mirror to see what you’ve past and it gives you a sense of where you need to go or if you need to turn around. Nevertheless, we must notice that the rearview mirrors, and side-view mirrors, while helpful, are never larger than the front windshield. So, while we may glance back or to the side, our focus needs to remain on what is ahead of us. That is what I learned when I looked at those prayers. During the time I wrote them, I was so busy looking back at the loss of my “dream” relationship and looking around at what others had that I lost sight of my dreams and goals. I began to pursue a career that, though rewarding, took me further and further away from what I truly love to do. Then, even after I grew so close to God, I focused on a relationship that felt like what I had been waiting for, but ended up leading me into disobedience. I focused so much on my ex and took on his dreams and goals as my own, that I let go of my dreams. And, though I was troubled by that, and the devil wanted me to feel defeated, I chose to be appreciative of the fact that God has allowed me to see another day, so that I can get back on track. God has a plan for each one of our lives, and our success is not as much about reaching our destination as it is about what we learned along the way. I know that I got off track and I could probably already be in the midst of something greater. I know that I settled for good when God still had His best for me, but I learned, and now, I am stronger, wiser and better suited to be who God desires for me to be. It would be really hard to drive, if we only looked in the rearview mirror, but a glance back can help guide us to what is ahead and I praise God in advance for wherever He is taking me. Ms. EV PS: Another good piece of advice I heard from my pastor: we have to stop saying that God is our co-pilot; God should be in the driver’s seat! It truly breaks my heart to see or hear of people making the mistakes that I have made. It doesn’t matter if the person is younger or older than I am, I simply cannot stand to watch someone I care about trip over my old stumbling blocks. If I could, I would help everyone I know avoid the pitfalls of life wherein I have fallen. Sometimes you hear people say, “Do as I say, not as I do.” That statement is seen as hypocritical and it is because you cannot expect someone to stop certain behaviors that you are not willing to extinguish from your life. Nonetheless, I firmly believe in attempting to curb the errors of those we love by saying, “Do what I say, not what I have done.” The issue with feeling comfortable enough to say this is that you have to be willing to explain your past and unmask your inner blemishes.
Like many teenagers, I truly thought that my parents had never done anything wrong in their lives. I felt that they couldn’t possibly know about the tough moral choices I was facing or the peer pressure that I was under. My parents were perfect, smart and saved. Plus, they had been married all of their lives, so they definitely could not have dealt with relationship issues. It wasn’t until very recently that I found out that I was very wrong. Sometimes, in an effort to protect those we love, we feel that we should not expose them to any darkness in our past. However, by hiding our true selves, we are not protecting them. In fact, we make them uncomfortable and unwilling to communicate when they have a similar problem. If we cannot use our past experiences to try to help those we love, then our missteps are in vain. I heard someone say that if you learn from a mistake, it becomes experience, but if you don’t learn from a mistake, it becomes a failure. I have found that using the lessons I have learned about love and life to help others is essential to healing. It helps me forgive myself and others, and keep moving forward. Some people are afraid that they will share vulnerable information only to have their valuable advice rejected. Don’t be discouraged if someone doesn’t listen to your advice; we plant the seed and God does the watering. But, no one can ever learn from you if you hide behind an image of yourself that you want people to know. Peeling back your layers is not only a blessing to the person you are potentially helping, but it also serves as praise for the God who has carried you thus far. I know that there are certain mistakes that some people have to make for themselves before they learn to live differently; still, how would it feel to find out that you could have prevented a catastrophe in someone’s life by simply sharing your story? The only perfect human being was Christ, so we should stop pretending to be infallible and start using our victories to be instructional. Ms. EV Before I ever even met him, I was not his biggest fan. That is what happens when you upset someone in my family. I think I can handle people messing with me much better than I can handle people messing with those closest to me. I thought of what I would say when I got the opportunity. I wanted to be sure he knew that his behavior was unacceptable and would not be tolerated, but I also needed to remain professional. So, the opportunity finally arose for me to speak my peace. And, as much as my flesh wanted to be snarky and rude, I found that all I could do was to be cordial.
It was almost as if I was having an out-of-body experience. Here I was looking at myself sitting across from someone having a pleasant conversation after four days of imagining that I would tear him apart verbally the first chance I got. Even my friends could not believe what they were witnessing. If this had happened last year, oh wait, something very similar did happen last year. And though I did not resort to tongue lashing, I made it abundantly clear to the person and anyone who was listening that I am not someone you want to cross. I was angry. At one point in that situation, I was angered to tears. And, every time I saw the person who upset one of my boys, I was seething with wrath. Well, this time, I did not want it to get to that point. So, I prayed. I was still angry. I prayed some more. I was still angry. I was still angry when this guy sat down near me. In my head, I had my speech all ready. But then, the spirit took over. It was definitely a “where I am weak, He is strong” moment because I felt totally powerless as I smiled (genuinely), extended my hand, and introduced myself. One of my friends, who did a double-take as she passed by and observed the interaction, asked me what happened. I said, “I don’t want to be angry anymore; I did that last year.” She told me that is called growth. I said, “Well, if you’re not growing then what is the point?” I am not proud of my mistakes, but I talk about them to show that as I grow closer to God, He makes me a better person. As I seek more of Him, He makes me more like Him. When you accept Christ as your Savior, you become a new creature. Yes, you are going to Heaven, but if God does not take you there immediately, how will you live on this Earth? Will you keep the status quo? Or will you allow God to help you grow? Though what Christ gave we can never repay; we can still choose to grow and obey. Ms. EV Who is holding you back from being the best that you can be? Who is keeping you from being a better friend, child, parent, spouse, sibling, or Christian? I bet I know one person we all have in common. Much of our lives, we play the blame game and take the Flip Wilson defense of, “The devil made me do it!” Yes, Satan is evil. He is the prince of darkness, the ruler of hell, and the tempter of the children of God, but even Satan is not responsible for everything we choose to do in our daily lives. Perhaps, before we are saved, the devil had more control over our choices. However, once you are saved, your soul belongs to God and the devil can’t make you do anything. Jesus proved that to us in Matthew 4.
Now, I am not saying that the devil will not mess with you. If he was brazen enough to mess with the Son of God, surely we are not immune to his deviance. He would love to fill our minds with oppressing and depressing thoughts, but we, children of God, are not his and he is not responsible for the bad choices that we make. We must take a good, long look in the mirror before we make excuses about who exactly is putting us through hell. Most people grew up with a dream of who they wanted to be. For me, I wanted to be a rich attorney with a powerful husband. I had my life all planned out; however, I never really spoke to God about what kind of life He had planned for me. I just assumed that my dream, which was based on money and fame rather than building His Kingdom, was the dream God gave me. Nonetheless, as big as my dream was, God had something even greater planned for me. Yet, I chose my plan over His plan. There were several signs that my plan was not going to work, but I decided to force myself into the mold that I had envisioned and I ended up being miserable. Then, I started blaming God for allowing the devil to mess with my life, but truth be told, I was the only one to blame. I was giving the devil way too much credit and pointing the finger at God for where I was in my life because I thought He should have protected me from my worst enemy. Well, you know what they say, “When you point the finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at you.” And, my worst enemy, on any given day, is not the devil; it is me! I am pretty confident that if we are honest with ourselves, many of us would answer the question, “Who is holding you back,” with, “I am holding me back.” As I said last week in God-Robots, God does not want mindless worshippers, so we have free will. He wants us to have life and life more abundantly, but that starts with taking responsibility for our own actions. The quicker we can admit to making mistakes, the sooner we can get out of God’s way and let Him lead our lives. Yes, Satan will challenge us, but, ultimately our choices are ours to make. We should be making them with God’s plan for our lives in mind. Are you willing to move out of God’s way, so that you can live your best life? Ms. EV It is Day 3 of Vacation Bible School and today’s lesson is: Amazing! God’s Power over Sin! The corresponding verse is, “Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master” (Romans 6:23 The Message). In the beginning, Adam and Eve were meant to live peacefully and eternally in the garden. God, being a loving God, gave Adam and Eve instructions and free will to carry out those instructions. The serpent tempted Eve to disobey God and she complied, as did Adam. That first sin created a rift in the relationship between God and man that has existed ever since. Nonetheless, God, in His infinite wisdom, gave all of us a chance to live the peaceful, eternal like in Heaven when He sent His Son to die for our sins. Our part is to change the status of our relationship.
If you are familiar with Facebook, you know that in the ‘About’ section, where one fills in information about his or her life, there is an option to post a relationship status. You can choose indicate to anyone who visits your page whether you are single, in a relationship, engaged, married, it’s complicated, widowed, separated, divorced, etc. Recently, I have had several friends update their relationship statuses to reflect positive changes in their lives. As a longtime singleton, it literally makes me giddy when I see my single girlfriends get to update their relationship status to “In a Relationship,” “Engaged,” and, especially, “Married.” One very close friend recently updated her status to “In a Relationship,” and there was an outpouring of ‘Likes’ and encouraging comments. One comment in particular, really hit home, as one of her friends commented, “…With who? I know you already [have] a relationship with God.” The comment intrigued me because I thought of how awesome it was that people know my friend has a relationship with God, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, as I began to study for today’s lesson at VBS, I thought, “If I documented my relationship with God, what would my relationship status say?” Well, in the beginning because I was born into sin, I was both ‘SINgle’ and ‘Separated.’ Until I accepted Christ in my life, sin was my master. And that relationship, just as it did with Adam and Eve, caused me to be separated from God. I would even venture to say that for a portion of my life, once I got comfortable with sin, I was ‘Married’ to it. However, when I started to not just know of God, but have a real relationship with Him, my relationship status with sin changed to ‘Divorced.’ Once, I divorced sin, I was free to be ‘In a Relationship’ with God through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who bridged the separation between God and me. So, how is my relationship with sin? Well, think about your exes. Some you never speak to again; you cut them from your life and move forward. I wish this was my relationship status with sin. Some exes become lifelong friends once the healing begins, which is nice when we are dealing with other human beings, but when it comes to sin, we cannot serve two masters. Therefore, if we are still friendly with sin, (you know, we give it a call or text late in the midnight hour when the pangs of loneliness set in), it is displeasing to God because we are living lukewarm life. If I had to pick a relationship status with sin now, it would be ‘It’s Complicated.' I try to stay away, but just like Paul, I want to do right, and I don’t always do right because there is a constant war between my spirit and my sin that has existed since I was born. This war intensified when I divorced sin and entered in to a relationship with God. As long I as live on this Earth, I know the battle for my attention will continue. It is difficult to turn your back on sin. Some sins are so enticing to our insatiable flesh. Nevertheless, the verse warns us that the result of a prolonged relationship with sin is death, but God gave us the gift of life by salvation through Jesus Christ. So, if you ABC (Admit that your are sinner, repent and turn from sin; Believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died and rose from the dead and that your sins are forgiven; Confess that Jesus is your Savior and Lord and live for Him), you will receive the gift of eternal life. And, according to the Bible, the appropriate relationship status would be, “Engaged’ because the Body of Christ, the Church, as the Bride, is waiting for the return of its Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, so we can get married and literally live happily ever after; not just fairy-tale happy, praising and pleasing God through inner joy and peace happy! What is your relationship status with God? Do you know what it is or are you commitment-phobic? What is your relationship status with sin? Are you still friends or did you turn your back on sin? Perhaps, you are living a life like David, Paul, or even me, in which you do not want to sin because your heart belongs to God, but it’s complicated. God can and will show His power over the sin in our lives, if we will allow Him to make us whole. Forget wedding presents; if you want to receive the best gift of all time, choose salvation! Ms. EV has updated her Relationship Status to ‘Engaged.’ Ms. EV If you want to update your relationship status, please talk to your pastor or minister, or if you do not have a church, find a Christian that you can talk to about salvation. Post your current relationship status in the Comments section of this blog and I will pray for you. If you have already changed your relationship status, click over to the Comments section for this blog and share your status (i.e. In a Relationship, Engaged). Last week, I read a devotion that talked about the woman with the issue of blood who was healed by Jesus. The devotion posed the question about what readers thought happened to the woman after she met Jesus. In response, I said that I think it may have taken her some time to live freely in her new, healed and whole condition. This woman suffered for twelve years. She was seen as unclean. No one could help her; people took advantage of her. She just wanted to get her secret blessing by touching Jesus’ hem and go on with her life. Then, Jesus called her out and reassured her that He knew her plight and that she was now whole. I am confident that she was grateful and I am sure she told her testimony to anyone who would listen; it is just that I know in my life that there have been many times when God has delivered me from afflictions--emotional, spiritual, physical and financial--yet, it takes a little while to adjust to the new found freedom.
When my marriage began to crumble, which was almost as quickly as it began, I tried to make it work because I was afraid to look like a failure. I stayed and I tried not because I loved him, not because I made a promise before God and a church full of people, but because I was afraid of what other people would say about me. I had somewhat isolated myself from people who cared deeply for me. I had taken my husband’s side on many issues where I knew he was dead wrong to the detriment of some of my relationships, but I thought I was being a good wife. And, I felt that if I was a good enough wife, eventually, he would change and we would change, and it would become a decent marriage. That was not the case. When I decided that the marriage was over, my ex-brother-in-law told me that I was a sinner and that divorce was a sin for which I could not repent. At the time, I acted as if his words meant nothing to me and I pressed forward with the divorce, and with good reasons, biblically-backed reasons (if you don’t know what that means, look it up in Matthew 5). Even though, I had a way out and I was delivered from one of the worst mistakes of my life, I felt damaged. How could I make being divorced right with God? I went from feeling damaged to acting destructively. No one on the outside world knew because I am a fantastic actress, but I had been broken for so long that I did not think the pieces would ever come back together again, and that is a dangerous place to be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Eventually, after having my heart broken on more than one occasion, I realized that God had restored me, but I was still living as though I was a reject. No one who is a child of God is a reject. God helped me realize how much He cares for me. He helped me reclaim my title as a holy princess, the daughter of the Almighty King. Then, I was able to fully engage in life. Yes, there have been ups and downs in my life, but I know my value. No matter what situation arises my value to my Father and myself does not change. I am undamaged. Many times when we have been suffering or afflicted for a long time with some situation, whether it is health-related, heart-related or wealth-related, we have a tendency to continue to live as though we are damaged, even though we have been delivered. However, once we realize that we are His and His love starts to flow from within us, so that we can accept who He made us to be, and not give any thought to what others may think of our past, our present, or future, we cannot help but shout of His love from whatever platform we may have. I AM NOT DAMAGED! I AM NOT SHATTERED! I AM NOT UNDERVALUED! I AM DELIVERED! I AM REDEEMED! I AM LOVED! Ms. EV I have been having a great time recording and promoting Worth Dying For and planning the rest of the project, Relationship Advice. I finally feel like I am doing what God would have me to do with the gifts of writing and singing that He has given me. I fell in love with writing in the tenth grade. I was never much of a reader, especially of anything that was very long. But, I love writing. In high school and early on in college, I wrote a lot of poems. Well, I wrote one song in high school called, “If I Were a Tree.” It was not a commercial success, but it was a hit with my family and friends. “If I were a tree…I would have some leaves…and some acorns…” and it went on to describe the characteristics I would and would not want if I were a tree. It was not my best work, but it was the start of something.
When, I got out of college, I put together a demo tape called, Brains and Beauty (I told you the other day that I was super conceited). Anyway, it featured the potential smash, “Bye Bye Baby,” a bitter ode to ex-boyfriends that I recorded in a local studio and another song that I cannot even remember, plus all of the lyrics that I had written at that point. I thought that if the right person heard it I was sure to be a superstar! My parents got me a four-track recorder for my 21st birthday and I started making a cappella songs. Some were great, some were not great. The first song I was truly proud of was the one I wrote when my Aunt Shebra passed away in 1998 after a brave battle with multiple sclerosis. When I got the call, all I could do was cry and write. My Aunt Shebra was a real singer/songwriter, she played the guitar, and she was awesome. After her memorial, I heard some of the songs she and her friends composed and it truly inspired me. I wrote a song for my wedding, and recorded an a cappella wedding march. I wrote a couple of songs in law school. I tried to learn how to play the piano to put music to my lyrics, but it was too hard and I quit. After I had a pretty significant collection going, I copyrighted the songs I had. For the next few years, I wrote songs here and there. I even took my collection to a gospel conference where I was speaking and tried to get other artists to use them. But, I could never get the right person’s attention. I wanted someone else to take the reins and make my music and my dreams come alive. Because, no one did, I essentially gave up. And, two years after I gave up in my heart, my computer crashed and I lost most of my music collection, plays and poetry that I had written. (Remember computer users: Jesus saves and so should you...it's a joke, I'll tell you later if you want to hear it). At that point, I thought it was a sign from God that giving up was the right choice. Over the last few years, I have lost two very close friends and my grandmother, one of my best friends. Those events sent me into a spiral of evaluating and sometimes over-evaluating what I had and had not done over the course of my life. At first, that resulted in a mild depression. I thought because I had not “been discovered,” I was destined to be used by God and I had made so many wrong turns that God didn’t want me as a witness for Him. But then, one day, I woke up. I cannot even pinpoint the day, but I started writing again. I started recording the melodies, so that I would not forget them. Then, I became determined to learn an instrument, so that I would have more than just melodies. I chose the guitar this time. So, after some long conversations with God about what I should do, I decided to take a leap and really, seriously record the music that God has given me. And, I mean given me, when I started learning guitar, I thought it was a lost cause, but within three weeks, I was putting chords with songs. Now, of course, there had to be an attack. When, I realized how easily this new skill set was being learned, I thought, “I should have done this a long time ago.” When I heard the finished product of Worth Dying For, I thought, “I should have done this a long time ago.” I shared those thoughts with my mom and she told me I can’t dwell in the past. I replied, “You’re right. Yesterday is never gonna happen again. All we can do is move forward.” Focusing on an audience of one, God, diving into the talents, that He has given me, and trusting that He knows what it best when it comes to those gifts has been a long time coming. I could feel guilty for not doing it sooner, but as Dr. Phil says, “Guilt is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” So, sorry devil, I won’t be looking back at the past, or to the sides at other people. I will be looking up to the hills from which comes my Help (Psalm 121) and looking forward to where God is guiding me. I am not sure what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. Ms. EV I am not a big fan of chores. One of the drawbacks to living alone is that there is no one with whom to share the chores. It is not that I am not a clean person; I just have a little touch of OCD, so when I start cleaning, I do not finish for a few hours because I cannot stop until everything is shiny and perfect. My absolute least favorite chore is taking out the trash. I live in a condo and we do not have individual garbage cans that get rolled out to the end of the driveway and emptied. We have a trash compactor, which is not super close to my unit. This means that after I bag up the stinky, smelly garbage (because it really doesn’t matter what you put in it; it is always gross), I have to load it up in my car and drive it to the compactor. Then, I have to endure the lovely scent of all of the neighborhood’s waste as I chuck my bags in to the compactor. I have a pretty significant list of desires for my dream man and one of them is that I never have to ask him to take out the trash or have take it out myself; then, I will know it is true love.
This morning, as I was packing up my garbage, I thought, “I hate doing this.” Then, my mind wanted to engage in this extended diatribe about how if I had a man, I wouldn’t have to take out the garbage and life would be so great. And, just as I started down that road, I felt something whiz past my nose. I could barely see it, but it kept buzzing around my head. It was a fruit fly. For anyone who doesn’t know, these tiny insects are very annoying, and unlike regular flies, they are hard to see and too small for a flyswatter. This is what happens when you live in Florida, or I am guessing anywhere hot, and you are dealing with trash outside; these little buggers are everywhere. They love garbage almost as much as I hate it. Nonetheless, that little pest changed my thinking. I still hate taking out the garbage and want a man to do it (reverse chauvinism, I know), but I realized that getting rid of the trash, literally and figuratively is a necessary task. Think about what happens when you let garbage into your thought process. “You’re fat.” “You’re ugly.” “You’re stupid.” “You’re unlovable.” It is one thing to bag those thoughts up and put them in the garage of your mind until you have time to stop by the dumpster. But, as those thoughts fester in that hot, sweltering garage, the fruit flies start swarming. So, you still hear the negativity buzzing all around you. You have to completely discard the rubbish in order to be free from its effects. In my compactor it gets smashed, then hauled off and dumped. The same thing has to happen with any kind of junk in our lives. Beyond our thought lives, there is some refuse we need to clear in relationships (well, some relationships are refuse), in our finances, and in our habits. We cannot just bag it up and store it until we have time to deal with it; pack it up, dump it, and do not go back looking for it. Stop calling it, texting it, spending money it, spending time with it. Get rid of it; ALL of it! Taking out the trash in our lives allows us to have a cleaner, fresher outlook. It gives God the opportunity to fill those newly emptied spaces. As much as it is not my favorite chore, there is a quantifiable benefit. Ms. EV I still remember the first boy that ever made my heart flutter. I was at La Petite Academy and we would chase each other all over the playground; across the monkey bars, up and down the slide and into the sandbox. As a matter of fact, to this day I can remember and picture a boy for whom I pined during each and every year that I was in school. By high school, I can start naming two or three crushes per year. I made good grades, was very involved in school, but I was the epitome of BOY-CRAZY. I just knew that, even though my life was good, it would be so much better with a boy in it! I did not actually have a boyfriend until I was a senior in high school (looking back that was a good thing because Lord knows what kind of trouble I would have found).
When my first relationship ended, I picked up right where I left off…you guessed it…BOY-CRAZY! And then, I decided that it was time to settle down at the ripe old age of twenty-one. When my ex-husband and I fell apart, I entered immediately into another ill-advised and unhealthy relationship, but when that one was over…come on, say it with me…BOY-CRAZY!!! Then, one day, I realized that the hole was still there. That’s when I started seriously talking to God about the issue. I stopped praying, “Lord, send me a man!” and started praying, “Lord, show me how to be satisfied with You.” So, I was in a really good place when I wrote Pray. And, earlier this year, I had to look at myself and ask, “How did I get so far away from that?” If it only took one relationship to knock me down from that place, then no wonder I am still single. How can God trust me? I know He has forgiven me. But, I have to forgive me and never fall into this boy-crazy trap again. I am learning even more the second time around after another big break-up and almost four years or being single and abstinent. I do not even know if I can trust me to carry out what God wants for me while I am in a relationship. Can I handle it without falling back into this same pit again? Can I not make the same mistakes of timetables and giving up me again? Am I ready? I thought I was ready again until I looked at where I was and how far I slipped backwards. It’s very scary. However, I find encouragement in the boy-crazy women that came before me: Rahab and the woman at the well. Okay, Rahab was a harlot. She will not get any judgment from me. I have been called and have called myself worse. Nonetheless, when faced with a life-threatening decision of whether to protect God’s spies or turn them over to the authorities, she chose God. Despite her despicable reputation and the dire repercussions, Rahab showed faith in God. And, as a result, she is in the lineage of Christ, as the mother of Boaz (of Ruth and Boaz fame). God used that boy-crazy foreigner to help deliver Jericho to His people and she asked for salvation of her relatives as well. The woman at the well had five husbands, and one man with whom she had shacked up waiting for her when she met Christ. We would probably say that she was just a smidge boy-crazy. Yet, when she met the Living Water, she was filled and she brought the message to others and they were saved. Sometimes, we might feel that because of a sordid past, God cannot use us. Maybe, like me, you have felt or currently feel used up by those you have allowed into your life. Maybe, like me, you feel that you will disappoint God…again. Here’s the deal, I am not a eunuch, I still have boy-crazy moments (though they are much more infrequent as I age). I want a relationship and to be married and have a family of my own. However, the major relationships and subsequent heartbreaks that I had were not because God sent them and I messed it up; they were the result of being desperate for a man instead of being desperate for God. So, if I wait on Him, and walk in His path, He can give me all that I desire and use me for His glory. How do I know this? The Bible gives proof that God can use a boy-crazy girl. Ms. EV |
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