When God Writes Your Love Story

So as many of you may know, I have been reading this book called "When God Writes Your Love Story" by Eric and Leslee Ludy. I finished it a few weeks ago now (sorry I skipped a few weeks) and it was probably one of the best devotionals I have ever done. It brought up so many topics that, out of all the relationship materials and sermons I have participated in, I had never thought of in the way they were presented in the book. So, to get right to the point I am going to share just a few of the awesome things that stuck out to me.

Throughout the book one of the most basic things that they focused on was the fact that you should, no need, to have a strong relationship with God before you can have a strong relationship with another person. A strong, true relationship with Christ will fulfill you more than any human relationship ever could, and it has to. In other words, God needs to be enough; HE has to be the one that fulfills you, not another person. It would be unfair for that much pressure to be put on one person when it was a longing that only God was meant to fill. Also, you have to make sure that you are strong enough in your own faith before you can help another person in theirs. This isn't to say that you are going to have to carry along your spouse like a ball and chain in their walk, in fact it shouldn't be like that at all, but at times you will need each other to be accountability partners for your relationship with the Lord. That being said, the other person needs to be just as mature in his or her faith, as you are in yours. This leads into the next topic; what to look for in a husband or wife.

So, let me just start by saying that in my opinion, the whole idea of dating is to find the one I am going to marry. I'm not, nor have I ever been, the kind of girl that is going to date someone just for the heck of it or just to say I have a boyfriend. So really, it's considered courtship more than dating. Anyways, the whole idea of marriage is to find someone that will assist you in your walk with Christ. This is someone that you will be spending the rest of your life with and will have a very heavy influence on your life and your walk with God. Finding someone that shares the same beliefs as you is pertinent to having a successful marriage. Also, finding someone who will not hold you back from reaching a God-filled life also should be a requirement. If a person is holding you back from having a deeper relationship with your Savior or is not allowing you to be who you believe God wants you to be in Him, then that is a sure sign that your relationship may not one God has intended for you. Don't settle for what YOU think is the best, because believe me, the Creator of the universe has something incredible in store for you and does NOT want you to settle.

Now this next one is not something anyone really would read and be super exciting about doing. In fact, it is something that I think a good 99.9% of us have tried to completely avoid doing at all cost growing up but it really is a phenomenal idea. So here it is: INCLUDE YOUR PARENTS! Yup, I said it folks. Let them in on all the details and sincerely ask for their opinion. When the Ludy's first mentioned this a big red "not over my dead body" flag went off in my head. But then they said something that made me think. They talked about how parents, Godly or not, have all been put into our lives for a particular reason. They can teach us lessons and give us a good opinion. Above all, parents (or parental figures) are people who genuinely love us and want the very best for us in life. That is an extremely rare feeling for someone to have for you and mom and dad are the best at it. Because of this, it makes no sense at all to shut them out of one of the most important aspects of our life! Including mom and dad in the dating area of your life can be really helpful and keep you feeling disconnected and like you have to hind something from them. Hiding in a relationship never turns out well, so just try to let them in on what's going on!

My favorite topic within the book was one that I personally struggle with. Giving God the pen. Key word there being "give"; He won't fight you for it, it has to be your choice. You have to come to the realization that you ideas for your life my be completely different from God's. Not only that, but giving Him the pen also means being okay with the that.Whoever holds the pen is the author of your life and to be perfectly honest I try really hard to be that pen holder. I clasp onto it with all of my might instead of giving it up to the Creator, Himself, to write my love (or life) story. This isn't just for your relationship  part of your life either; its for every part! Every time I start to fall into "selfish pen mode" I try to remind myself that I am TERRIBLE at writing. I mean really, if I am going to be completely honest with myself, I have to say I have been coming up with some of the worst ideas in all of history ever since I was a child. Ideas like wanting to be a veterinarian when I can't stand blood, jumping off the roof of a storage shed with an umbrella to see if it would make me float, trying to swim with my feet together like a mermaid tail causing me to sink, putting tin foil in the microwave or watermelon rinds down the garbage disposal (sorry dad). Stupid, absolutely stupid. So when I think about it, its really for my own good that I let God do the writing. Only He knows what all I would (and often do) mess up when the pen is in my hand! All I know, is He is the ultimate Author of every life, and especially love, story because He IS love. God is the creator and utter definition of love and has shown us every example of true love that we could ever need by dying on the cross and showing us grace everyday.

I don't know about you, but I really love fairytales. Disney is, of course, my favorite. Its wonderful and sets high expectations but is absolutely pathetic compared to anything King of Kings could ever write. God knows what is best for you and believe me when I say He has the most beautiful, enchanting fairytale planned out for you that is more wonderful than anything you could ever dream about. With all of that being said I challenge you to give God your pen and let God write you love story.

Until next time,
Gloria

Life Is Messy

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

― Marilyn Monroe

Amen sister. As humans we say and do stupid things all the time...ALL THE TIME! We do them like its our job and we live in a world full of other humans who do the same stupid things!  Life is a stinkin' mess and there is no way to get around it. But why would you want too!? In my opinion our mistakes are what keep things interesting and help us learn. People may ask for a perfect world, and don't get me wrong there are some things that I could do without, but just imagine that. If everything was perfect all of the time no body would know what good or bad things even were. Perfect would be the new normal, normal would be all of the time, and who just wants normal? 

Even though its hard, we have to appreciate the bad just as much as the good because without the bad were couldn't savor the good. It would be a wasted wish to ask for nothing bad to ever happen again. Our bad experiences stay with us forever, sometimes even more than the good. They are so negative that we do everything in our power to prevent them for occurring again, right? When something bad happens have you ever caught yourself thinking, "Wow that was terrible! Can't wait to do it all over again." Probably not. And because of that right there, you learn a very valuable lesson. Experience is the best teacher because it is a brutal, relentless one. No body escapes it and it will play a huge part in shaping you into whoever you will be. We all know this scene from Disney's "The Lion King" (yes I'm throwing Disney in this! Like I said before...I LOVE Disney ;]): 

Now that is a very physical lesson learned, but metaphorically it meant a lot more. It basically sums it all up. You can either learn from your past or run from it, but either way you'll always remember it and it will change your future decisions and reactions.

The Mess and Heaven:

So as I was doing my devos the other day I was reading about Heaven. There is very little that is actually said in scripture about what Heaven will be like, but the little there is sounds amazing! All I know is that living with my Savior all of eternity will be perfect in every way! Then I got to thinking, life on Earth is terrible and corrupt and we just make the very best of what we can, but without seeing and experiencing such horrible things we wouldn't appreciate the place God has work so hard on creating for His children even half as much! If life was all sunshine and rainbows here, why go to Heaven? Why not just stay on Earth? Through every trail just remember, someday it will get better, way better. In fact, it will be perfect! All those bad experiences will someday cause you to enjoy Heaven that much more!

Trails Help Us Lean on God:

Alright, Pastor Cory literally JUST did a sermon on this and it was amazing! (I don't think it is posted yet but when it is it will be on rbcflint.org/sermons under set free and it will be February 17th's I believe). He said how there is a phrase that we all say that simple is just a lie. The phrase is: "God will never give you can't handle". He continued by saying how this is a complete lie because when we feel like we can handle things ourselves, we push God away. God purposely gives us tasks He knows are much to hard for us to handle on our own so we have no choice but to depend on Him to help us. Our dependency on God strengthens our relationship with Him making hard situations the ideal way to bring us close to Him. You see it isn't that God will never give us something that WE can't handle. It is that God will never give us something that we can't handle with HIM. And let me just say, there isn't anything the Creator, Savior, Great I Am, Prince of Peace, and King of Kings can't handle. He has earned those names for a reason! To sum it all up, trails are just a way for God to help us further our relationship with Him and when we come out of them, we will be stronger in our faith than when we went in. 

Life is messy, but it is the best kind of messy there is!