so here i am. sitting at this computer in the m. home at 10:08pm, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream, spent from 6.7 miles of running and walking, writing to you. yes, you beloved one. and do you know what? my life looks A LOT different from what i thought it was going to look like… well… ever.
tonight i was going through some old portuguese notes, trying to figure out the translation for a portuguese song for s. and s. when i stumbled upon a piece of notebook paper where i had written the answers to some questions that some professor had probably asked me to answer. they were about my future. five years after college. i said i’d probably be working for campus crusade or in law school after taking some time off from undergrad. wow. i don’t remember exactly when i wrote those words, but i distinctly remember feeling like the dreams i was writing about weren’t really my dreams as my pencil looped blindly across the page.
i mean yes, i knew i wanted to work for campus crusade for a bit, but i also knew that if i stayed there it would probably be out of fear or the desire for ease and familiarity.
these realizations about how different my life looks from the musings of my past have become increasingly frequent as of late. even in the seemingly foolish things.
a few days ago i walked into the salt shaker bookstore with the intention of killing an unexpectedly spare half hour. i walked out with a Christian love story. when my eyes fell to the cover i remembered how much i used to identify with all the heroines in those stories… how they were so wounded from their past and kept everyone at a distance beyond the fortress-like walls surrounding their hearts. the fear. the hope that tasted bitter in their mouths. i didn’t so much focus on why i identified with them, i just remembered that i did identify with them. and besides, my heart has been longing to feel romanced for quite some time now, to remember that i am uniquely feminine–a tender blossom waiting for light to beckon me to fullness. (yes i did just type that… ::grin::). so i bought it, eager to take in the words and pages that would so resonate with my heart.
so i read. and it was good. but you know what? it was different. very different. different because i am different. very different. as i read the new yet very familiar story i realized that i didn’t resonate with the heroine as much. those walls aren’t there around my heart anymore like they were. i don’t think every relationship is bound to hurt you anymore. i don’t feel the need to “protect myself” from people anymore. and i don’t view having a man know and delight in the deepest reaches of my heart as a precursor to healing anymore.
that’s huge. that is God’s grace in my life.
and i don’t feel like i need to read a book to see an example of a Godly relationship or see the picture of Christ loving His Bride anymore. i LIVE with that example. in my church family i am SURROUNDED by examples of that.
God be praised.
on a side note though i will say this: sometimes i think that based on the way God made me there is no way He doesn’t have some crazy love story planned out for me.
but you know what? even if He doesn’t have that for me with a man, He certainly has that for me with Himself.
God be praised.
