I feel better today. But I know that my state of "happiness," is not because I've come to grips with my questions about God and am resting in trust again, but because I've put it into a box out of the way, and I've reverted back to my state of "pretending" that everything is fine with me and God. I still do not have that boundless wellspring of trust and praise for Him - that intimacy that I crave and know frome experience is available. The wellspring that is my life's flow.

I'm starving without is, slowly day by day. But I had a talk with my mom (my role model and best friend), and something that I walked away with was....how focused I am on ME. I'm obsessed with ME. I'm upset because God's not coming through for ME. Things are working out for ME. Me, me, me. And when I'm focused on me, there's not room left for God. I'm having an affair with myself. Maybe this is my answer? Whether yes or no, I still can't find the right step to take.

Insecure. That's how I feel. Not "insecure" as in who I am as person, not an identity crisis, but rather, insecure in my relationship with God. And I know it's my own fault.

Growing up, especially in my later teen years and early-early 20's, I felt so secure in my faith. Nothing could shake me, I firmly believed without question in the miracles of the past, present, and future - expecting any moment for God to blow the top off of a story that would boggle the minds of all men. God was real, true, powerful, supernatural, my BEST friend, my true sourse of life, He was my everything. But 18 months ago, that began to change. And now I find mysel still KNOWING that God is real, true, powerful, supernatural, my best friend, my true sourse of life...but I feel SO insecure. I can't even say my faith is small, because I fear I have no faith at all. I know that I am responsible for my sins and failures, and I can't blame circumstances for where I am...but looking at my circumstances does help to understand why I believe the lies I believe and why I lack faith.

During the past 18 months, I have had circumstances that have forced me to seek after God like I never have before. I was lost, I was dissilusioned, I was confused - and it was those feelings that forced me to Him. There were many times during those months that I felt like I had a word from God. And that word was to PRAY for < insert specific prayer for what seemed humanly impossible >. And in each time, I set myself to pray. I prayed until I almost felt sweat drops of blood. I cried out. I fasted. I interceded. I had HUGE faith. But the truth of the matter is...none of the prayers have ever been answered. Not a one. And over time, my faith eroded. In the most basic form of putting it...I feel like God let me down. I honestly felt like I heard a specific direction from God to pray for what seemed impossible...but He never did anything, no matter how hard and long I prayed and saught His face. As time went on and I began realizing that my heart was moving away from the things I thought were important, the answer to those prayers became less vital to me. Pretty soon, that answer wasn't really relevant to my life anymore. And moving on was ok. I was ready. But what stands firm in my memory...is that God didn't answer me. He seemed to speak. I gave my all in prayer. And He never did anything. I'm left with two messages from that:

1) I can't hear from God. What I hear always prove wrong.
2) God isn't powerful enough. And God won't answer MY prayers anymore.

I know those thing are wrong. But I have no tangible evidence in my recent life to prove it. I know that faith is believing in what is NOT seen...but I feel like God has just left me out in the dark. I feel like I need to SEE something happen. I am ashamed of my faithlessness...driven by the sea and tossed, as it says in James. But I need to experience for myself that God hears me when I pray and that He answers me. Else my life is worth nothing, because I cannot live without Him in my life. I need to know He's really there.

If I were to read this exact post on someone else's blog, I would know exactly what advice to give, verses to quote, and encouragement to give to boost their faith and to remind them of the power of our God. I KNOW the answers in my head, I can rattle them off to someone like me...but in my secret of hearts, I am so insecure.

Looking back over the past 12 months of my life, I would definitely label myself as a troubled and unstable individual! But despite the despair and depression that I drowned in for so long, this past year has been such an important part of who I have become. My faith in Christ, which I had always believed to be so strong and unshakable, was completely torn down. But the glory and wonder of our God, is that when He tears down, it's only to build back up again, better and stronger than it was before. And that's what's happened with me. In some ways I feel wiser and more mature, but at the same time, I feel almost like a baby Christian, as the Lord is each day taking my faith to the very basics of Christianity, and I believe for the first time, an invaluable and necessary foundation is being laid down. No longer do I have a relationship with Christ that has been based on my emotional experiences, altho I do not discredit those experiences. But now, I have walked a valley and climbed a mountain that has laid brick by brick the solid foundation of truth and reality in Christ. It's been a very difficult year. I still have scars and wounds yet to heal, I'm not done with this process. But will I ever be truly "done?" Maybe this trial will fade as the years pass, but I know that my journey with Christ is never over. It's goes on for eternity.

Praise the Lord who has given me wings, so that I now can soar on wings like the eagles.

I am free.

I guess this blog is now going to become a "single's" blog...this is hard. So much to say, just don't know how to say it.

Everywhere I look, I find Christian people applauding and supporting media that is SO ungodly. I marvel in disbelief that the very people with whom I have conversations with about godliness, living like Christ, and striving for the beauty of holiness, can turn around and label themselves as "fans" of films that are full of sexual content, lust, explicite behavior, immodesty, and altogether a style of morals and life-styles that are the complete opposite of God's ways. I really don't get it.

I think that Christians fall the hardest. Because when they fall, not only do they bring themselves down, but with their fall, they drag down the name and kingdom of Jeusus - our pure, holy, righteous God.

Being a young woman, my desire is to glorify Christ in my life, and to get married. But as I watch young man after young man crash before my eyes, I wonder if marriage is set out in my future someday at all, because I don't see men standing up for truths of the Bible! Purity, holiness, modesty, discretion, chastity - do these matter anymore to anyone else? I mean, REALLY TRULY matter? I know many guys who talk big about it, who I know truly want to glorify our God with their lives. Yet, somehow, there's a disconnect when they sit in front of the tv or put their music on. I almost question whether "marriage" and "glorifying God" can even go together anymore, when there aren't any young men who share my belief it following Christ's standards.

It's during times like this, that I apreciate my dad so much. Especially over the past few years, my dad has established a very strict code over the media that he allows himself and my brother's to watch. Movies with immodesty (tighter clothes, necklines that reveal anything, a manner of dress that in any way draws attention to the female body, whether it's "covered" or not) aren't tolerated or watch a second time - sometimes he walks out of the room. Neither is the Lord's name allowed to be used in vain. With these standards, we don't even have to deal with sexual content, inuendo, or lust rampages. My dad watches out for his family, especially my brothers. And I have come to admire and respect that immensely. And anyone less than that, I find myself questioning their seriousness about "purity" before Christ. My dad has changed the way I look at the young men around me, because he sees, like many do not, what living for Christ really means. I many not share every conviction, but I respect fully his desire to honor God with his eyes and ears, and it's that mindset that I see lackly entirely amongst Christians. Non-Christians, who can we blame? But Christians have no excuse.

I wont settle for less. I hope you're out there.

Naturally, what I'm to "do" now with my life has been on my mind alot lately. Having left behind two relationships when all I've ever wanted to do is get married, gets one to thinking. In light of those failed relationships and the lack of potential for anytyhing linked to marriage happening now, has caused me to start evaluating my life. What DO I do now? Marriage isn't happening. Do I just "hold out" for it, when I don't see God's path taking me that direction in the future that I see right now? What are my options? Ministry? Schooling? Working?

I WANT ministry, especially with young people, maybe even troubled youth - whether through drugs,alcholol, or just poor family lives. That's where my heart has been lately. I see that to truly be an asset in that kind of ministry, being trained/getting some kind of college degree would be hugely beneficial. Not just for the sake of having a degree, but for the help it would enably me to be in a ministry like that. In light of this...should I go to school? I've never really thought I'd go to school...but right now, it seems like a very possible option.

I need the Lord's wisom so much. I know He holds my life - my desires, my singleness, my immediate future, what I DO with my life - and I need His guidance more than anything. To totally change what I've been doing so far would take alot of courage...and money. But nothing is impossible with God. I just need to pray and find out if this impossible is something He desires to make possible.

The other evening, as I was spending time alone with God in my closet, the Lord took my mind on a journey of thought. And those thoughts have staid in my head, resurfacing again and again for more contemplation and consideration.

A person going into a career spends an extreme amount of time, money, and energy into becoming what they want to be. Someone planning on becoming a doctor puts mulitple years, numerous levels of education, unbelievable amounts of money, as well as all of their mental faculties into becoming that doctor. But if this doctor is a Christian, what is he primarily? Is he that doctor? OR...is he a Christian? If you listed numerically, greatest on top, of WHAT he is, in the eyes of God (the most important Eyes), WHAT is he? I believe "Christian" should be at the top of the list. If being a doctor is secondary to "Christian," in theory, shouldn't the time and effort he puts into his walk with Christ soundly rival even the efforts of becoming a doctor? Granted, I see that a person's career should be a means of glorifying Christ, and so I am not saying that a person shouldn't put that time and effort needed into becoming the BEST at what they do ("whatsoever you do, do ALL for the glory of Christ"), but I guess in theory...it just got me thinking.

I am, first and formost, a Christian. How much of that time and effort am I putting into being the woman of godliness and integrity that Christ has called me to be? How much of my mind have I given to meditating on and memorizing God's Word? How much time do I spend dailey ("I will give neither sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I have found a place for the Lord") alone, on my face, before the Lord, seeking out the very heart of God? How much of my anxieties and worries do I hand over to the Lord, giving Him the control? How often do I pause and thank the Lord? Are my "ambushes of praise" (2 Kings 20) mighty attacks, or puny fist-fights? Where on that list, in my life, does "Christian" rank?

Lord, "as you train my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze," (Ps. 18) train my heart to seek after You FIRST, before I seek after anything else.

It's amazing how things can change! I was just reading back over some of my blog posts, most of them written in the heat of a moment's pain. How I wrote it, is how I felt that moment. Maybe those thought didn't last longer than that moment during which I wrote it, or maybe that pain they protrayed was a constant in the days surrounding the writing. Alot of them where. But as I look back, I remember the pain of when I wrote those, sometimes written through my own agony of tears, and it makes me smile. Ironic, wierd, strange that it should make me smile now...but the truth behind the smile is, looking back on where I was, makes me so more clearly where I am NOW and where GOD has brought me! Each past post epitamized a feeling of deep loss and pain that was very real, no matter how fickle, silly, over-emotional, or unrational it may have seemed to an unbiased reader. The emotional swings, discovering hidden fears, remember past relationships that I though were long dead - each one of them served a HUGE purpose in bringing me to where I am now. It was a LONG road, a twisting road...but it WAS a road, and a road that God had placed under my feet for me to travel. And so, as I read back and see all the turmoil of emotions that have now ceased to be so constant and so "important," I rejoice that they happened (even the ones that were irrational and rediculous!) because they each played a part in God's workings in my heart, my life, my past, my present, and my future.

God IS good! And what's more - He's MY God.

Lord, please bring something new to replace the old. Please let something beautiful come into my life. I'm trapped in the ashes of what is now old, but I have nothing new to take it's place.

I've realized some important things the past few days, even in the midst of my continuing sorrow, pain, and apprehensions.

1) I have presumed on God's will. I've presumed on Him in that I assumed that what I wanted - and what I want is a God-honoring thing - is what He wanted too, and that He would do it. Yes, what I ask for is something that would honor Him, but it may not be His will. I don't know what His will is. I have presumed on God's will.

2) I have believed in word that God's plan is best. But I have not believed that in my heart. I have held onto my desires, refusing to see how what God is doing can really turn out as even more than I could have dreamed.

3) I have not surrendered everything. Because I wasn't believing that God's plan could be best, I was holding onto my ideals.

Lord, thank you for continually taking me steps towards being where You want me to be. Thank you for your patience and gentleness in opening my eyes and heart gradually.

My nose turns red when I cry.