Brand New Start

I can't say that I know why I am doing this other than I am just doing what God is telling me to do. Back in January, God turned my entire world upside down with the book, Lady In Waiting. I don't know how many times God has turned your world upside down, but let's just say it is never much fun. This wasn't the first time nor will it be the last, and I am thankful that God loves me enough to remove me from my complacency.

Anyway, about the book ... Since I was a little girl, I have had Sunday School teacher, after GA teacher, after church leaders who have unknowingly corrupted my entire view of God and marriage. I get the concept that these people were just trying to make me feel special and happy, but in the long run, now all I have is many years of lying to myself to reverse. Who decided that it was a good idea to tell all the little girls in the church and probably outside of the church that "God has a special person picked out for every single one of you?" Please tell me where this is found in the Bible, because I can tell you right now that my Bible says that it is better to not get married so as to devote our entire lives to God. I realize that the whole creation of the world was based on one man and one woman who were husband and wife and made babies, but God never once promises this to every single once of us. For the longest time, I saw it as my right to get married ... that somehow God owed it to me to bring me a husband. I fooled myself into thinking that my life was incomplete without this "Christian American Dream." Little did I know that I have been wasting precious time in my life when I could be growing deeper and deeper in my relationship with God, but instead I was pining away after my nonexistent prince charming who everyone would say just took a wrong turn somewhere and got lost. Sometime last semester, it finally hit me that God wanted me to pursue Him the way I had always dreamed of being pursued by my so-called prince charming. That's when it happened ... I realized that I didn't need a man to complete me. God is in the business of completing hearts, not us.

Romans 12:1-2 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing, and perfect will."

I don't know whether I will ever get married. There is still a strong desire in my heart to get married, but I want to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I want to seek God's will and not my own. Sure, it is very possible that God wants me to stay single for the rest of my life, and if this is the case, I will gladly accept this future and move forward in my journey to serve God with my life. I am so tired of pretending that I am a princess standing at the castle window staring off into the distance hoping that my prince charming is going to come around the corner any second. God wants all of us to turn away from the window and trust him. Last semester, I had finally turned away from the window, but sometime in the last three months, I got scared, looked back, caught a glimpse of something shiny (of course the armour of my prince charming, duh!), and all out death sprinted back to my window for prince patrol. I realize how ridiculously cheesy this sounds, but it's the truth.

I'm starting a new phase of my life right now. I graduated from college in May, and I start speech path grad school in August. I started a new job and got a new apartment, so basically, everything in my life is changing ... that is, except God. I want to use this blog to document my struggles and my victories, my heartaches and my rejoicing. Each time I want to share something from the book and how I am applying it to my life or what it means to me. I know this is going to be a long and hard journey (especially when you remember the 18 years of lies I have believed and must reverse), but it is going to be so worth it when I come out on the other side on fire for God and with a heart devoted to the only Prince Charming I will ever need.

Jenna