I recently read a blog entry from the Boundless blog that challenged me.
It asked the question,
"What if I'm doing everything "right" and still nothing works?"

And so, I considered my life.. my story:
I did everything right.
I kept myself pure.
I didn't date casually---which meant, because there was no one that I seriously considered--I didn't date at all.
For 28 years of life.

I had deep friendships.
I had interests.
I had possibilities.
I had heartbreak.
I had overwhelming, heart-wrenching pain.
I had dreams that came to the point of "almost" and then disappeared in the blink of an eye.
I had months of not understanding.
I had days of being content and days of wondering if I had missed it. Somehow missed God's plan for me.
I stayed obedient.
I served Christ wholeheartedly in my quiet little church without a marriageable man in sight.
I focused on family, ministry, house, friends, hobbies.
I wrote sad poetry sometimes.
I watched sad movies sometimes.
I journalled incessantly and prayed constantly... consecration prayers.
I vacationed in a tropical paradise.. alone. and stood before the ocean, considering my life and saying "Lord, take all that is within me."

When nothing worked, I kept going.. serving... obeying.. waiting...

And then. Several months ago,
it finally worked.
The curtains were pulled aside, the darkness subsided and I could finally see... that God had been working the whole time. That His plans, though so far above me that I couldn't comprehend them at the time, His plans were perfect. His plans were preparing me for right now. And preparing this man. That I'm dating. That I love. That I am going to marry.

We look back at our lives and the paths that we have taken. All that seemed endlessly painful in our hearts, all these things drew us to Christ and prepared us for one another.

Not that love and marriage is the end-all, catch-all... but I firmly believe that God will work all things together for GOOD to them that love Him. This is His promise!

Love Jesus. Keep on loving Jesus. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Take some good advice, but don't let it make you paranoid. If you're being obedient to Christ in every aspect of your life, don't get stuck second-guessing what more that you could do.

Marriage is not the reward.
Heaven is the reward.

And God's taking care of you, even when you can't see it.

Considering relationships. Considering the Word about relationships. And I have been meditating on a line from a poem I wrote several years ago. (The entire poem can be found here: http://jewelsoftruth.blogspot.com/2008/12/episode-1.html)

"Why must you be in my path,
and not alongside?"

The crux of my thoughts have been this: A man can either be a stumbling block or a stepping stone. A hindrance or a help. A tool of spiritual destruction or an encourager/exhorter.
One who calls you outside of God's will or one who challenges you to follow God's will.

When I was young, my family would go on vacations to various national parks around the US. And one favorite family activity was hiking. I confess, though, I did alot of whining. Often, we would be hiking up a mountain and us kids would go from bouncing off the sides of the trails in excitement to dragging our feet and whining and then just sitting on a log to rest (repeatedly). Finally, my dad would help me out... by putting his hands on my back and pushing me along. Sure, I still had to move my feet, but it's amazing how much less work hiking is when someone else is expending most of the energy... After about 1 minute of this (as long as Dad would willingly push me), I was refreshed and revived and bouncing along the trail again. :)

You are running the race, doing the work of the kingdom, looking towards Jesus... and there's a guy. You can either trip over him or run beside him. I like running beside him. :)