So… this past weekend I started talking to a guy. He and I get lost in conversations about life and God.  I feel like he’s as passionate about Christ as I am and for the first time in a REALLY long time, I feel hope. Not that I felt hope-less before per say. More that before I wasn’t sure if maybe God was just going to want to leave me single forever. But after just a few conversations, one video chat, and lots of prayer (including my parents and multiple friends) I can’t help but want to think of what a future with him would be like.

He’s a pastor. Life would not be easy. My life alone would be difficult just trying to deal with the hours and the mental drain of being a doctor but last night he opened up and shared some things with me about some of the problems he was trying to help deal with (not crazy amounts of details!) but even as he was talking, I could feel the stress building in his mind. I started praying within myself that if God would grant us to be together, we could be an oasis for one another. It brings me back to my private thoughts YEARS ago of how I had actually said that was my wish- that me and my future husband would be an oasis for each other in this rough world. Never in a million years would I have thought that after just one week of actually allowing this man to pursue me (he’s been asking for my number for a few weeks now) that I would say a quiet prayer that would make me realize that maybe my secret hopes and dreams of a future husband are coming true right before my eyes.

I vacillate between hope and thinking that he’s going to disappear any second. That maybe something I said has driven him away.  I know he’s a busy guy and that there are things called life that get in the way of his responding to my texts but still, when I say something that kind of puts my heart a little on the line (even just about something I really believe in like what I wrote in Curb-side Consult and Bitterness: A Spiritual Abscess) I can’t help but be on edge (at least a little if not more than just a little) until he responds.

Something in me wants him to see me. I want to be seen- for someone to truly look into my heart- see just how much I truly love God want want to do whatever He asks of me- and find it beautiful. From the inside out. He has called me a “beautiful pentecostal doctor” more than once and I’m pretty sure I hear pride in his voice for me- like he’s proud of my accomplishment. It floors me.

I can’t help but wonder- if this works out, if this continues, will he finally be the first guy to give me carnations? Will I FINALLY, after all these years, finally have a guy who will not only give me carnations but tell me he sees me when no one else has? (My quiet obsession with receiving carnations stems from all those years of Valentines days in grade school (all 12!) where people would send a carnation to someone they liked/admired- and in all twelve years I never received one.)

My heart longs for God to send me a carnation giver. It longs for the one who will call me beautiful even on the days I feel ugly. Something in me whispers “maybe he IS my Boaz and my Isaac, maybe I have finally found the one who will redeem all the things the locusts have taken away.”

In all of this though I know and realize that even if this is true- even if God is potentially bringing a guy into my life who can truly be a real-life representation of HIS love for me- that ultimately it is HE and HE ALONE that I live for. Even crazier, I have a feeling this guy would understand that and even more- he would be the same way. That both of us would walk away from each other at the drop of a hat if that is what God asks.

Jesus,

Lead this early bud of a relationship. Pinch and kill the bud now if You will or fertilize it and help it grow. Whatever You want. If this plant is to die though, I pray it dies quickly although ultimately I want it in Your timing. Help me be patient. Help me trust and rely on You and Your guiding. Help me keep You the center even in my thoughts. Help me stop worrying and just wait on what You want to bring.

With everything in me willing to serve You,

Rebekah M.

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/08/15/curb-side-consult/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/04/02/bitterness-a-spiritual-abscess/