Reflections

Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. –Psalm 27:14

When we first started this blog, I was a single woman still grieving a breakup that had happened a couple years prior. I struggled to move on from that relationship even though I knew it wasn’t God’s will for me. Every year that went by became more distressing as I saw my chances at motherhood waning.

There were times during this period that I was blissfully aware of God’s presence and provision. I was content to wait for His best for me. I recognized that my singlehood brought unique opportunities to serve Him. Yet, there were painful stretches of time where I failed to see Him through my loneliness and despair. There were many difficult days. The years of being alone weighed on me. I constantly felt guilty because I knew that He was everything that I needed, and yet I still desired human companionship.

Today I am a married woman with three beautiful step-children. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank God for these precious gifts in my life! My husband is so loving and caring. He is very attentive to my needs and treats me far better than I deserve. He treats me so well that I have trouble accepting it. I never quite believed that anyone could care about me enough to treat me the way he does.

My step-children are sweet and respectful. They accepted me into the family almost immediately. Growing closer to them has probably been the most fulfilling aspect of my life to date. It was the day I met them that I knew my relationship with their father could work. I would not allow myself to fall for him until I knew I could love his children too. Really love them. It would not have been fair to the children or their dad if I could not.

I wish I could go back and tell my single self that she will be okay. I would tell her that the years of singlehood will be worth the wait. That God is setting everything up and not to lament the period of preparation. I would tell her that I couldn’t have met my husband sooner because neither of us were in the place we needed to be yet, but that it would make our meeting that much sweeter when the time came. People tried to tell me this, but I struggled to believe them.

That’s not to say that marriage and step-parenting is all sunshine and rainbows. It’s hard work. It’s draining. But it’s so rewarding. It is so beautiful. It is everything I hoped it would be.

God has been by my side through all of it. Through the lonely days that came before and the sometimes all-consuming days I experience now. God truly has our best in mind. He sincerely takes care of our every need. He loves us more than anyone else ever has or ever can. He is all in all. Every good and perfect gift comes from Him.

If you are single (or in some other period of waiting), please believe me, God is working things out for your good. He sees your struggle. He knows your tears. He’s allowing this trial in your life because He knows you are growing through it. Lean into Him and give Him all your cares. Put your trust in Him. His timing is impeccable.

In His Love,
Rebekah L.

Meeting Isaac

Dec16

I have been woefully neglectful in keeping up with this blog. In fact, it has been over a year since my last post! And what a year it has been! I have MUCH to update you on. In my last post I was lamenting my long time single status and sharing that I was intentionally putting myself “out there” a little more to better position myself to be found by the one God had chosen to be my partner in this life.

Amazingly, just days after that post was written I met him! It was sort of by accident, though not by coincidence. After waiting years for the right guy to just show up at my church, I dreadfully joined a couple of Christian dating sites that espouse the doctrines of my local congregation. I was always against meeting someone online, but being very introverted and having no single guys in our church I finally started opening up to the idea. It was a pretty horrible experience. I talked to several men, all of whom were clearly not the one. There was the guy who outright told me that I was ugly. There was the guy who upon a Google search (yes, guys, we google you) was found to be on several porn sites in addition to the Christian dating site. There was the guy who rejected me because I wasn’t a virgin (I didn’t become a Christian until my mid twenties). He told me that he knew my past was under the blood, but he just couldn’t get past it. Then there was the guy who seemed great on paper, but in all of our conversations, he never asked me a single thing about me. I was good enough to date, but not good enough to actually get to know. His thinking was that I would be his helpmate which meant that I would be helping him with his ministry and therefore my dreams and goals in life didn’t matter. He was not interested in who I am as a person at all. I was very frustrated by these encounters and had almost resigned myself to being single forever.

Then one day one of my friends (who writes tech reviews for a living) asked for some volunteers to download a new app and tell her what we thought of it so that she could write a review. It was not a dating app, it was just a platform where ideas could be exchanged. I decided to help her out and give this new app a try. Someone on the app posted something and I posted a response. While I was responding, someone else also responded. This sparked a conversation between the other responder and myself. The original poster never returned to the thread, but I hit it off right away with the other guy that had also responded. We talked all night long. In that very first conversation he already knew more about me than the last guy had learned in all the time we had been talking. We chatted for hours the next day too. And the day after that. I vacillated between being utterly drawn to him and holding back out of fear. There were a hundred different times that I almost ended the conversation because it seemed crazy that I was talking for so long to a stranger. He could be anyone. He could say anything and I would have no way of knowing if he was telling the truth. I was very nervous about the entire thing. I always jump ship even when there is no sign of a leak so I kept having to remind myself that he hadn’t said anything wrong yet. I kept reminding myself that I had committed to putting myself out there a little more and that until he gave me a legitimate reason to end the conversation there was no need to do so. He didn’t know where I was or any identifiable information about me. The worst thing that could happen would be that I would have wasted a few hours of my life.

I learned that this man was raised an Orthodox Jew, but had converted to Christianity in his early adulthood. He had attended Bible College only twenty minutes from where I lived and that he lives only about 15 minutes from where I go to church. I was intrigued! Eventually, I gave him my number so that we could text directly. After a while he asked if he could call me. I said yes, and then didn’t answer the phone when he called! At this point, he still didn’t know what I looked like. I was sure once he saw me that he would run for the hills. I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have them dashed. We ended up connecting on Facebook. It was after we connected there that I could see he was probably being truthful about the things that he had told me so far. His Facebook page had been created years prior so I knew it wasn’t likely to be a fake account. It also confirmed the things he had told me and it started to put me at ease. Amazingly, he wasn’t scared off by my profile picture. Ha! Eventually, we met in person (in a public setting of course). That’s when things got real. He and I were a great fit! Only a couple of weeks before we connected I had made a list of all the qualities I would like in a husband. I wrote down 32 items and he perfectly matched 31 of them! Interestingly, the new app didn’t last long. It was shut down only days after we met. We like to think it only existed for that short time so that the two of us could meet.

We often joke on this blog that we are “looking for our Isaac.” Wouldn’t you know that this man’s Hebrew name is Isaac! There are many things that my “Isaac” had been prophesied to be. I never put much stock in these prophesies because I think that people tend to fit them to what they want rather than what is, but here was this man fitting every one of them!

I spent much time in prayer as I was getting to know him. I kept asking God to close the door if he wasn’t the one, but every time I asked this, the door kept opening wider. He began attending my church shortly after we met and has been faithfully attending since. I watched prayerfully as he interacted with my friends, family, and brothers and sisters in the Lord. I spent a lot of time on my knees while we were dating. I took some time off away from him to be sure he was the one.

Things moved quickly for us. Within a few months he had given me a promise ring. A few months later and we were engaged. Now a year after meeting him, we have just recently been married!

I never imagined that my life would change so quickly, but it has been an amazing journey. He is thoughtful and sweet. He treats me so well that I have trouble accepting it at times. He is not without flaws, but nothing has ever felt so right as knowing he is the one God meant for me. He is the one I have been waiting all these years for.

I cannot describe how glad I am that I waited. There were many times where I considered settling. There were times that I was tempted to compromise my holiness and standards. There were times when I was so lonely that I almost wished I lived somewhere where they do arranged marriages. That thought frightens me now. I could have missed out. I might have missed all of these blessings.

If you are still waiting for your Isaac. Please don’t give up or do anything you might later regret. If God has not said no to marriage for you, keep waiting for God’s best for you! Do not give up or give in to temptation. Keep waiting!

In His Love,

Rebekah L.

Single and Seeking

Dec4

I have previously mentioned on this blog that there is a lack of single Christian men in my church. To be precise, there are zero single Christian men in my local congregation. The truth is that there is a serious lack of single Christian men in the American church at large. A 2011 PEW Research study showed that there are eight single women for every one single man in the average congregation. Being a long time single with few talents and little beauty, that’s a pretty disconcerting statistic. How I could ever attract a man over the barrage of other single women available is beyond me. It is beyond me, but it is not beyond God. Yet the harsh reality is that unless things drastically change in the makeup of the church, there is a large number of women in churches today that may never marry.

For a long time I assumed that if I loved God and waited patiently, that He would just send the right man to me. My husband would just show up. The Bible says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing” (Proverbs 18:22), which implies to me that the husband does the finding. He should pursue after his bride. Therefore, I’ve never looked for a husband. I’ve longed for one, but not actively looked for one. But recently, a member of my church opened my eyes to the fact that my future husband cannot find me if I don’t position myself in a place to be found. The Bible doesn’t just say to ask, it also tells us to seek and knock (Matthew 7:7). I had asked for a spouse, but I hadn’t really sought for one. While I take all of Matthew 7:7 to be a reference to prayer, there is a difference between asking and seeking. Seeking implies some kind of action. The sister in my church asked me what I had done, what actions had I taken in finding a spouse. Not many. I have prayed. I have been faithful. I have waited patiently in the pew for almost eleven years for my husband to walk through those doors.

If we were to compare this search to looking for a needle in haystack (which is what it feels like), I have mostly just circled repeatedly around the same haystack expecting the needle to suddenly reveal itself to me. I have not dug down into the haystack pulling out individual straws in my search. I felt that actually looking through the straws meant I was not trusting God to reveal the needle to me. If it’s His will for me to be married, He will send a man to me, right? Well, yes, and no. He will send me a partner when the time is right, but it’s not likely to happen without any participation on my part. In the Bible, Rebekah had to participate by watering the servant’s camels. Ruth’s participation was even bolder. Ruth purposely went to Boaz (at Naomi’s suggestion) and uncovered his feet while he was sleeping, and lay upon his feet. I won’t take the time to go into the historical significance of what she was actually doing, but it was very forward. She was clearly making her intentions known to Boaz. She wasn’t passively waiting for him, she actively went to him.

This brings me to where I am now. Along with the sister who helped me to see that beyond asking, I should also seek and knock, several other well-meaning Christians have recently asked me what I have actively done to find a spouse. In another post I will expand on some of the things I have done and am doing to try to place myself in a better position to be found. I have sought to form a closer relationship with God, worked out a hidden root of bitterness over the way my last relationship ended, and went through a very intense spiritual battle to fortify myself against a particular weakness I have.

Reluctantly, I have also made myself a little more visible on social media. None of the other things I’ve done do me much practical good when there aren’t any prospects in my church (or even in my district), so I decided I needed to do something to widen the circle. This is fraught with a lot of uncertainty and not a few painful rejections. I’ve seriously been considering going back into hiding, but then I think of Rebekah M and her new found interest who she met through social media and I think perhaps it’s worth trying to stick it out awhile longer. I haven’t quite figured out where the line is between not doing enough and pushing too hard. In the end, it’s up to God. I still believe when I am ready and the timing is right, He will send me a companion. Until then, may God grant me the grace to keep waiting.

In His Love,
Rebekah L.

Survived Another Childless Mother’s Day

May13

Phew, I have survived another Mother’s Day! Honestly, I feel guilty even writing that because I know there are many people for whom Mother’s Day is a much more painful event than it is for me. Especially for those mothers who have lost a child. I cannot imagine how unbearable that would be. And don’t get me wrong, Mother’s Day is a wonderful day to honor our mothers and all that mothers the world over have done for us.

But I struggle with it, and I know I am not alone in that struggle.

I wavered about whether to post this or not. It feels whiny, oh, poor pitiful me, and entirely too self-focused, but in the end I decided to go ahead and post it anyway because we strive to be real on this blog. My feelings – right or wrong, are very real, and as I mentioned, I know that I am not alone in these feelings. Perhaps another woman will read this post and know that she too is not alone in her pain.

When I was young, like most girls, I assumed that I would grow up to marry and go on to have children. In all the times I “played house” I never imagined a scenario where children would not be part of the equation. Recently I read an article by Melanie Notkin called My Secret Grief. In it she discusses the hidden pain of circumstantial infertility. Unlike the pain of medical infertility, circumstantial infertility is not caused because of some biological issue, but rather because (as the name infers) circumstances never lined up to make motherhood a reality. Notkin put down in words many of the things I’ve never been able to say.

If you are childless (not by choice), it can be difficult to express the feelings that go along with it. If you try, well-meaning people will say all kinds of things which sting and cut at you in ways they cannot comprehend.

As a Christian I struggle with the sadness it brings me. I know that I should be content with what I have (see Philippians 4:11, 1 Timothy 6:6, Hebrews 13:5), and mostly I am, but there are hard days. Really hard days. For the last few years, Mother’s Day has ranked among the top for really hard days.

I vacillate between trying to face reality so I can move on from my desire to be a mother and trying desperately to hold on to the hope that it may one day still happen. I don’t know how to give up my hope of being a mother, but I think I might be happier if I could figure out how to. The Bible says that “hope deferred maketh the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). As a never married, single, childless woman I know the truth of that verse all too well.

As My Secret Grief points out, when you get to a certain age if you are still childless it is assumed that you either never really wanted children or you just didn’t try hard enough. I have had countless people tell me I should just go out and find a guy to make a kid with. “Why wait for marriage?” they say. This world doesn’t understand the concept that fornication is a sin. Or they tell you that you should just get a sperm donor, or adopt.

Here’s the thing: I honestly think my child deserves to have two parents. They should have both a mother and a father who is present and active in their childrearing. I understand that this is not always possible and there are many many wonderful single parents out there, but it seems selfish to purposely put your child in the position of only having a single parent. Again, please do not think I am disparaging single parents out there. The majority of them work tirelessly to provide good lives for their children and should be commended for that. But to deliberately deny a child a father just because I would like to be a mother is unfair to them. Perhaps I could manage to get pregnant (this is still medically questionable) or adopt (financially prohibitive) without the presence of a husband, but for the sake of my children, I wouldn’t want to do that. In the eyes of the world this is seen as not wanting it bad enough. Trust me; I’ve heard enough comments to know the reality of this view. The truth is that I do want it that badly; I just don’t want it that selfishly.

I struggle with how heart-broken I am over being childless. I feel guilty because I think my desire shows an inherent lack of gratefulness for what I do have. And I have been blessed! Abundantly blessed! But the sadness and longing remain. God designed women to be mothers and most of us feel that pull to our very core. The Bible gives us seven examples of barren women in the Bible who later went on to give birth. What strikes me about them is that they all cried to the Lord over their situation. Granted, it was tougher in Biblical times because women were mandated to give their husbands children and those who could not were seen as cursed. It was a much more dire situation, but I have no doubt that the tears they cried were much like my own. The Bible says that Hannah prayed with great weeping (I Samuel 1:10). The King James Version says that she was in “bitterness of soul” and that as she prayed she “wept sore”. This was a woman who knew the heartache and sorrow of being childless.

Yet, all seven of these women had husbands. I cannot cry to the Lord for a child (though I have) until I first have a husband. And time has so quickly passed me by. I had to give up an ungodly relationship when I was saved – knowing confidently that the Lord would provide for me. I waited five years to meet a man in the church, but there just weren’t any. I found a sweet man who became a Christian. I wasted five more years of my life on that man and he ended up getting another woman pregnant while we were together. Heartbreaking.

We are told not to be unequally yoked, but there are literally NO single men my age in my church. I know of a total of two single men (both younger than me) in our entire church district. I know dozens of single women in this same age group. And I am not confining myself to a man within a few years of my age. I’m talking within a 15+ year age range; there just aren’t any available men. Let alone a man that would be a good match for me and I for him. It’s difficult to remain hopeful.

Well-meaning friends and relatives tell me that they miss the single life. They wish they had more time for themselves and for the Lord. I have no doubt this is true. If I were married with children, I too would miss my current single life at times. But most of the people who have said this to me weren’t single for all that long. They moved out of their parent’s houses and within a few short years they were married. They never had that much time to themselves. I moved out of my parent’s house seventeen years ago. Seventeen long years ago. I’ve come home to a silent, empty house day after day, week after week, month after month, for years and years and years on end. Most of the time, I’m okay with this. Most of the time, I am content in the Lord. But there are days. Really hard days.

Mother’s Day is especially difficult because I feel I am mourning the family I never had. My pastor, bless his heart, loves to make a big deal out of Mother’s Day. I actually really appreciate him for this because mothers deserve to be recognized for their endless hours of tireless sacrifice for their families. The work they do is acknowledged far too little. Mother’s Day is the one day that people set aside to honor them. It is wonderful and important. But it is difficult. More than once I have been the only adult woman left in the congregation after he calls all the mothers to the front. I want to sink into my seat and just disappear when that happens. I don’t want anyone to see me sitting there by myself and pity me. For the last couple of years, I have made it a point not to be in the sanctuary when this happens because it is just too painful for me.

Is it selfish? Yes. Yes, it is. Mother’s Day is not about me. I should be there to encourage and honor the godly women in my life who give so much for their children. But I hide. I hide because I can’t stand the feeling. I can’t stand how every year someone will say to me, “Next year” when next year never seems to come.

But the day comes and goes and I find after it’s over that I have survived. I’m still breathing. I’m okay. The Lord has granted me strength to get through another day. He is my Provider. He is my Comforter. He is my All-in-All. And after all the feelings have passed, I am reminded that faith is not a feeling. I am blessed. The Lord is MIGHTY in my life. He is my Strong Tower. He is my hope. He is my Loyal Friend and Husbandman. He is enough. I so love and appreciate Him for that. When I feel I am alone, I am never alone. He is with me day after day, week after week, month after month, for years and years and years on end.

And He is with you too.

In His Love,
Rebekah L.

The Visions: Loved like Gomer Was

May2

To those who haven’t been keeping up with my scattered series, back in February I was messing up- unofficially dating a guy who wasn’t in church and it got to the point God felt the need to send a prophet to email my parents visions he had seen of me to prevent me from making horrible mistakes in my life. With all of it fading more and more into my past and becoming more sure-footed on the straight and narrow towards God, I want to close up the series with this thought: I am loved like Gomer was.

For those who don’t know, Gomer was the wife of the prophet Hosea. A prostitute and adulteress, she left him to go back on the streets that he had taken her off of and God told him to bring her back in Hosea chapter 3. So the prophet bought her back. Redeemed her of her past- just has Jesus has done for me. I praise and thank God that He found a way to bring me out of a situation that could have potentially led to me who knows? From the visions it seems that I may have slept with him eventually, even left church! What an amazing God to save me from such BIG mistakes!

God sees us in our worst light- moments where we are turning from Him in doubt or despair – and loves us anyhow. We are beloved of God! As with Gomer who ran away and committed the ultimate betray and Hosea still took her back and loved her- so is Christ with us!!! Turn back to Jesus today if you are running from Him for you are running from the very being that loves you more than anyone or anything in the universe!!! Jesus paid your debt of sin so that you could have a real relationship with Him!!! Find, as I did, that no matter how much I turned away from Him, blamed Him, and disobeyed His Word, He still loved me and He still loves you!!!!

Know that YOU are God’s beloved and He just wants to love you,

Rebekah M.

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/01/28/praying-monday-pressing-on/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/01/29/a-daddys-chastisement/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/02/14/the-visions-part-1/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/02/28/the-visions-part-2/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/04/12/the-visions-part-3/

Bitterness: A Spiritual Abscess

Apr2

When something gets infected, sometimes instead of healing the right way, puss builds up in a pocket and as the pressure builds, the patient feels increasing amounts of pain. The area becomes red, hot, and can even ooze a little. Sometimes it will finally burst open.

This past winter when I was working the ER, there were multiple patients that I had to help perform an I&D on (incision and drainage- cutting it open and getting all the muck out). The ER doctor said to me “THE definitive treatment of an abscess is an I&D. You can give them all the antibiotics you want, but unless you go in there and get that infection out, most will come back with it again. And you can’t just cut it a little and push on it a little, you have to give it a good cut, use an instrument to break up the locules (little pockets), and really squeeze hard to make sure you get EVERYTHING out or else you’ve done nothing for them.”

When we are injured in life- be it from family, friends, people from church, or various circumstances- we either heal the right way (which can take some time), heal with deep scars, or even end up with a deep root of bitterness in our heart. As the bitterness festers, the anger, hatred, and dark feelings grow and grow. It can overflow a little here and there but ultimately, when it is bad enough, God needs to go in and do surgery on our hearts. He had to do so on me once before. For those who have been following along with my journey, over a year and a half ago, my first boyfriend broke my heart to pieces and even though God did help me heal some, I had a root of bitterness that had grown in deep. The cut was so deep within my soul, and I hid it away for so long, that it took visiting my brother and sister in law in California with my parents and two guest preachers working in sync with the Spirit to get God to muck out much of it. I wrote about the experience in a post but that was not the only time God has worked on me.

Sometimes it feels like we are being torn up from the inside out. It feels like our souls are being mucked out, pushed, prodded, and broken up in ways we never imagined. This process though, can be of God to help break up the walls that have been created that hide the infection of bitterness, anger, and hatred. As time has gone on, God has continued to break down the walls I have against my ex and his friends. I am MUCH improved but I know God is making me go to the city of our (and also my.. as in ever in my life) first kiss for residency to help make sure that the last walls are broken down. I cannot be fully ready to accept my future “Isaac” unless every last wall and pocket of bitterness/anger/pain is broken down and cleaned out.

What do you have festering in your heart today? Is there anything that God needs to go in and muck out? Are there pockets hiding away in your heart built up to protect you from things in your past? Do you see that all those walls are doing only keeps pain/bitterness in your heart? Let it go! Let God work on you! He will heal you more completely than you could ever imagine. He will bind you up with His love and give you a new heart. Just trust His process and see that He truly is the great physician!

Thank You Jesus. Thank You for Your amazing ways. Help us be wiling to go through Your “I&Ds.” Help us trust that even if it hurts at the time, it is for our good. I love You Jesus.

Rebekah M.

https://beingrebekah.com/2012/10/07/forgiveness-and-renewal-revisited/

Praying Monday: Pressing On

Jan28

Lord,

I feel like I’m messing up. I feel like I’m making a mess of my life. You have put me on my parents’ hearts heavily which means something must be up for they stay tuned in to You. I don’t know what I’m doing with this guy. I’m not sure how to get it all sorted out. All I do know is that yet once again, I want to press into You. Yet once again, I want to bury myself in You. Not to escape everything, but because I know that the only answer is there. The only way that everything can have its best possible outcome is found in You. So Lord, right now, I humble myself and press into You. Right now I pour out my heart, all of the muck, the dirt, the grime, all that is wrong in me, clean me out. Clean out my heart. Clean out my mind. Clean out my soul.

And replace it with You.

Find me once again Lord, renewed in You. Find me once again Lord, cleansed by Your spirit. Find me once again Lord, leaning on You. I will take whatever chastisement You want to lay on me. I keep telling myself that “well, I don’t love him,” “well, we didn’t do THAT” but I feel You try to whisper to me that it’s not about lines, it’s about direction. So Jesus, fix my direction. Help me follow the compass You gave me instead of what my “gut” is saying. Help me use Your instrument guide instead of “my eyesight.” So much of myself says that this guy is so perfect- he even doesn’t mind chicken feet!!!- but the one thing, the MOST IMPORTANT THING that we don’t have in common, is You. And unless that happens, I need to stop. I need to hold back more. Not just for myself, but even for him as well. His heart is on the line too, not just mine, and it is selfish of me to encourage more than just friendship if doing so, as of right now, means that there is potential that I will have to chose between You or him one day, and we know that I MUST choose You.

Lord, right now I choose You.

But I know Lord, that it can also mean that choosing You can lead to choosing a path that no one else knows is possible. Lord, in all this- above all else- let this guy meet You. I want him to find You. I want him, a guy who has been and each time continues to be, so much better than those who came before him and claimed to know You. A guy who doesn’t claim You and yet who has so many of Your qualities. So giving when he expects nothing in return, so gentle that he wouldn’t hurt even a spider that was scaring me… save Him Jesus. Save him so that He’ll get to meet You one day and realize that You’ve loved him all his life.

Help me stop having myself be seen and let YOU shine through. Help me stop getting in the way of what YOU want to accomplish. Help me just press into You and let YOU work as You will.

So Lord, I press on into You.

Rebekah M.

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/01/29/a-daddys-chastisement/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/02/14/the-visions-part-1/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/02/28/the-visions-part-2/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/04/12/the-visions-part-3/

https://beingrebekah.com/2013/05/02/the-visions-loved-like-gomer-was/

The Talk

Jan19

Today the new guy asked:

So how do you see our relationship?

Given that he’s not in church, I have been struggling with the thought that he might ask me to be his girlfriend soon. Things are nice between us- he texts me daily and it’s never too much or too little. I don’t feel pressured by him but I also don’t feel like he’s trying to hide me or deny me. I’ve met his family a few times already and his mom even friended me on facebook. He’s so incredibly supportive about boards, interviews, life. It’s only been about two months but I know that should I cut him off, I would feel the gap in my life. He has found a way to slowly work himself a little niche into my life quietly and without force.

I answered him honestly:

I definitely think you’re an awesome guy that any girl would be lucky to say she’s dating but I don’t know what you want so… at least in my head i definitely see you as more than just a friend although I also think we have a friendship base which is always important…

It continues to throw me off. I have only dated two guys before and both were in church and both were disasters. The first one broke my heart with incalculable coolness and full disregard for my feelings. The second broke my pride and the buddings of feelings with his childish disregard for me and what I tried to put into the relationship- only seeing what he put in. And so it throws me off that this guy has, so far, treated me much better than both guys before him.

This guy, when he kissed me more passionately than I wanted, quickly backed off the moment he sense my hesitation and apologized over and over again and quickly had us switch to something more platonic. Of the three times we’ve hung out so far, limited by my monthly switch in locations, he has shown such consideration for both my feelings as well as my well being.

i guess im saying i dont know if im ready to be your boyfriend yet but i may just need alil time or somethingto idk. I want to get to know you.

In all this, I continue to be unsure… what if he never comes to God? Am I wasting his time? Someone who has treated me a billion times better than guys in the church? He seems so genuine and caring- passing out candy canes to the sick around Christmas- not even for an organization. Even just making sure that “we” were on the same page before he saw me again says SO much about his caring heart… and yet he doesn’t know God? How does this compute? How can one guy have so many Godly attributes and yet not claim Christ? And why is it that I don’t just run as far and as fast away from him before I end up giving such a great guy my heart? I know he doesn’t have it yet, but I also know that I am very drawn to him. He doesn’t push me to do things I don’t want to and when we’re hiking on trails, he makes me feel safe and like I can try anything without fear.

I want him to know God. I want him to experience the One who can make him feel the same way he’s been making me feel when I’m with him. I want him to know the safety and security of Jesus who died for us and carries us through life. I want Him to experience the views we see together the way I see it- through the lens of God’s creation. What majesty this world holds. What evidence of His immense goodness and grace! Beautiful landscapes sing of His awesome power and glorious ways. How amazing is this God of ours! Being someone who loves the beauty of nature as much as he does, I just wish he would also acknowledge the One who created what he loves so much.

And so the talk concluded with us agreeing that we’re at the “seeing someone” stage- not ready to make a more concrete commitment but not denying that the other is more than just a friend either. But where is Jesus in all this? How do I bring Christ in the middle of this relationship? Perhaps when he’s here next week we’ll find out since I’m not going to skip church for him and he’ll probably want to maximize his time with me. Feel free to pray for me readers- I’m going to need it.

In Him,

Rebekah M.