Lady in waiting: How I finally learned to love my singleness

http://albfit.tumblr.com/post/20965105295/learning-to-love-the-process-is-so-important-for

This is just a straight up excerpt from my journal that I happened to share with a couple of friends...I think it's powerful for those of us who are learning to truly love ourselves as we learn to love God...as we learn to love "The One" who hasn't shown up yet :-) and particularly those of us who have chosen celibacy while we "wait." 

...I talked about how it is so much easier to be intimate with a man than with God because we can see and feel the man. To have true intimacy with God takes more faith and trust than to have it with a man. That was the first aha, which led to the second. The second is what put me on an all day high.

For a while I've been saying (probably because I heard it somewhere) that we have to get our relationship with the Lord right first before we can love anyone else properly, particularly in a romantic relationship. I remember once, a friend asked me what that would look like -  to learn how to love from God – I couldn't really answer her at the time, but I knew the idea was right and I knew the Holy Spirit would show me when I was ready.

Today while I prayed about this revelation, He deepened my understanding of what He wants and what I want. He wants me (us) to know Him on a level that is so special we can't ever experience it with anyone else and that we can barely describe to anyone. Some women talk about having made love to the Holy Spirit. I don’t know about all that, but I do know there are times when I pray that I feel so completely submerged in His presence that it is dizzying. In those moments I feel Him drawing me closer, but my level of faith and trust has not yet allowed me to go all the way where I know 

But anyway He wants us to have those experiences with Him – and not always the dizzying ones, but the ones where we know His love deeply - so that we have a reference point for true intimacy. It is a point where we know Him at such a level that is special to our individual relationship with Him. Once we've been able to experience Him fully, we are in a place where we are safe to fully experience intimacy with other people, especially physical intimacy with a man. We can now have those experiences without harm because we are so deep into Him that we know how to experience intimacy with someone else and not lose ourselves or lose sight of Him. 

Too often I went chasing sex looking for intimacy because I didn't know how to get what I really wanted. Half the time I didn't even know or want to admit that intimacy was what I really wanted. What I did know was that I was left feeling empty too often from those experiences. 

I believe God wants to show me (us) how to get intimacy with Him - and when I get it I know I'll never have to seek it from random hookups or even just attention from a man again. He has so much more to show us! He really does want to be our first love, our first husband. As I prayed over this revelation this morning I was brought to tears over how much He loves me and how much more closely He wants to get to me, how much more He wants to show me of Himself and of His love, how much more He wants to show me about who I am as a person and as a woman and eventually as a wife. But He wants it all with me first so I won’t ever walk away – He is a jealous God after all ;-)

The more I prayed this morning the more excited I became about being taken to these new heights with the Lord. I found myself more excited about experiencing Him than about ever getting married mostly because I've begun to really see the holes in my character that He needs to fill. No man can fill those gaps – trust me I tried to let the last one fill them and when he couldn't I left feeling hurt and nearly betrayed by love.  I don’t want to come to my husband without having laid those gaps before the throne. 

You know, this year is the first year I've actually noticed trees budding and awakening in Spring in Houston? I had a moment while I was walking at Memorial Park and then another while I prayed this morning where my eyes “just happened” to fall on a budding tree. The whole time I've been here I've been completely oblivious to any signs of Spring – and it’s my favorite season! But God! He  is allowing me to see and He is drawing these parallels with me and nature. It’s like He’s saying, "yes I tore you down last year, but I am allowing you to bloom this year."

I’m not all the way there, but He’s working in me and it is a wonderful feeling to know it – to be irrevocably certain that He is in control and that He wants only good for me. It's like He's walking me around creation with fresh eyes - so I see my own awakening and blooming with fresh eyes! He is just...wow! Awesome! I’m sure that temptation will come my way. I mean – I was just checking out some firemen who showed up to one of my campuses (thanks for pulling the fire alarm whoever you are kid!) But there is a difference in that and the total yearning that I've felt for a relationship previously. I am special and the relationship He has for me is so special and will be so awesome that He wants me right and tight spiritually before I walk into it. Whew my God loves me!