Hide and Seek...never gets old!

“Love can work such wonders in a sensitive heart and what heart is more sensitive than Mine? Suppose someone were to ask you, ‘What are you doing at this moment?’, and you could answer, ‘I’m loving my God.’ Even if the whole universe were to stand still, it would be a fact of little importance compared with a soul striving to charm Me.” - He and I

Do you remember the game “Hide-and-Seek”? The one where everyone would hide, and one person got stuck being “it”, then the “it” person had to search and search for everyone else? Well, back in the day when I used to play that, I always got stuck being “it” because I was slow enough that almost everyone could make it to the base in time. So I would keep looking, and looking, and looking...

Fast forward 10 or 12 years, and here I am, still looking, and looking, and looking. Except that this time I’m searching for something a little bit more substantial, and a little bit more important. You see, over the years, I’ve discovered that God is not someone Who will just pop into your life and take over completely. You have to invite Him to come in and take over, and so we must begin by seeking Him out.

In order to really know God, we are responsible for searching for Him. Because, even though we are told time and time again that He will come to us in the silence of our hearts, we are the ones responsible for opening up that silence to allow Him inside. God desires nothing more than to love and love and love us, He is eternally giving of Himself more and more just so that we might say “yes, Lord...come into my heart, teach me to love You, fashion my heart to be more like Yours.” But we have to make that invitation of our free will before He can actually come in. Until then, He’ll sit right next you waiting for you to open yourself up to Him.

God has a specific way of finding you, of entering into your heart. It’s up to you to figure out how He speaks to you, and how He moves you. You see, some people hear His voice speaking within their hearts in real words. Others hear God through what other people say to them. Then there are people like me, who let God romance them through things like sparkly snow, sunsets, and beautiful flowers. I’m not saying that God can’t pursue us through different means, but each of us is different, and each of us will find Him in different ways.

To recognize growth in a life of faith is to recognize the way in which God communicates with us. He ROMANCES us, we just have to find it.

I choose You...or you...or You!!!

“We cannot love what we do not know.” - St. Augustine

When I was in grade school, I had to memorize bits of the St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism. “To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world.” Recognize that? Now, through the years, I’ve always had that little sentence burned into my brain, and I’ve always been aware of the fact that you have to know, love and serve God, but to actually get it is a whole different thing.

We always talk about “being in a relationship with Jesus”, or discuss how He’s our perfect man, but He shouldn’t be something that simply replaces a boyfriend...He should be MORE IMPORTANT than any boyfriend you could ever have. He should ALWAYS be your ultimate Lover.

There is a huge difference between accepting Christ as “your Man” for a short term because you have to, and accepting Him forever through it all. I think that sometimes we don’t remember that Jesus is ALWAYS number one. He’s just the one who is there to fill that void until someone better comes along. He’s like a rebound man, where there’s no interest in commitment, but you want someone to listen to you cry about how much it hurts.

The thing is, that shouldn’t happen. Sometimes we get so caught up in the monotony that we let our faith become, that we allow ourselves to be swept away by all the wrong people. Romance with Jesus isn’t a one time deal, it’s forever! No matter what else, or who else, comes along, our hearts should be so wrapped up in God that we’re breath taken by Him continually, first and foremost. It’s like that saying “A woman should be so lost in God that it takes a man seeking God to find her.”...except if that man finds us, we have to CONTINUE to be lost and wrapped up in God’s amazing love.

A desire for ROMANCE

“Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved. Ah, you are beautiful, your eyes are like doves. Ah, you are beautiful, my lover, yes, you are lovely.” - Songs 1:15-16

Imagine that you’re day is coming to an end. You’re cranky, annoyed, and just sick and tired of the redundancy of everyday life. Quietly, your lover comes from behind you, takes your hand, and walks you to the hill behind your house (or dorm, in my case). You watch the sun go down, in an array of splendid, vibrant color, then sit there quietly while you watch the stars come out to sparkle in the vast night sky.

Now, just TRY telling me you didn’t sigh and melt a little bit inside thinking about that! And guess what, it could happen to you every single day if you let it. You see, there is someone out there who tries to take your hand every night, and He wants to show you something more beautiful than just any ol’ bouquet of flowers, and He wants to give you something more intimate and personal than a candlelight dinner. So He created the sunset, and the moon, and the stars. He created fields of wildflowers, majestic waterfalls, sparkling bodies of water. And He created it all for you.

You see, His way of taking your breath away is so much better than anything a mere mortal could ever dream of. He shows you beauty, and you KNOW that it is a gift from Him, and that He is romancing you in a way that no one else will ever, could ever, com close to.

I want to let you in on a little secret, our God...the same God Who created you, the same God Who you hurt every time you reject Him, the same God Who is your Father, your Brother, your Servant, and your Master...He is also your Lover.

“You are made for such a love. Your heart yearns to be loved intimately, personally, and yes, romantically. You are created to be the object of desire and affection of one who is TOTALLY and COMPLETELY in love with you...and you are." (Captivating)

Did you get that? God...GOD...is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH YOU!!! He DESIRES to sweep you off your feet, to take your breath away, every single day! He caresses you in the breeze, gives you hugs through the warm rays of the sun. He sends you gentle kisses in every falling snowflake. He loves you in an intimately passionate way, and He wants you to love Him back just as eagerly.

Start falling in love with Love, and see how incredibly He treats you. He’ll treat you like you are His princess, His queen, you just have to open up your heart and let Him in. He’ll do the rest.

I want to be beautiful...

"God endows Woman with certain qualities that are essential to relationships, qualities that speak of God. She is inviting. She is vulnerable. She is tender. She embodies mercy. She is also fierce and fiercely devoted...Tender and inviting, intimate and alluring, fiercely devoted. Oh yes, our God has a passionate, romantic heart. Just look at Eve." - CAPTIVATING, by John and Stasi Eldredge

I am a woman. Beautiful, passionate, emotional, incredible, faithful, enduring, strong, tender, loving, caring, and noble. I am a woman, and am proud to be one.

It’s hard to remember how amazing the beautiful gift of femininity is, especially when it’s being rejected and crushed these days. I see messages everywhere telling me that womanhood is something to be ashamed of, but not in a straightforward manner. We’re all told to “embrace our womanhood”, but in what way are we being told? Are we seeing this as embracing our gentle, humble, beautiful spirits, or are we seeing this as getting ahead of the men, fighting for what is rightly ours?

I know that’s where I get confused! Sure, I’d like to go far in this world, be successful, see things and go places, but in the end I know that my heart is searching for something deeper than just winning a battle. The search is for beauty, my beauty, your beauty, our beauty. The thing that makes being a woman beautiful. And what is that?

I wish that I could say that I knew exactly what it is. I wish that I could tell you the secret of being a woman and what it means, but I can’t. I think that it is something that each one of us has to discover for ourselves. We have to learn to find our beauty, not by being told by some man that we’re beautiful, not by another woman telling us how pretty our makeup looks tonight, but by something MORE than that, something purer, something (pardon the use of bad grammar)...GOODer.

Only GOD can fulfill what we are yearning for. Our hearts should belong to Him first, before anyone lesser. Our modesty should crown our beauty and allow us to shine a light of purity, or grace.

Learn to know that YOU are beautiful. Because He made you in His image...what more do you need to believe it?