Desiderio Domini

Here are a few lines/quotes from the book that I am reading:

". . . endure the great pain, to find the great gain [singleness]"

"Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the 'rests'. They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keytone. It we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear. If we sadly say to ourselves,'There is no music in a 'rest,' let us not forget 'there is the making of music in it.' The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!"

"True contentment can only be found in the intimate love relationship with the Lord, not in anything else, including a romantic love story. Singleness can teach us this contentment. In this season, we can learn what it means to have peace and joy in Christ, no matter what our circumstances may be. And in a culture that is always longing for something more, '. . . godliness with contentment is great gain'(1 Tim. 6:6)"

"A true leader must have enough backbone to stand alone - even when the crowd wants to take the easy road home. A true leader cannot be dependent on companionship for his or her security, but must learn to trust in God alone. Singleness can give us this kind of backbone --- courage, confidence, and leadership skills that any effective Christian must learn."

"Amy Grant used to sing, 'I love a lonely day . . . it chases me to You."

"Translated from Latin into modern day English, 'Desiderio Domini' means, "I dearly long to be with my Lord."

Not me . . . You!

I just had a thought fill my heart and I wanted to share it with you.
You know, all this time with dealing with how I handled the situation with Derek, I think I focused on the wrong thing. That is why I am feeling so bad about how I handled it.

Its not about me.

I cut myself off from him and after I did that I was telling everyone "I did this so I can get better and so I can move on." Which I don't think is necessarily bad but that's not the most important thing to say or focus on! We need to say

"God, I did this for you!"

When I say I did it for me, I am putting my wants first and our wants are always so fickle and they change all of the time but God is constant. He is never changing and he is always here for us. This is what I always said:

"God, I thought I was doing this to help me but its hurting me and I feel bad and I feel guilty."

Did you notice that I referenced myself 6 times? and only God once?
How selfish? My desires in myself need to be focused on the one that is most important and that is our heavenly Father.

 . . . time will heal this heart of mine and confidence of my Glory's light :)

Pure in Thought

Throughout the past few weeks and months, engaging in things that would affect pure thoughts were easy to maneuver. Trust in God for strength in the aspect of relationships and purity were coming very easily after I allowed him to re control my life! But we fail at times and we think we are invincible after we have reconnected with God.
We indulge our earthly wants with magazines, websites, and especially movies. Films that create this nearly impossible fantasy life of being in a passionate relationship where nothing goes wrong enters our minds and we hope that's our reality. But as for me, I watch that and I want to go back to a relationship where I was happy physically (holding hands, kissing and showing affection) but in my heart, never really brought me peace. That is not the life God wants for us and if we daily rededicate our lives to God and trust in his plan for us, we will have the most fulfilling life we could ever imagine. Trust and patience is what will bring us through times of loneliness. He will provide a life that will benefit his glory and we will see that a life without him . . . is pointless.

Our Actions!

"Most people never realize that the way we live displays in vivid color, for all the world to see, everything from what we believe in to what we worship and bow down to. You can share a message without ever opening your mouth."

I just had dinner with my friend from school (which was AWESOME by the way). We had a great talk about everything (no limitations - very open) and we were talking about our actions being such a vital witness to the world and then I read the book I am currently reading and this quote works perfectly with my conversation with my friend. Its true . . . Actions can speak louder than words!!

Day 21 in my 90 Study

Really cool passage from Beth Moores book:

"But Psalms 46:10 tells us what to do when we're not so sure where we fit in God's action plan. The psalm says, "Cease striving and know that I am God".

Yep. Be still and know it ourselves. Don't default into our past. Don't jump the gun for our future. Just behold and know. Instructions will come when the time is right. In the meantime, just be --- even though being is so much harder than doing, isn't it?"

Like you all know, I stress, that is the killer in my life. I worry about everything and its not very healthy! BUT I have to say, since I have been drawing closer to Christ, I am just going with the flow of life. I'm happy and I am try to stay that way with "riding the wave" of this journey I am on! I am so glad that that's what I am supposed to do. While we are waiting, we feel like we need to do something in order to feel like we are "good Christians". But sometime, God just calls us to wait and live life for him and see where he takes us; what doors he opens.

. . . something else that just popped in my head. You know when you see a movie and there is really intense music to match the intense action? Then all of a sudden, the music just stops! When that music stops, usually its to really get our emotions running with passion or excitement or whatever. It makes our blood flow to its ultimate speed.

When we go through life with all of this stuff going on like the intense music and action, God can bring those moments of rest and stillness in order to build our emotions (like the silence) and bring our attention to something really important he wants to teach us!

I hope this all makes sense because in my head, it totally does! I hope you guys are getting it! haha

What I learned in Bible Study!

Well hello everyone!I don't know if I have told you but I have been going to Tuesday night Bible Studies at school and they have been really good! I went yesterday and we learned about Matthew 7 - Judging Others. Well We were talking about that and I thought of how to apply that to my life. So . . . here is what I learned:
-I care a lot of what others think about me. I want everyone to like me and when I find out that someone is mad at me, I get stress and I want to do everything in my power to fix it. So, with dealing with my ex, knowing how upset and how mad he is at me, I came to this conclusion! When I care about what he thinks of me, I have to remember that he is judging me and my decisions without knowing what I am going through and what the meaning behind my decisions are. During our relationship, he always said "I know you better than you know yourself". So he is thinking that he knows why I stopped talking to him and he is making a judgment about me that is probably (99%) not true.
He has no right to judge me. He does not know what is in my heart and having myself worry about him judging me should not matter.
[I hope this is making sense to everyone because for some reason, it really hit home to me and its making me deal with this really well!]
So anyways, I cant worry about how he feels because that means I am caring about his assumptions about me and they are probably false ones. There is NO NEED to worry! YAY FOR NO WORRYING! lol