A Longing Fulfilled

     Today I had a conversation with a two and a five year old about half birthdays. It was in counting out theirs that I realized I was already a month past mine. I am a single woman, with no children (save for the two and five year olds of whom I am nanny to Monday through Friday), and in just five short months I will be celebrating my actual birthday. 30.

     If you had asked me when I was a teenager or even into my early twenties if I thought I’d still be single at 30, I would have said I hoped not! Like most young ladies, I constructed this imaginary timeline in my mind appointing the proper ages at which I should be married by and when I ought to begin to have children. The funny thing about life, though, is that things don’t always, or rarely ever, work out the way you imagined them to! “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.”

     No, I would not have imagined I would still be unmarried, but I also would never have imagined finding myself thanking God that I am still unmarried. Don’t get me wrong, I deeply desire to have a husband and to be a wife. I have even made many poor and sinful choices in effort to attain it because I wanted it so badly. But sometimes when I am in quiet thought, my mind wanders back to these heartbreaking and painful experiences, and I am overwhelmed at the faithfulness of my Lord and Savior. His patience as my thirsty heart wandered from one mirage to the next and the way He has stayed with me through it all is baffling to my human heart and mind. It’s bewildering why He would wait for my rebellious, harlot heart to return to His, taking me, dirt-stained, thorn-torn with tangled hair from running in the wilderness, back into His arms. Yet He has. Every time. It is here in the disparity between my desperation and His perfect love that I can find a “thank You.”

     I believe God put this longing for a husband in my heart, and this longing takes me to a deeper place than I could ever access on my own. From this soul-deep place there bellows a cry which can only be heard by One. It is an echoing heavy sigh which is only communicated between my God and me. So when I come before Him, He puts His soothing hand right over this place- the place where longing brings me to my knees. This unmet desire draws me closer to Himself. For this I thank Him. There is nothing on this earth to compare to His intimacy. He has used this unfulfilled dream as an open door for a richer relationship with Himself that is so unbelievably satisfying my words can’t describe it. This place is His presence. In His presence I more clearly see that this deep longing in my heart is actually a desire for the very One who gave me this heart. His presence satisfies. His presence makes me whole. In His presence there is fullness of joy. In light of such a Lover, trust and faith grows in the waiting. In the waiting there springs forth beauty and peace in surrender- my will, my desires, my hopes.. all of me. The surrender is worship. And worship is what we’re made for. “Thank You!” I’m thankful for a God who loves me so perfectly that He planned all this time and space for just me and Him. In this time and space He is giving me Himself. I find deeper recognition of who He is in these moments, and in knowing Him more, I know who I am in Him.

     Though my naturally wild heart is prone to wander, time after time He’s there. He stays, not rebuking me, but wooing me. Gently, lovingly, beautifully He wins my heart over and over. He knows my desires cannot be fully satisfied by anyone other than Himself. He knows He is the answer to the deepest desire in the wild heart of His girl. His girl. His. And now after “I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er,” I know He is mine. I am His and He is mine. This desire is beyond me.. As Jesus walks me into eternity with Him, so He wraps this desire up in the softest blanket of forever. There it is kept. Here I am kept. So when this heart of mine faints at the shadows of what it desires before arriving at the real thing, when in the desert I am tempted to give in to my craving, I will drink of the goodness of heavenly springs, and the burning thirst is cooled and quenched once again by His living waters.

“You do not want to leave, too, do you?”

Lord, to whom shall I go? Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire more than You. First Love, onward into glory. To the very end.

Author- Emmilou Harlan 

I am a free-lance photographer, graduated from Northern Illinois University, whose favorite subject is the rural Midwest in which I grew up. Here is where I have come to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and here is where He has been growing and teaching me. www.emmilouharlan.com

The Idol of an Unmet Desire, the Pain of Letting Go, and the Hope of Christ

Something in the depth of my soul would often twist and turn with a deep and lingering pain.  Sometimes it was so intense it drove me to tears. 

In those moments I would cry out, “Lord, I trust you.” 

I felt it in my bones.  I wasn’t physically ill and no one had purposefully hurt me, but my pain had come about from an unmet desire in my life. 

“Lord Jesus, be my delight, I trust you.  You are good.  You are all I need.”

Oh, how I longed for a husband.  Yet, I knew that God was the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  There were times when I was a fool and made the desire for a husband greater than my desire for Jesus Christ.  This caused me to enter into relationships with men who weren’t healthy and quite honestly, I wasn’t healthy either, because I was looking to a person to satisfy a deep longing within my soul instead of allowing an unwavering Savior to define who I was. 

“God, you must not really love me if you don’t have a husband for me.”.  I wrote in my journal one day. 

I was angry with God.  Didn’t He see that I was faithfully serving Him?  I was working in full time ministry and I deserved this blessing I told myself.  God owed me something. 

In my demanding of God for a husband he gave me over to my foolish demands, just as he did to the nation of Israel.  

 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king…But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. 22 The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”- 1 Samuel 8:6-7 & 20-22

Israel rejected God as their King and demanded the LORD for a king to lead them.  In their foolishness they wouldn’t listen to Samuel nor remember the faithfulness and goodness of the LORD who delivered them out of slavery.  Instead they focused on those around them who had a king and so they demanded God for one.  Although it wasn’t good for them in order to teach them about who He is God gives them over.  As the story goes, it doesn’t go well for them and they eventually come to realize they were foolish in asking for a King, but they have to live with the consequences of their decision. 

God gave me over as well.  In fact, He gave me over twice, yes, twice.  You’d think I would have learned my lesson the first time.  The first time around I was so angry and demanding of God that He put a Christian man in my life.   He and I dated, got engaged and were almost married, before the brakes got put on 10 days before the wedding.  I was so desperate for a husband that in my unhealthiness I ignored the emotional abuse and controlling behaviors.  Had we married it would have been a disaster.  This was devastating to me that I had put so much of my time and effort to make this relationship work and it only ended in the long run.  I felt like I was standing in the middle of the desert and God had put me face to face with my sin.  I realized that I had made my desire for marriage an idol above my relationship with Jesus.  I repented, and God has brought healing, but oh, it was so very painful to walk through. 

The second time around, my issue was internet dating.  I was searching the internet looking for love.  It was my way to control my loneliness.  I could always find someone just as lonely as me to talk to or who was interested in me.  I dated a number of guys that I met off the internet, but all of those relationships ended.  I didn’t get it until God completely humbled me.  It was a man who I met on the internet, there was a good amount of distance between us and so we’d Skype and email all the time.  I thought for sure this man was my husband.  Until we met for the first time and I realized, wow, I had made a terrible mistake.  This “internet” relationship I had that seemed so perfect was not perfect in real life.  Although, he was and is a great man of God we both realized that our seemingly perfect cyber relationship wasn’t real in the real world. 

I was humiliated.  I was done with me being in control.  I cried out to the LORD for forgiveness.  This time I really was done with me. 

As I clung to the Lord in repentance over my foolishness I was very specific in how I prayed for a husband.  My hope was in Jesus.  He was and is my joy.  I was done looking to men to give me joy.  I was set on finding my hope and joy in Jesus Christ alone. 

As God’s providence would have it He placed a man in my life nearly two years ago who I thought was pretty cute, but I didn’t know much else about him other than he was a Christian.  As God’s grace would have it this man and I became friends.  We got to know one another as a brother and sister in Christ and God by His divine providence moved this man into the apartment right underneath me.  Our friendship grew and before we knew it our friendship turned into love. 

Rodrigo is everything that I have prayed for.  I am convinced that He is God’s choice for me.  He loves Jesus and He loves me.  He is a good man who I believe will lay down his life to provide for me and protect me. 

I am overwhelmed that God has provided and met this deep longing in my heart.  He used this deep longing to teach me so much about Jesus and strip me of sin.  I fell more in love with Jesus as I held fast to Him in repentance.  God is so good.  I’m so very thankful for His love. 

I look forward to the day that Rodrigo and I will be married (June 28^th of this summer!).  Yet, I know that my greatest joy is not in a husband but in Jesus Christ who is my delight. 

Author- Heather Douglas 

Heather is in love with Jesus Christ.  She is the Youth Ministry Director at the First Baptist Church in Aledo, IL.  She loves teenagers, laughter, and fitness.  When she's not keeping junior high boys from killing each other you can find her at the YMCA getting in a good sweat or out somewhere laughing with friends.  She's also a twin and lives where she was born and raised, serving at the church she grew up in.