Friday, May 14, 2010

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

What happens when you're not patient.

Recently, I've gotten into quite a few conversations with other Christian women who are tired of waiting. I've listened to stories through tears, read emails pregnant with sexual struggles and tiring patience, as well as meditated on my own singleness and strife. I've wanted to write about this issue among women for quite some time now but didn't feel like I had the wisdom or words to help anyone. And then, this morning, I woke up to my roommate reading 1 Corinthians 3. In verse 18 it states, "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise."
So i'll pretty much never be wise, but can offer you my foolishness. I hope it helps.

To believe that you're alone and that no one is struggling like you at any given moment is not only a most uneducated belief but also a self-deprication. It is one of the biggest ruses we could ever fall captive to. I have to catch my thinking and crawl out of this web almost daily. This mentality, I believe, directly correlates with intimate relationships and women.

But Dieu merci, the remedy to this disposition, is not its extinction, but it's awareness.

What i'm not going to do is defer you to some sermon or tell you to say a prayer and God will make living in patience easy for you (though I don't doubt God could do such a thing through prayer). But what I feel comfortable in sharing is that being aware of a weakness in your life depletes its power quite a bit. Whenever I hear a story from another woman and I see them looking to me for an answer, I notice that maybe God operates like that in their life. As if He were a slot machine and you only needed the right amount of coins. Or if you knew just a little bit more about Christianity or how this whole system of beliefs works, BOOM, like clockwork you'd have patience every morning like the arrival of my best friend's BMs. And again, I sit and stare at 1 Corinthians 3: 18.

The answer is found not in more knowledge or the perfect prayer. It's found in its understanding and recognition. Next time you find yourself feeling alone and falsely believing things about yourself or more importantly about God, take a minute and bring yourself to a deeper reality. A reality that tells us we are never alone (Hebrews 13:5), that tells us we have a hope and future (Jeremiah 29:11), a Reality that is found only in Christ (Colossians 2:17).