Coming out of the Quiet

Funny how I can now truly not use my voice all that much (officially sick - yay!)...

Anyway, while I was spending my day in silence (and fasting, for other reasons), I kept track of what I was learning, and I would like to share.

1) I am fully capable of breaking a heart, just as surely as someone is fully capable of breaking my own.
2) I will recognize my Lord's voice when I hear it - I need not fear.
3) Rest and silence are very similar concepts.
4) I do not live on bread alone, but by the Word of God; God sustains even my body.
5) Honesty is necessary, even when it causes change.
6) To care for others, I must first know how to care for myself.
7) Risks must be taken - even if failure is expected.
8) Timing is everything. Asking "Why?" is not. We need only ask what we can learn.
9) We cannot control the minds of others; we should not feel guilt for their thoughts.
10) Action is not isolated - that of one person has the power to affect many.
11) Silence can heal.
12) I take speech for granted.
13) I don't have to defend myself; even my Lord was silent.
14) I need to monitor my heart more closely, for its overflow is my mouth and its speech.

My body is wearied, but my heart is beginning to be encouraged once more.

Over the past week or so, I have been doing a lot of thinking about stuff that I usually try to avoid: relationships.

I've been wrestling with the idea that I will wind up with the wrong person somehow and have been searching myself to see why it is that I am attracted to the men that I am attracted to.

And yet, at the end of the day, it comes to my mind that, perhaps, I'm not meant to be with anyone that I am currently interested in - that they will only serve to heighten my standard, to improve my grasp of what I desire the man I marry to be like.

So many amazing, Godly men have set and raised my standard over the years and, at times, I have not understood why they were only to serve as an addition to my standard - why I could never date them or have them see me as other than their sister-in-Christ. I spent many nights in heartache over what-might-have-beens that were really what-should-not-have-beens.

But, in the end, I understand. I can't even explain it - it just doesn't make sense in the end of things for me to be with them. God has other plans. Better plans. Plans to prosper me and not to harm me, for a hope and a future.

Tuesday morning, I woke up from a dream that jarred me. I rarely dream about guys and the dreams where I do only deal with them standing me up or abandoning me. In this dream, a man sought me out and stayed. Willingly.

And I know the day will come when the timing is finally right and the match is finally right... where God will place before me the man that will complement me in a way that none of the men who formed my standard will ever be able to.

The confusion of late has led me to anticipate that day all the more, and it does make me discontent in my present state, but I want it to be right and, so, I am willing to wait - as hard as it may be and as long as it may take.

But I decided Tuesday to put all of the confusion behind me... to simply enjoy the rest of the year (all two weeks of it) and then take the summer to rest, to renew my strength, and to continue laying out what it is that I am looking for.

My heart and my head need some definite sorting out after this semester, and I'm finally at the point where I admit it needs to be done.

I need rest.

And, at the end of the summer, I will return and see what happens.

I thank God for the men He has placed in my life over the years so that I could develop a standard for Him to fill, and I praise Him for blessing them with amazing women that they now call their wives and those women that they will call their wives.

How wonderful to share in their joy!

How wondrous the grace of our God - that He would even take the time to choose earthly caretakers for us and then reveal them to us.

How great is our God. 'Night.

Mood: Peaceful Listening to: Street noises Reading: Communications Law