JOY

JOY does not simply happen.

   We have to choose JOY

                  and

 keep choosing it every day.

                                                               - Henri Nouwen

God Does Not Owe Me, He Loves Me

Thanks to Stephan Straits for posting "Single and not waiting" on his facebook page. I really enjoyed Rachel Selinger's thoughts on what it is like to be 23 and single. She talks about what it feels like watching her friends get married. About how others often refer to their wedding day as the first day of the rest of their lives.

I felt a great connection with her when she said,

I've been living like God owes me something. Like he hasn't held up his end of the deal. He has given me the desire for relationship and marriage, and he just hasn't followed through. I've been living under the impression that I deserve a relationship.

Good words. It seems like I have to return to face my demand over and over. My demand that life look differently. Even at 49 years of age, my demand for a father and a husband still rages deep within me. Provoked not so much by the marriage of my friends these days, but now by the marriage of their children and the birth of their grandchildren.

Some days it is really hard not to compare lives, and really easy for the demand to rear its ugly head. At those times, I have to remind myself that the desire for relationship is good but the demand for God to give it to me is not. God does not owe me a father or a husband, or for that matter deep friendship.

What God is really after, is my heart. He longs for my desire to be solely for him. When my heart is full of demand I can not fully receive the depth of his true love for me. It must sadden him greatly. I long to feel equally saddened, and perhaps that is the journey of God's pursuit of me.