Guest Post: "Single does not mean Alone" by JourneyGirl

Hello ladies (and any gentlemen lurkers! :-) ),

I wanted to share a special treat from a guest blogger, Journeygirl. Journeygirl’s article “Single does not mean Alone” reminded me of how God has woven the story of time, orchestrating events and moving in our lives to woo us and bring us back to that place of intimacy from our darkened separated shame. He can fulfill our desire for intimacy-the need to know and be known completely. I am so thankful that while we are single we are not alone, that God comes alongside us and walks with us hand in hand through the darkest and most difficult times. Not as some cosmic boyfriend, but rather as a true companion who knows us intimately- every detail, every thought, every action, the good, the bad and the ugly and still chooses to shout to the world His great and magnificent love. I pray that this article encourages and blesses each of you… Enjoy.

-SarahDee

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:20b NIV
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It is hard to be single. That is true... been there done that... doing that. I have had my share of tears as I walk this season of life. I've dreamed of romance since I was young... maybe even since age 14... I think by around the age of 17 I was dreaming of marriage.

Now I am 26 and still dreaming of the day when it will really happen.

It is a place inside of me that I sometimes want to walk away from. It's so frustrating and hard to be at this place that I throw out ridiculous statements like "let's be nuns." "I'm going to take a vow of singleness." I think if I shut the door on my heart then I won't be disappointed. But it is a dream, a desire that I cannot shut down. It is hard wired into the core of my being (as others have said before)... the desire to love and be loved.

But through these last couple of days, I've been feeling rather emotional and frustrated with life in general. I've been open with God about these feelings and have really connected with Him and His love. In the past I have asked God to romance me. I have felt that, His romancing, these last 2 days in some special ways. God knows how to touch our hearts with His beautiful love.

Let me tell you a story. It has 2 characters, the first is a handsome prince: Jesus, and the female role is played by you.

It is a beautiful love story... handsome prince... neat and clean and fresh... walks the alleys and fields surrounding his kingdom. Sees a young girl... not really a lady no... poor and bloodied... dirty belonging to no one. Crying in her own dirt.

He goes over to her... she can't even look Him in the eye. He extends His hand to her and pulls her to her feet. By this time she is sobbing uncontrollably... "Don't touch me I'm dirty. I'll get you dirty too." He takes the hem of his tunic and wipes the tears from her face... getting dirt smeared onto the clean linen.

He puts his hand under her chin, she won't, she can't look up. He says, "I've been waiting for you for a long time. I have chosen you. I have watched you from afar. I want to take you into my heart. I don't care about this dirt... I don't care that you feel you have nothing to offer. I don't care. I only care about you. All I want is your heart and I freely give you mine." She carefully looks up... tears in her eyes. His compassionate beautiful eyes look fully into hers. She nods her head as a warmth fills her heart. The knowing that she was now chosen starts a change deep inside. A change that quickly transforms her from a bedraggled filthy orphan, abandoned and alone into a chosen woman.

It was not a change you could see from the outside (like Cinderella)... but if you looked into her eyes, the windows into her soul you could see it. A young girl desperate to be loved, to be noticed changes into something beautiful. She changed in one instant as the truth of who she really was penetrated to the depths of her soul... she wasn't unchosen, she wasn't overlooked... she was wanted and the man above all men... the most eligible bachelor of all time had chosen her. He loved her, he had made his intentions known and she gladly accepted.

I think when we fully embrace our true identity we too will experience a sort of transformation... we have all bemoaned the fact of our singleness... which spelled out into full fact is that no one is ours, we are alone, we wear the title of "single". No one has expressed their love and devotion to us and sealed it with a kiss.

I know from experience it is hard to be single, when we desire otherwise... but remember we have the creator of the universe romancing us. He initiated it about 2,000 years ago. You may wish to have a young man standing next to you holding your hand as you watch the sun go down... but have you ever seen a sunset by yourself and felt that whisper, that warmth spoken to your heart, God's lingering touch that says, "I made this for you... I love you."

We may look single... we may get a table for one at a restaurant... we may go for walks by ourselves as the sun is setting... maybe even buy one ticket to watch a movie by ourselves.(I have done each and everyone of these things.)

.... but are we really single... as the word implies, alone... by ourselves?

The truth is we always have Someone to listen. We have Someone that can look into our hearts beyond the facade of the masks we wear... He sees our pain... He catches all our tears in a bottle. He writes down the days of our lives... He dances over us with singing! He enjoys life when we do... he loves to watch us. We are his beloved... He blows kisses our way through sunsets... and moonlight, fireflies and children's giggles.

I haven't met any guy that can do that yet. I am being romanced, in a sense courted and wooed by the author of romance himself...in the truest sense of the word I am not single. I am not alone. As Solomon so eloquently put it, "I am my beloveds, and my beloved is mine."

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Getting to Know: Krista!

To quote Groucho Marx, “I must confess, I was born at a very early age.”

And I was. One bonny May Memorial Day, I was born. My mother gave birth to me at home, in the yellow third floor apartment down the street from my grandparents’ home. I was – and still am – my parents’ first daughter and my grandparent’s first granddaughter.

Two months shy of my second birthday and before memories began to stick, we moved to a small New England town twenty minutes away, into a house with two brick stoops and a large backyard. For the past twenty years, this house has been home. I watched my aunt and uncle exchange vows in our living and was there when my sixteen year old brother was born in my parents’ bedroom, but not when my other three siblings were born at home.

From my bedroom window, I can see the trains go by in the distance and feel the vibrations of the wheels against tracks. Growing up, the windows would rattle in their casements as the boxcars went by. I can still tell time by them to this day. You can tell time in this New England town often without looking at the clock. The church up the street, ringing its bells throughout the day, chiming the hour. Neighbors walking to work. Factory bells and streams of employees flooding the streets.

I remember kindergarten: dancing the hokey-pokey in the kitchen with my mom and finally learning the difference between left and right. The dining room table was my desk and my mother my teacher, kindergarten through high school. The table looked large to me then, but throughout the years turned strangely smaller with each addition of a brother or sister to the family.

Today, that table is too small for the thirteen people in this family. Five brothers and six sisters. Two tables to hold us all. And Thanksgivings are always an experience.

When I was about seven, my family began home-churching with several other families on Saturday and we have never looked back. Today, we still fellowship with several other families, meeting on Sabbath afternoons for church here in the same living room where my aunt and uncle were married. We observe God’s Torah, His commandments, including celebrating His Holy Days – Passover, Shavuot, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot and more. We are not Jewish. We simply believe that God has not done away with His commandments and would have us continue to obey them. It isn’t a matter of doing them in order to gain brownie points with God or to redeem ourselves; it is a matter of observing God’s commandments because I love God and wish to please Him.

As I grow more and learn more and more from His word, I find myself more and more in awe of Him – of the beauty, the grace, the awesomeness of it all. Occasionally, you might hear me talk about what I am learning; it might be in conjunction to a Holy Day or even from learning more about a traditional siddur, or prayer book. It is an exciting journey for me and I am glad to have you along. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask and I will be more than happy to try and answer them as well as I can.

I devoured books from an early age; the library fed my mind, with books held in stacks up to my chin. It was through reading that I discovered writing. Stories turned words into magical worlds in my mind. I began to write and haven’t stopped since. I’m still reading and doubt I’ll ever stop, as long as God gives me eyes to see.

Less than a month after my seventeenth birthday, I wore a blue cap and gown and received my high school diploma. There were still braces on my teeth and looking back, I smile at the gawkish teenager I was then. Such a dork was I.

Such a dork am I still.

I taught piano to several students – cousins and siblings – until I found a job as housekeeper at a hotel. Years of washing and folding laundry at home prepared me for huge loads of sheets and towels to fold. Several months, I transferred to the front desk and became a guest services associate. For the first time in my life, I actually enjoyed working (in spite of the horrible blue uniforms!), for somehow, this shy girl found making reservations, answering phones and checking people in and out of the hotel her forte. Slowly, my shyness and insecure naivety began to wear away and I learned that the world, as scary as it seemed to a sheltered home-schooler, wasn’t all evil and was populated with people – not caricatures, but real people who want to love and be loved.

I’ll always remember my first job with fond memories, from fish abandoned at the front desk at 3 AM to sharing jokes with co-workers. And meeting people from all over the world: Japan, India, England, Iceland, Mexico, Ireland, Canada, Australia, France. Accents, glorious, beautiful accents.

And then I changed jobs. I left the hotel to work as a secretary in a nearby, local business. This summer, after nearly three years of administrative work, I have switched to the accounting department. My job is just that: a job. I don’t necessarily love the field I am in, but God has me where I am at the moment for a reason. I’m learning many things, both in accounting, but also in how to rejoice with what God gives me right now.

Today, I am still living at home with my family. This house that was large when I was two is now small with thirteen people. There is a baby in the house, yet still, and who knows what else God has in store.

Some of us might have grand plans for the future and I admit that I wish that my plans extended further than the next few months. I’m going back to school part-time in the spring semester, Lord willing, but will continue working full-time. God has also opened another door and has provided me with the amazing opportunity to travel to England with my father in November. I still write and read and sing. Someday, maybe, I will have finished my first novel. Someday I might be married. Someday – what a wealth of excitement in that one word! – someday, well, we’ll see what happens someday.

For now, I am here. Hello. Hello and welcome.

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Saturday quote

"In His hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land."

Psalm 95, 1-2 (KJV)

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We Interrupt This Blog

Hello everyone!!!!!

Next month marks our 7 month anniversary.  And we would like to know what you are thinking.  So, if you are reading this we would like to ask that you would comment saying you're here.  And since you are already commenting we've love to know what your favorite part of the IDD blog is or what you would like to see more of.

And since we have your attention we have some great announcements!

1) Starting Monday we will be taking some time over the next 3 weeks to do a little "getting to know you".  Each of your IDD blog authors has written a post letting you know a little bit about themself.

2) In case you missed it, Maureen started a series on Book Recommendations.  She'd love for you to stop by the most recent one and leave a comment with your own book recommendations!  The first article can be found Here.

3) We're on the look out for guest posts!!  We published the first one last week.  And have a few more in the making.  If you have something you would like to share please drop us an email.  You can find our email address on the top right side of your screen.

*puts on a deep announcer voice*

So stay tuned!!!

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The Universal Song

"There are songs which can only be learned in the valley. No art can teach them; no rules of voice can make them perfectly sung. Their music is in the heart. They are songs of memory, of personal experience. They bring out their burden from the shadow of the past; they mount on the wings of yesterday.

Even in Heaven there will be a song that can only be fully sung by the sons of earth--the strain of redemption. Doubtless it is a song of triumph, a hymn of victory to the Christ who made us free. But the sense of triumph must come from the memory of the chain.

No angel, no archangel can sing it so sweetly as I can. To sing it as I sing it, they must pass through my exile, and this they cannot do. None can learn it but the children of the cross. "And no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth." Revelation 14:3.

And so, my soul, thou art receiving a music lesson from thy Father. Thou art being educated for the choir invisible. There are parts of the symphony that none can take but thee.

"There are chords too minor for the angels. There may be heights in the symphony which are beyond the scale--heights which angels alone can reach; but there are depths which belong to thee, and can only be touched by thee.

"Thy Father is training thee for the part the angels cannot sing; and the school is sorrow. I have heard many say that He sends sorrow to prove thee; nay, He sends sorrow to educate thee, to train thee for the choir invisible.

"In the night He is preparing thy song. In the valley He is tuning thy voice. In the cloud He is deepening thy chords. In the rain He is sweetening thy melody. In the cold He is molding thy expression. In the transition from hope to fear He is perfecting thy lights.

Despise not thy school of sorrow, O my soul; it will give thee a unique part in the universal song."

Is the midnight closing round you?
Are the shadows dark and long?
Ask Him to come close beside you,
And He'll give you a new, sweet song.
He'll give it and sing it with you;
And when weakness lets it down,
He'll take up the broken cadence,
And blend it with His own.

And many a rapturous minstrel
Among those sons of light,
Will say of His sweetest music
"I learned it in the night."
And many a rolling anthem,
That fills the Father's home,
Sobbed out its first rehearsal,
In the shade of a darkened room.

~George Matheson

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An amusing quote

"You express so little anxiety about my being murdered under Ash Park Copse by Mrs. Hulbert's servant, that I have a great mind not to tell you whether I was or not."

Jane Austen, Letters, #17

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Absolute and Unquestionable

"We have to get to the point of 

absolute and unquestionable relationship

that takes everything exactly as it comes from Him.  

God never guides us at some time in the future, 

but always here and now.  

Realize that the Lord is here now, 

and the freedom we receive is immediate."

-Oswald Chambers

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