I am defeated....but that's a good thing :)

 I now come before God completely broken in this one area of my life. Last night I guess the last straw broke the camel's back or however that phrase goes, and I fell to my knees in surrender. The last few months, years, days, whatever, have lead up to this point, this kind of hopelessness that I now have. Sometimes things just build up, and build up, and eventually you can't handle it anymore, and it finally gets to you and knocks you down. I'm knocked down, I'm tired, I am weak, I am defeated.

What am I talking about?

The years and months and days of losing every guy that I have ever wanted has finally gotten to me. There has always been one thing or another, either they want nothing to do with me, they don't know I exist, I scare them away, or there's always this other girl who I can't even compete with. And the days and months and years of watching all the guys slip between my fingertips has brought me to a place of exhaustion and no hope. It's just not possible, I can't get the guy, so I might as well give up and face the music. I might as well surrender, and that I did.

Now stop right there. Don't judge this as me trying to get attention, trying to get people to tell me, “Oh you're beautiful, you'll find the right guy when it's time, you're an awesome girl and all these guys just suck, yadda yadda, whatever.” I don't want to hear those words. First of all I know they are true. I know I have worth and one day the right guy is going to see that. This isn't that kind of a post, because I know that my brokenness is necessary.

See, I needed to be broken, I needed to feel this hopelessness, to feel like I can't get a guy, because it humbles me, it stops me from pursuing, it stops me from trying to seek out God's gift for me instead of letting God bring it to me in His own time, it puts God back as my number one focus.

Right now I'm so tired, I don't feel like dealing with boys. I don't have the urge to pursue them, I can now really truly wait and be patient because I'm exhausted and all I want to do is wait. And most importantly, now that guys are being pushed farther and farther to the back of my mind, God can be where He should be, and that's the Numero Uno spot in my heart, because when I am going ga-ga crazy over all these boys that I want more than anything, God unfortunately gets knocked back some.

Right now I don't care about guys and that's a good thing I think. At least that's how I look at it, that's how I look at this brokenness. I look at it as an opportunity for God to be at work. And I won't feel defeated forever, no. When God brings me the prize that He wants to bring me, that perfect guy for me, that wonderful gift that God wants t bless me with, I will know, and I'll be ready.

I guess sometimes God has got to break us to make us :)

Drifting Away from God

 Sometimes I get into these really bad patterns that end up with me becoming distant from God. The Christian life is not the easiest thing to live out. It is so much more easy to skip church, not read the Bible, listen to mainstream music, and not pray, than to participate in things that are designed to bring us closer to God. And not only that, those things can quickly turn into just motions that we go through without having any heart in it. It's tough being a Christian, it's tough making God your number one focus. But I'm so thankfully that when I start to drift away and start treading down the easy path, God there to bring me back to Him, and not only that, but to guide me in the lifestyle that I should be pursuing.

I'll be the first to admit, somethings I fall off the path a little bit. It's not like I am blatantly trying to get away from God, or disobey Him, it just becomes the outcome. No, even in periods of disconnection from God, I always believe that God is real, love Him in some sense, know He's there, know He loves me. I just have a hard time putting that into heart knowledge, something that I feel in my heart and not just facts that are stuck in my head. But how do I even get to this way? Simple, it starts with just losing focus, going through the motions, and eventually stopping all the motions at all.

Focus.

Anyone can tell you that my focus has definitely not been on God lately. My priorities have been sleeping, eating, watching Smallville, and thinking about my so-called Prince Charming, and anything that stood between me and those things, well God help them. But then when my priorities are those silly things, God gets knocked down a bit, and that is the beginning of all downhill spirals. My focus became not on God, trying to live for Him, trying to serve Him, loving Him, and so naturally, I began to not really be as involved in my devotional practices, and that leads to going through the motions.

Going through the motions.

I prayed every once and a while, picked up the Bible a few times, went to church, went to chapel, talked about God a little bit, sung worship songs, but I did all of this without my heart being into it. It was like doing Christian chores, I knew I should do them, but I wasn't really getting much out of it. When you don't have God in the number one seat in your life, your heart just isn't going to be in your devotional practices, and that's what happened to me. Eventually because you aren't getting anything out of the practices, you eventually stop doing them at all, and that my friends is a really bad spot to be.

No Devotions

When you eliminate the things in your life that are designed to bring you closer to God, then you don't get closer to God, it's as simple as that. And unfortunately I was definitely treading down that path. I honestly cannot even tell you when was the last time that I read the Bible because I wanted to, because I wanted to feel closer to God, because I wanted to learn more about Him. I cannot remember the last time that a worship song has really convicted me and touched my heart. I cannot remember the last time that I went to church and was really invested in the message instead of thinking about the next time I get to see my golden haired man of mystery. It's really sad and disgusting for me to say, but I am definitely a little disconnected from God.

The great thing about having a God who loves us so much is that when we get disconnected from Him, He searches for us. Not only that, but He also welcomes us back into His arms, and I am so grateful and thankful for that. I want to be close to God, I want to feel His presence in my life, I want Him to guide and protect me, and I'm so thankful that He wants those things as well, even enough so to go out and do any and everything He can to bring us back to Him.

God brought me back to Him using the lure of a speaker we had in chapel today. Her story touched me as it was oddly similar to some of the situations in my life. People's life stories are probably one of the most effective ways that God uses to really touch my heart. Especially impacting are stories that talk about brokenness, cause God knows there's definitely a lot of that in my life.

Now I'm back on the road towards God. It feels SO much better. I need to really work on keeping Him as my number one focus so that I don't go down this road yet again.