i stand on the edge of something i don't understand.

as ever, things started out so well, but still somehow lead us here.

how did camaraderie become dissidence?

how did the cacophony of our team become the deafening echoes of silence?

a nagging corner of my heart says "it's you; they were fine until you interrupted and it's been all downhill since then." i pray that is untrue, but admittedly i wonder.

"what did i do? what didn't i do? what could i have done differently?"

but would it really have changed anything?

i don't seem to be at the center of any of the controversy. and maybe that unto itself troubles me as much as the issues itself.

if i'm a part of the team, then why have they never bothered to introduce me? why am i never listed in the litany of the support team? and why am i still treated like an outsider?

i will not back down from this. i can handle disagreeing on small, innocuous issues, but this is not one of them.

in the midst of everything in my life turning upside down, or threatening to do so, at the very least, i need constancy. surrendering all i have left is not high on the list on things i want to do in this season of my life, but maybe giving it up is the only way to get where i need to be.

let go of what has been.
let go of the empty ache that it left behind.
let go of what i expected.
let go of my desperation for security and control.

embrace the f
                     a
                       l
                         l                                       flying.
                         for falling is the first step in

so i've officially survived the swine flu...and having never had the flu before, i don't really have a point of reference. i felt pretty terrible for about three days, complete with 102.5 degree fever(my personal highest) and body aches.

the woman who diagnosed me(at the CVS Minute Clinic), also said i had fluid in my lungs(oh dear!).

so after five days of Tamiflu(not entirely sure what purpose it has served) and LOTS of Mucinex(a long sworn-by medication in my personal cabinet), i am fever free and feeling much better. i am still coughing like a dying old smoker, but those who know me know i can get the "death rattle" with a run-of-the-mill cold.

it's been a week of laying in my bed, propped up by a mountain of pillows(otherwise i couldn't breathe), watching lots of movies/tv shows on Netflix(oh God bless their instant play feature, since i don't have cable in my room).

i also had way too much time on my hands to think about things i hadn't allowed myself previously. consider the following a list of pontifications induced by medication...

• i still miss him. i hate myself for it, and i'd never admit it to anyone, but i find myself wishing he would IM me just to be stupid, or call to see how i'm doing. but i want the him i fell in love with, the him of two years ago, not this person that's replaced him.
• there is definitely a part of me that wanted to go to a major, football-playing university.
• i am so ready to move out of this house(that's not really all that drug-induced, haha)
• i may not have many friends, but i love the ones i do have, particularly my boys with which i work. they make fun of me and mess with me and i love every  minute i get to spend with them.

so swine flu, goodbye. can't say i'll miss you, but it will be fun to tell my grandkids one day that i survived the great swine flu epidemic of 09.

“Desire God and nothing else, and then he’ll bring the right man into your life.”

I can’t even count how many times I’ve heard this statement, in one form or another over the course of my twenty-two years. And since the first heartbreak of my adolescence, it’s been repeated to me any time I begin to discuss my perpetual singleness.

For all those years, I’d hear this statement, and immediately feel guilty that I wasn’t trusting God enough, that I was doubting his plan by wanting to be in a relationship. I would beat myself up and spend great amounts of time trying to distract myself from the deep-seated desire (it’s hard to negate wanting a relationship when what you really want to be when you “grow up” is a wife and mother), but to no avail.

I dated two guys over my teenage years, neither of whom was Prince Charming, but decent guys. In college, I fell in love with a great guy, one of the best I’ve ever met, but after four years, it became fairly apparent (mostly when he started dating someone else!) that he wasn’t the one I’d been waiting for.

And over and over, at the end of a relationship, in the long doldrums of my “love life” since the last guy I actually dated, well-meaning friends repeat that mantra: “ You just have to focus on God alone and be content with him only before he’ll bring that into your life.”

I know and trust fully that God has a plan for my life, and that he has created a man who is the other part of, the one whose rib I was made from. And God is my life: even if you took away school (Biblical Studies major, youth ministry minor) and work (student ministries assistant), he would still be the very core of who I am and what I want to do with my life.

Does it negate all of that, all of my passionate chasing of God, that I would very much like to find the one God has planned for me? That I keep looking and longing for him?

And please, please point me to the book, chapter, verse (as one of my professors puts it) as to where in Scripture that concept is mentioned.

When a comment very similar to the above was sent to me in response for a desire for change, I was upset. I had those familiar feelings of guilt, and I was upset by them.

Why should I be upset that I wanted something that was completely normal and rational? That I want something more than just my relationship with God.

Then it hit me.

In Genesis 2, God has created Adam and they’re both just hanging out in the garden with all the animals. Adam has been created by the hand of God and has been placed to dwell in the most perfect and beautiful place in all creation. He has God at his singular disposal and all he has to do is talk to and walk with(literally!) God and tend the land.

In the midst of this, of the paradise of creation, God looks around and says “It's not good for the Man to be alone; I'll make him a helper, a companion.” God himself!

Adam doesn’t complain or ask for a helper, a partner; God decides that this is what Adam needs.

By golly, if it’s good enough for Adam, it is more than enough for me.

I love my God. He is my life, my heart, my everything, Without Him, I would be nothing.

But I, being a daughter of Eve, was made for more.

There is a partner for me somewhere; a man whose side I was taken from. I am meant to be his helper.

I can put God first and foremost and still long for that man with great passion.

I cannot wait to meet him and love him and have him love me.

But more than that, I have a feeling that God has designed us both to be a dynamic duo to advance his kingdom.

So I’ll wait. I know God’s timing is WAY different than mine, and I trust him completely. But none of that means that I will ever stop wanting that man. And wanting that man doesn’t mean that I think that God can’t fulfill my life completely on his own.

God is enough to fulfill and sustain me-He knows it, I know it. But he knows that I was not meant to be alone on earth.