Decisions, Decisions

Over these past 3 years, God has taught me a lot about how I make decisions. He has taught me to rely on Him, to come to Him first, to sit and listen, to "wait on the LORD". I'm starting to learn that there is more to waiting than patience and listening. Waiting implies HOPE. The Hebrew word has the connotation of hopeful waiting. God is teaching me how to Hope in Him.

One way this stands out most is in my relationship. I am deeply in love with a man named Brendan. Before we started dating, God told me a few things. He told me that we would be good for each other. What that meant, I have no clue, but I am rejoicing in the chance to learn that as we grow closer together and to our God. He also told me, before I dated anyone [which at the time was thinking about dating Brendan], I would be making a choice. On the one hand, a life of singleness which would lead me down a path of rest and peace. I wouldn't have to focus on including someone else in my life. I would be able to grow with God on my own, and rest after a year of growing in how I interacted with my family, and with my parent's divorce. On the other hand, if I chose to date, I would experience hope and gratitute. This both sounded good at the time, but when my soul was in turmoil after a painful year of depression and then bounced back during a few months of spiritual high, calm sounded perfect.

What I went on to learn that summer of being "single" was that God wasn't giving me two good choices. He was telling me that with Him, I will have rest and peace, hope and gratitute. What I didn't understand was that if I continued to make decisions to protect myself, to make sure I was ok, comfortable, rested, and ready to go... there would be no going. I would constantly long for solitude because that is where I feel most safe. People are broken and damaged, and as Meredith Grey refers to herself, so also I consider myself to be "dark and twisted"... at least I used to.

This all happened more than a year ago. I have now been with Brendan nearly 10 months. God has taught me that when He provides men and women of God, we must trust them because we trust Him. When God said we would be good for each other, He was also reassuring me that Hope and Gratitude didn't just sound nice (having never been good at experiencing either...), they were gifts from God that I could only experience when I made a decision that includes dying to myself.

Every decision is just that -- a chance to die to oneself. What I am learning is that in a relationship, you now not only surrender to God's Perfect Love, and thus His will, you also consider another person's desires above your own. With God's help, this will one day be selfless. But for now, I am just learning how to make decisions with others and considering Brendan.