The Upside of Loneliness

I've never found a lot of people who think like me. I mean things like being KJV only (and actually educated about the issue vs. just stubborn traditionalists), valuing homeschooling, believing in natural healing and not vaccinating, believing in spanking - that sort of thing. It's not really that big of a deal till you realize you'd really like to get married and raise a family. Then it starts to really stink.
     It would be really easy (and I've definitely given in to this in the past) to be discouraged about it and complain to God about why-didn't-you-straighten-people-out-so-this-isn't-so-difficult and things like that. Or what's more common, to focus on how lonely this can be sometimes. And it's worse now, because it's that point in my life where all my friends are getting married and starting families and I get asked 42 times at every wedding, "So, are you dating anyone?" And the answer is still "no." And then they start surveying the room for their sweet nephew to introduce you to, oh and that handsome groomsman, where did he go, and hey, I know the nicest boy . . .

Ahem.

Not that that's ever happened to me, you understand. It's a hypothetical situation. Yeah.

     But I've been reading Passion and Purity lately (it's by Elisabeth Elliot. Genius-woman), and she makes a great point about waiting. Sometimes God lets us wait because it's hard, so that we will have something to give Him. If it were easy the sacrifice wouldn't be worth anything. It's like getting a gift for the Queen of England from Dollar General. LAME. And big-time inappropriate. Something that matters more to us matters more to God. Because He's not just a King, he's our Father.
**Pause for slight rabbit-trail illustration**
     In this past election, this really great guy from Florida ran for Senate and won. His name is Marco Rubio. He's an awesome conservative. Early in his campaign, he and his wife were up late one night and he was extremely stressed out about paying for the campaign - they just didn't have enough money to run it. His wife was in the middle of trying to encourage him when their children, who should have been asleep, walked in the room. They had overheard their parents' conversation and collected all of their allowances they'd saved in a jar. They handed it to their father and said, "Here Daddy, now you can do it." He was incredibly touched. His kids had been saving for things they really wanted, but they gave everything to him instead.
     Now, obviously, God doesn't need anything from us. But that doesn't make him any less touched by the things we give him. And the more it matters to us, the more He loves it when we give it to him. Think about King David, when he wanted to give a sacrifice to the Lord, he bought the threshing floor and the sacrifice from Arunah. Arunah tried to just give it to King David, because, hey, it's the king. But David replied, "Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing." (2 Sam. 24)
     The point is, instead of moping around wishing things were different, or dramatically lamenting the point I'm at in life (hate girl drama. hate.), I want to offer it to the Lord. All of the wishes and hopes, and even the loneliness - just to offer them to the Lord. What's incredible about that is that as I do this in my life, I'm finding joy in these things. I'm even thankful that the Lord is letting me go through this (something I never thought I could be), so that I'm able to offer them to him as a sacrifice. So if you happen to be at the same point in your life as I'm at in mine (I call it the "hurry up and wait" phase), I invite you to join me in giving these things to the Lord. If you try it, let me know how it goes. I'd love to hear your stories :)



Leah