Yielding Inadequacies

If there's one thing I have learned about my sweet Jesus this month it's that He is adequate. I am not.
I used to think I was adequate. Now, I know I am not even close, but I serve a God who is. I serve a God that enjoys using the most inadequate people in the most illogical situations so that it is clear that He is the one that is adequate. 

Christ Shows His adequacy to change the world and do things beyond our imagination if we yield our inadequacy to Him.

While I knew I was not adequate, but He was, I lived as if I was adequate to do anything.

I will never forget sitting at a table on January 30th this year reading through Psalm 36. I got to verse 6-7, which says "How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights." That verse stuck out big time but I couldn't figure out why. Then, the word refuge stuck out big time but I couldn't figure out why. Little did I know, the Lord was about to blow my mind three minutes after reading this. After reading through this verse a few times, the Lord revealed to me He was calling me to work with prostitutes in Madagascar, and teach them the new trade of jewelry making, which has always been one of my favorite hobbies. Then, He started putting the puzzle pieces together. The coffee shop He has called me to start will not only sell the jewelry those precious ladies will be making, but will support the organization I now feel called to start, which will act like a place of REFUGE for those women. This refuge will be a place for these broken-hearted women and children to come to in order to be loved on. 
Ok, Lord. Mind blown. I remember thinking, "you mean you are not only calling me to start a coffee shop, but to start a new organization for prostitutes? That sounds great, but believe me, I am so inadequate for this. I have never even worked with prostitutes. How am I going to be able to understand the deep, crushing, hurt they have experienced? I am so inadequate."

Then, He simply responded, "Yeah, you are. But, I'm not."

I sat there at the table and started laughing. He sure does love taking the most inadequate people and using them. Not for their own glory, but for His, since it is clear in those moments where the strength comes from.

Throughout the Bible, God delights in taking the most broken  and inadequate people and using them to meet the needs of other people. 

One of my favorite moments in the Bible is when Jesus walks up to Matthew, the tax collector, in the midst of his sin and brokenness and calls Him to follow Him. He immediately follows Jesus as he is in awe that Jesus would walk up to one of the most hated men in the town and love Him enough, even in the middle of his sin. (Mark 2:13-17)

He is adequate despite of our brokenness and sin.

Another one of my favorite stories in the Bible is when Jesus narrows Gideon's army down from 33,000 to 300 to defeat an army of well over a 100,000 men. "The Lord said to Gideon, The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel boast over me, saying 'My own hand has saved me'." That's like God telling me to lift an elephant. That's not logically possible. My scrawny arms would fall off before that was possible. (Judges 6)

He is adequate despite our doubts and  and inadequacy.

Then, there's the story of the young shepherd, David. David, the youngest of his brothers was delivering food to his brothers during a war against the Philistines, when He knew God called him to fight against the giant clothed from head-to-toe in thick armor. The king quickly replied, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from youth" (1 Samuel 17:33). When I think about David, I think back to my glory days (except not) back in high school, during basketball games. Every once in a while we would get switched during a pick and I would end up with Bertha, the Amazon woman....at the post position....pretty sure they planned that one. That was always terrifying. I feel ya, David. Once they agreed to let the little guy go against the giant, they started putting heavy armor on him. Knowing that he did not want to try this with his own strength, he took it off and proceeded to pick up stones to fight Goliath with. "You come with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied" (1 Samuel 17:45). Sometimes, I feel like a small shepherd boy with a few pebbles in my hand facing a world with a spear. 

He is adequate despite our pebbles and lack of strength.

"Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God, Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Corinthians 3:4-5).

Have you yielded all of your inadequacies to God, so He can trade it in for His perfect and sovereign sufficiency? We are not adequate, but He is.

Why I Wear this Ring

In our culture, it is easy to be legalistic. It's easy to try to be self-sufficient. We try to gain the strength to keep promises and be "good people".

I looked up the history of purity rings and here's what it said:

“Purity rings really got their start in the 1990s when the Bush administration began promoting safe sex and STD/STI prevention/protection. "Under the Bush administration, organizations that [promoted] abstinence and [encouraged] teens to sign virginity pledges or wear purity rings have received federal grants. The Silver Ring Thing, a subsidiary of a Pennsylvania evangelical church, has received more than $1 million from the government to promote abstinence and to sell its rings in the United States and abroad.” 1What is a Purity Ring?It can be simple or it can be fancy. It can be cheap or it can be expensive. It does not matter. A purity ring is a ring that represents a promise, vow, commitment or goal to abstain from sex until marriage. Purity rings are typically worn on the left ring finger. It is significant, in the fact that it is the same finger on which a wedding ring is worn. It is to remind an individual their desire and goal to abstain from sex until marriage. Once marriage takes place, the purity ring is removed and replaced with a wedding ring" (http://www.purityringsonline.com/history-of-the-purity-ring). 

No, its not bad to promote the idea of saving sex until marriage. But, I think we are missing something. In our culture, we try to mask the root of problems by creating some sort of legalistic promise that we do our best to keep. 

When I got this ring many years ago, for me, at that time it was a legalistic issue of trying to be "really good" and doing my best to keep the promise I made. Now, it's so much more. I don't wear this ring to say, "Hey, look, I'm perfect and I have it all together", but I wear it as a physical reminder of how broken I am and how dependent I am on my sweet Jesus every day of my life. What I like about my ring is the heart in the center of the cross. This represents so much to me. It represents the fact that Jesus holds my heart, it represents the overwhelming grace my sweet Jesus has on me due to the cross, and it represents how satisfying my loving Jesus is.

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." -John Piper

God gives us commandments throughout Scripture but even more so, He is concerned with the heart. 

Many of us see Christianity as a duty-defined willpower of do's and dont's. God sees it as a passionate love-affair with our Savior.

In Mark 12:28, the legalistic scribes asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. They were looking for something tangible to do or not to do. But, Jesus replied in verse 30 saying, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

Love God with all your heart (to where it physically affects you). 

Love God with all your soul (with all that you are and with a driving passion).

Love God with all your mind (where it adds to everything you do and has an internal aspect of who you are that is then shown externally).

Love God with all your strength (and the totality of your life being dedicated to loving God).

Why is God more concerned with the heart than following a bunch of commands? Because the heart is our source of life (Proverbs 4:23). The heart contains the motives. When we are passionately in love with our Savior, we see how satisfying He is and it becomes easier to love Him deeply above all else. If you are anything like me, you are so dependent on Jesus that every day you need a physical reminder of how broken you are and how dependent you are on the grace of the cross. I am so dependent on Jesus that I need a physical reminder to pray that He will sweetly satisfy me that day.

I am so dependent on my Jesus that I have to ask Him every day to satisfy my heart and help me to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

"I realized that manageable, duty-defined, decision-oriented, willpower Christianity now seemed easy, and real Christianity had become impossible...That is supernatural. Now there was only one hope, the sovereign grace of God. God would have to transform my heart to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely, want what it ought to want. Only God can make the depraved heart desire God."

                                      -John Piper

Grace is Where My Song Begins

                                                                       

Sometimes, Switchfoot says it best. 

"Economy of Mercy"

Sometimes, I like to think I have it all together. Sometimes I like to think that I can become a stronger Christian by pulling myself up by my boot straps and growing through sheer discipline. Sometimes, I like to think that I am where I am in my faith because of me. Sometimes, I like to think just maybe I can do it. Just maybe I can be strong enough. Just maybe I can deal with my own sin. Just maybe I can be independent. Just maybe I can be adequate enough for the next task ahead. 

Then, my sweet Jesus bends down and reminds me in my pride that it is through GRACE that I am saved. It is His GRACE that rescues me. It is only by His sweet GRACE that my life can be renovated and sweetly and radically transformed. 

I grew up often thinking I was pretty good, knowing I needed Jesus, but not living like it. 

If you are anything like me, you grew up in churches that taught we were commanded to share the gospel. If we didn't obey, then we were sinning. There is some truth to this. We are commanded to share the gospel, but the way it is taught in most churches is something to be done out of duty. One of the most life-changing things I have ever heard is something that my pastor, Rodney, shares with us almost every Sunday. He shares the grace of God with us. He often says,  "When grace becomes capital letters in our life, missional living becomes natural." Wait a second, you mean sharing the gospel can be NATURAL? It had always been a little scary....until now. When we realize God's great grace on our lives, it produces a great desire to tell your friends. When grace brings us to our knees and shows us just how much Jesus has done for us, how can we possibly not tell people out of our joy and thankfulness. 

If grace was currency, I would be the first one to use it. 

Why do we make Christianity into some kind of 10 step process to becoming a better Christian? We see blogs flooding facebook with titles with some number of things you need to do in your faith. A number of ways to become a stronger Christian. A number of ways to get a better prayer life or something like that. I think we do this, because it makes it easier. It's easier to write down a few steps and cross them off. It makes it easier to have a list of things we can do. It makes it easier to feel good about ourselves. Why is it so hard to just see His perfect grace and just love Jesus? I think it's because it's harder to just give up trying to DO things. It's harder to live by the Spirit because then, we can't be in control. But, when we became a Christian, we gave up every right to try to be in control. We gave up our life. We gave up trying to earn God's approval. But, we gained an abundant life. My mentor just posted a wonderful blog about our self-reliance in our Christian walk. If you are feeling challenged, read it here.

You see, after we give up our pride in trying to do things ourselves, things become so much simpler, as His yoke is light.  "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11: 28-30 His yoke is easy because Christianity isn't a list of things you have to do, you simply get to love Jesus deeply. 

Growing in our faith no longer becomes this list of 25 things to do, but crying out to God to show us His grace and to help us to love Him more deeply. 

My two favorite words in the Bible are "But God."

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by GRACE you have been saved and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly placed in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His GRACE in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:4-7

Out of everyone I know, I am the most unsavable. If there's one thing I have learned this year about my sweet Jesus, is that He loves to save the most unsavable and redeem the most broken. I get to be a broken mess, saved by a perfect and redemptive God. I am the most undeserving of the gospel out of all the people I know. I am the most inadequate...But I serve a God who isn't.

Why my New Year's resolution is different this year

As I was thinking about what I wanted to have as my resolution this year, things like eating better, getting back into the habit of running, being more intentional with friends, and several other things popped up in my head. I'm definitely a visionary but I like to set goals that I know I can accomplish  but that are also challenging.

I sat there thinking, what will make this year different? If you are anything like me, you set these great goals but don't end up staying with it the whole year. Then, you screw up one time and get down on yourself. The Lord graciously challenged me not to make these surface level things my resolutions but to look at the core of the motives behind the them.

Then it hit me, the core is to know Jesus better.

"For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings..." -Philippians 3:8-10

The more I know Jesus, the more I will love Him.

The more I learn about His character, the more I am in absolute awe of the God we serve. I couldn't think of
anything else worth giving my life to. I want to learn more and more about His character this year. I want to dive into the Bible and not only read about Him, but study some of His character traits. We often throw around these traits like sovereign, omniscient, pure, holy, and others but do we truly know the depths of these meanings and not just a surface definition? The more I have learned about Him the more I have loved Him throughout my life.

"And He said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'"

                     Matthew 22:37

This verse gets quoted a lot but this year I want to study it and really understand the depths of this kind of love in this verse.

The more I love Him, the more I will want to take care of my body and treasure the people I am around.

For me personally, the more I love Him the more I will appreciate the body He has given me and will treat it like a temple. Instead of dreading going for a run, it will be a way I can show appreciation for what the Lord has given me and show appreciation for the fact that I have the ability to get up and go run. The more I love Him, the more I will want to eat the foods He created for us to eat. Eating very healthy will become more of a joy because it will be a way for me to show appreciation for what He has given us to eat. How often are we truly thankful for the beautiful natural foods He has prepared for us? I don't know about you, but I'm not nearly as thankful and appreciative as I should be. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad to eat a good chunk of brownie (If this was true then I would have been struck by lighting way too many times.....). God created sugar and wants us to enjoy it, but I believe it is to be enjoyed in moderation.

The more I love God, the more I want to treasure the wonderful friends He has placed in my life. The more I treasure them, the more gospel-based our friendships are and the deeper the conversations. I would love to be better about writing letters to friends this year so that it shows I treasure them enough to go out of my way to write something and send it through the mail to them. That's one thing I would love to bring back from childhood. Also, the more I love God the more I want to serve my roommates and friends and serve them without expecting anything in return. I want to serve them as a picture of how Christ serves us. We worship a God who was worthy of praise but came to earth not to be served, but to serve (Matt 20:28).

Please don't get me wrong, I am not saying it's wrong to have great resolutions like losing weight, eating better, and working out. This is just something the Lord was challenging me with and I wanted to use it to encourage you all and also to have accountability on my part. I would love for you to ask throughout the year what I have learned about God and how I know him more. Even if you aren't close friends with me it would mean the world to have people around asking me that question. Not only would I love the accountability, but I would love to share what I'm learning about Him.

Here's the funny thing...I am so incredibly broken and sinful that I can't even know and love Him on my own. I have to humbly ask for the desire to truly know Him. I have to ask for the diligence to not only be in the word, but to study it. I have to ask the Lord to graciously open my eyes and remove my self-love. This righteousness does not come from myself or my resolutions, it comes from faith in Jesus and His power.

After all of this had been going through my head, I went to church this morning to hear a phenomenal sermon about numbering our days. My pastor, Rodney, mentioned that according to Psalm 90 we will not be able to number our days until we truly understand the nature of God, the nature of man, and the problem of sin. I want to remember how fleeting my life is and realize I am but a vapor. Why? Because at the end of my life I don't want to look back at all the things I accomplished for nothing. I want to deeply know Jesus. I want to deeply know Jesus so I can passionately love Him and love others.

"Your sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers."   

Psalm 90:5-6

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."

                                                                        Isaiah 40:8

SURPRISE!!!!

I used to try to control things, now I let Jesus delight in loving me.

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb...My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth." Psalm 139: 13, 15

If you are a Christian you have probably heard this verse a ton of times, but I encourage you not to become calloused to how amazing this is. Think about it... He knit you together and intricately wove you. Think about this in an even more detailed way. I imagine God as being a joyful creator that takes great delight in what He creates. I imagine Him creating someone and getting giddy with excitement as He picks the eye color, or multiple colors, skin pigment, body shape, hair color and style, personality, and so much more. I imagine Him in an art room creating a masterpiece that He is so excited about making and then proudly shows his masterpiece off to everyone around. He then treasures that artwork and takes great delight in it even after He has completed it. Think about how excited He was to mold you and create you into the person you are. Not only did He delight in you when He made you , but He still delights in you to this day!

Now, think about this. He knows His masterpiece better than it knows itself. He knows us and loves us more than we can love ourselves. Now, look at it from a little different perspective. We are all soooo incredibly different and we feel loved in different ways. Not only does this show how creative God is, but it shows us how much He knows us. There are five basic love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, gifts, and acts of service. Obviously these are not all inclusive, so I'm going to add surprises as the 6th love language. 

I used to try to worry about my future and want to have everything planned, then the Lord showed me how He wanted to love on me: by surprises. Like I said, He made us so He knows us better than we know ourselves. At the time that did not sound fun but after teaching me to trust Him He started to work everything out with little surprises along the way. I grew to love life's surprises no matter what it was. Once I allowed God to love on me the way He wanted to, my relationship with Him grew immensely and He gave me the grace to delight in Him much more. 

Things I used to think were coincidences or mundane things became surprises the Lord used to love on me. It's amazing how whimsical His love becomes when He opens your eyes to it. Things

like flowers off by themselves, a bird hiding in a beautiful bush, my cat randomly walking in to love on me, a letter from a friend, a surprise gift, and many others became ways the Lord delighted in loving me. It's Christmas day which is making me think back to Christmases throughout my life. Even when I was little, I was never the one to try to find my presents or figure out what everything was. I delighted in the surprise element. Why? Because that's how God created me to see His love. The best is when its a surprise inception ha! One of my favorite surprise inceptions was when God placed a trip to Madagascar in my hands, provided everything I needed, provided awesome connections in ways I would never have thought, and so much more. One of my favorite surprise moments was when I got to hold a lemur in my lap (There weren't even supposed to be lemurs around) and it even fell asleep. To me, lemurs represent His faithfulness and His love. 

I've never been much of a fan of those predictable movies. I'm a lover of surprise endings. One of my favorite surprise endings is how Jesus came into the world. A predictable story would have gone like this: Jesus comes as a jacked 25 year old on a giant horse with flames coming from all sides with a chariot. He kills every human that has wronged Him (everyone) and takes over the world as it should be. But, we serve a humble God who surprised everyone. The creator of the universe came to earth as a helpless baby that couldn't do anything and needed his diapers changed. Then, He didn't even come as some warrior to take over the world. He grew up only to die a terrible and degrading death so that every person that has wronged Him could have the opportunity to believe in Him, give Him their lives, and live in Heaven forever. If that's not a surprise ending that shows love, I don't know what is.

So what's the point to this seemingly cheesy mess?

The God that hand-crafted you loves you more than you can imagine and knows exactly what makes you feel loved. For some of you that will be through words of affirmation. Open your eyes to the way people affirm you this week but most importantly pay attention to how the Lord affirms you throughout the Bible. Maybe keep a journal of what He says about you. For some it is service. Open your eyes to the whimsical ways the Lord serves you this week. If it's physical touch, pay attention to the ways people love on you and instead of automatically thinking it was that person, think about how the Lord is using them to love you. For others it's quality time. Allow your Creator to spend time with you this week! Don't rush through your quiet times. Allow Him to love you!! If it's gifts, open your eyes to the gifts He places all around you, such as a flower  that you see or something someone gives you or something that seems out of the ordinary. But remember, God often works in what seems like the ordinary, just waiting for us to open our eyes to His creative and whimsical love. Struggle seeing His whimsy? I challenge you to 10 days of whimsical love.

Some may call it cheesy, but I call it delighting in loving.

Community and Confession

Take a second to think back on when you were little and your mom told you to clean your room. You go into your room, disgusted by what is in there. You've got clothes covering every inch of your floor, moldy grapes you forgot to take out of your lunch box (guilty), unknown scents coming from every direction, shoes that have been worn too many times, socks you forgot to wash from last month's football game, Christmas candy you got 3 years ago that you forgot to eat, and a ball for every sport covering the floor. Naturally, you decide the best way to clean is to stuff everything into your over packed closet. You sit there, praying your mom doesn't come in and experience a Zoboomafoo episode where the closet creates an avalanche. Some of you are thinking "when I was little?....that happened the other day...." 

Out of sight, out of mind right? Here's the problem...it's still there. 

The purpose of this blog is to help you recognize your sin and realize the gift of community the Lord gives us so that we can experience the beautiful healing from our sin. 

The purest form of community comes from Jesus Himself. 

God the Son, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are three in one. They have different roles, but they work together as one. We are created in His image as Genesis 1:26 says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." We are created not only to live in community, but to be dependent on our community with the Lord; therefore, to reject light and community is to reject God.

We live in a culture that is extremely individualized. We are taught to follow our own dreams and do whatever we can to make ourselves successful. The more independent you are, the more success you will have and the stronger you will be. You don't need anyone. Dependence=weakness. But, here's the thing...that is what culture tells us but God tells us differently. Unfortunately pride destroys community. When God created Adam and Eve, not only did they have perfect community with each other but with God. Because Adam and Eve desired to be as wise as God, their community became distorted. So, pride is now the #1 thing that gets in the way of healing from sin, as well as deep community. 

Walk in the radiant, life-giving light rather than the destructive darkness.

Sorry ahead of time for any nightmares....

When I was in Madagascar last Christmas break, the other girl on the trip and I were in a hotel room in the bush. The whole trip, I was praying I would not encounter a Madagascar hissing cockroach. Let's just be honest...those things are TERRIFYING. Not only are they the size of a lumber jack's beard, but they hiss at you....they HISS!! Maybe I'm just a wimp, but that sounds terrifying. We were sitting in our room when my roommate during the trip went into the bathroom and turned on the light. As soon as she did this, I heard a shriek. As my eyes popped open, I asked what happened. There was a Madagascar hissing cockroach in the bathroom and as soon as she turned on the light, it scurried under some pipes behind the wall. Well, that's comforting. Then, it was my turn to take a shower. There I was, praying the electricity didn't go off, leaving me and a blood-thirsty, man-eating cockroach. (ok, so maybe I'm being a little dramatic....but still) Then, guess what happened. Yup, the lights went out. You can only imagine where my thoughts went. I was glad it was in the wall somewhere so it could be out of sight, out of mind but deep down I wished it was in the middle of the floor where I could see it so I could kill it right there. 

We often think that if our sin is out of sight, it is out of mind, but how much more life-giving would it be if we brought it into the light? 

I believe our failure to confess keeps us from experiencing some of God's greatest blessings of mercy and grace. "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them" (Ephesians 5:11). Sin requires the absence of light to survive. For most of my life I thought I could process all my sin on my own, but now I know the freedom and healing that comes through community. As long as God knows, nobody else needs to know, right? Wrong. That was my pride that held me back from the healing that comes from confession in community. I thought I could be independent and be just as close to God, but God created us to be dependent, not only on Him, but on the community He gives us. After all, what better way to make Christ strong than boasting in our weaknesses?

Not only does confession produce unwavering forgiveness, but freedom through healing.

"God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin... If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:5-9). Isn't it good to know we don't serve a God that just sometimes forgives us? We serve a God that is FAITHFUL to forgive when we ask. Although He is faithful to forgive us, we are likely to continue the vicious cycle if we do not confess to one another and repent. He then gives us the Word to guide us through repentance and life change. We are dependent on His forgiveness. 

After we ask for forgiveness and repentance, healing occurs when we bring our sin into the light. James 5:16 says, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power as it is working" (James 5:16). Healing from sin comes from bringing your sin into light among fellow believers. There is great freedom in great community. 

What in your life needs to be brought into the light so that you can be healed and thus walk in the freedom you have because of Jesus? Maybe it's some kind of addiction, lust, anger, bitterness, jealousy, self-righteousness, some kind of sexual sin, unforgiveness, pride, insecurities, idolatry, or anything else. May we be not only hearers of the Word, but doers (James 1:22-25). Let me encourage you this week to bring your sin into the light among believers that will hold you accountable and remind you of the grace our God give us. May you no longer walk in the destructive darkness, but the radiant, life-giving light. 

The Pursuit

There she was. 
He saw her.

He loved her before she ever knew who he was. How did she not know? He knew she would be his one day and that she would be his forever. 

The beautiful pursuit took him six years, but the even more beautiful part of his pursuit was that it continued even after she was his forever. 

The day he won her over was one of the greatest days of his life. He couldn't help but smile and hold her tightly. The embrace was beautiful. They were both so excited for the days and years to come as they would take this journey together. He had sacrificed so much just to be able to love her and pursue her in the most beautiful way. Why? Because his love was unlike any other.

He knew her better than anyone else. He knew her heart. He knew what she loved the most and what she desired the most. He loved her in the most whimsical ways through daily gifts and through his love and truth. He told her daily she was beautiful and treasured, but she felt inadequate. He told her again, "You are beautiful and treasured and you are mine." Every day he pursued her through daily surprises in the most beautiful and unique ways. He was there whenever she needed him, and even when she didn't think she needed him. He was there for her. At times she was unfaithful to him but he had made her a promise to love her unconditionally, so he pursued her. She tried to pursue others while being pursued by the one that truly loved her. She knew she was loved, yet she didn't know the depth of his love. 

There she was.

Broken.

Discontent.

Crying her eyes out on a pile of broken glass.

He walked up to her and gently wrapped his arms around her and said, "I love you. I really love you. Open your eyes to the one who is pursuing you. I have been here the whole time yet you did not see me. Take my hand, let's go home. Let's continue this journey together." He proved over and over again that he was faithful to her, even in her unfaithfulness. He was whole, even though she was broken. He had forgiven her and brought her back, ready to love her just as much as before. Every morning he would look at her and smile as he delighted in her. There was no way he was going to let anyone take her away after that six year pursuit. He planned to pursue her the rest of her life even though she was already his. Not only did he love her with a passionate love, but he was jealous for her. Knowing other things would try to pull her away and take her eyes off of her true love, he watched over her and fought anything and everyone that tried to take her away. He wanted her and loved her. 

One day her eyes were open to the truth he had told her since he began pursuing her. She began to think about all the journeys they had been on and how beautiful life was when she was with him. She began to treasure him and take great delight in who he was. Her eyes were finally opened. She began to pursue him in a beautiful way. She learned how to pursue from his unwavering pursuit of her. She learned to love because she knew his love. She learned to speak beautiful truth to others because he had spoken beautiful truth to her. She learned to love the broken because he loved her brokenness. She learned to pursue the faithless because she had been pursued in her faithlessness. She wanted to change the world, because her world had been changed. 

He walked up to her and said, "My precious daughter, Shae, I love you and you are mine. Take hold of my hand, trust me, and be ready for the beautiful journey called Life that I have for you. I am faithful so remember my promises to you. I will never leave you or forsake you. Treat others just as I have treated you and be ready to change the world. Make disciples and teach them what I have taught you. Pursue others with the love I have pursued you with. Stop trying to look forward to destination points and enjoy the journey."