A Heart For God, Not For Me

There's a lot that can be said about the heart. It's pretty incredible the way God has wired us together, to feel so much. If there's anything that I've learned about the heart, it would be that it's way more physically equipped to deal with hard stuff than it is emotionally. I am not extraordinarily wise and most of the time I know how to give advice better than I can take it, but I have been faced with some super tough "heart" stuff growing up. I have a whole lot more to learn about myself, but based on my personal experiences with let downs and heartbreaks, I'd like to reach out to all the beautiful girls, or anyone else, out there whose hearts might have them quite literally feeling like they can't catch their balance or their breath.

Let me start this post by being a little vulnerable and open with you. I very recently went through a tough breakup. And I mean a rough, ugly, no fun, miserable breakup after three and a half years together. Like most of us girls, we way too often fall into the lie that we have to put all of our faith in a guy that is especially no where near capable of protecting his own heart, let alone ours. You've heard it a thousand times, that the only man we are to give our whole hearts away too, is the one who can count our every tear, God. I knew this to be true through the entirety of my three year relationship, but I was consumed with giddy love and the desire to feel wanted by someone (at 15 years old, how did I know what I was getting myself into anyway?!). I allowed a guy to fill the deep voids of my heart, and made the mistake of not surrendering my heart to the will of God. I've grown up a little since then, but I never fully surrendered myself to Christ, instead an imperfect man. Now, he was an amazing person. He was sweet, full of love for me, and we made wonderful memories and learned so much from our time together. He had Jesus in his heart but neither of us was ready for the responsibilities that a committed relationship would require. False promises were made, and honesty and integrity were long gone. By the time we broke up, I no longer recognized that person I had grown to love and respect, instead someone cold had taken his place. I too had changed and the distance between us was immense. So many nights I've cried out asking God why in the world he would allow someone to be such a huge part of my life for so long and why he would allow me to truly believe that I was going to marry this person one day... Then have everything come crashing down in such a horrible way?

Not too long ago I woke up in the middle of the night crying for no apparent reason and heard this answer in my heart: "You made another person your idol and you put him and yourself above my perfect plan for you. You still feel all of your insecurities because you allowed a man to define the person you would become. He was always going to let you down, but I created you, and I love you, and I will not. My arms are outstretched to you, come to me and I promise my plan for you is beautiful." Um. What?! Yes, true story. God is there, he hears you.

If you can relate to any of this, let me say, your broken heart and that terrible pain you feel or the things you struggle with deep inside of yourself, God will save you from it and from your flaws if you allow him to,  he will save you from further pain, and push you to grow into the person you were really meant to be. Years down the road we'll all have dark days to look back on and say "thank you, Lord for putting me through it. Thank you, Lord for allowing me to get lost so that I could be found." If you've ever been "boy/girl crazy" like I have, give it up. No, I'm not telling you to be single for life, I'm telling you to let God handle it!! Girlfriends, if you're not married, your man is out there. I know for me, I've begun to pray for my future husband everyday. That he would love Jesus more than anything in this world and that he would have a radiating heart to put Christ and me over himself. In the meantime, I will guard my heart and hold myself close to the one who will always protect me. I truly believe that God has given me the potential to change the world (that's so super hero of me I know) and to serve and spread his love like fire over the Earth. So being single is not a bad thing. Singleness just means you have an even bigger opportunity to serve the Lord without any worry of protecting another person and let yourself become whole in Christ. {You will be more alone in a hollow relationship without God, than in no relationship but with God.} Now, in college, a good majority of people think being single means freedom to live a life without boundaries, don't believe that lie either (I promise you, it's okay to be different). If you have God in your heart, live for him and let him grow the fruit of the spirit in your life. This world is a big scary place, but it doesn't always have to be.

I'm a mess, and so are we all. We are all broken, we make terrible mistakes and we try to live our lives without any guidance, but God's love will heal what hurt so badly divides. Every person that comes into our lives, whether it's a girlfriend, boyfriend, or just a friend, comes with a reason and leaves little footprints on our hearts, but they may not stay there forever. Trust in the promise of God's plan. We have to allow ourselves to be worn and surrendered at Jesus' feet because he will bring peace and rest to our souls.

Song of Solomon 8:4 says "Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires" 

 Things take time. So just be patient.

{forever grateful, Ashley}