Do you feel stuck? Irritated? Frustrated? Alone? Mehh? You might have settled for something less than God’s best. At the beginning of the year I was feeling all of those things and more. I didn’t understand God’s purpose for my life and in part I still don’t. I know what God wants me to do now (I think) but I’m still in a frustrating season. I have this deep ambition to be someone to achieve something and to find true happiness and joy yet I have no idea how to achieve those things. I feel as though I am not unlocking my full potential and I’m sure I’m not the only one in this position. Aside from potential and ambition, my hearts desires are another one of the biggest challenges that I’ve been battling with emotionally and God’s timing (the most annoying thing to hear, I swear). My hearts desires include marrying the man of my dreams and having a beautiful loving whole family but yet at the age of 28 I am still single -_-.
Throughout my life I have been in and out of relationships, some awful ones and others that provided healing but I still haven’t found “The One”. For the past year and a half I was in a “Situationship” where I was talking to someone every day (literally EVERY DAY) and he is a great man but there was one really important thing missing. I’ve been in this situation in the past where you look at the man infront of you and think to yourself, jheez this could actually work however for whatever reason there is one element that just isnt there and it’s soooo frustrating because everything could be perfect if that one element was there, so what then happens is that you coast and pray that that one element either won’t matter, will come to light or you start thinking that you are being too picky and that you just need to get over it. This in turn turns into what I see as a “Situationship” because you aren’t in a relationship as you arent sure whether or not you want to commit 100% and if you’re in my situation you’re thinking “I’m 28 and the next relationship I get into will be my last” (famous Vanessa words). So you don’t want to go in head first because you’re scared that this will be it and if that element isn’t there will I still be happy and will this still work. In my situation the element that was missing was that of attraction. Now a lot of people will say, “oh, attraction can grow within a relationship”, so with that being said – I waited. Waited. And Waited….and nothing. So a year and a half later that attraction still wasn’t there but everything else was. So what do you do? I prayed and prayed and prayed – I prayed that famous prayer that all of us ladies love to pray, ” God, if this man is not for me – please remove him from my life”. This prayer can go one of 2 ways, 1 – the man disappears, breaks your heart or some truths come to the surface or 2 – nothing happens. Now what do you do if nothing happens? You start to think “Well okay, maybe this man is for me…but God why am I not attracted to him?”.
This is when I started to pray for God’s plan A for my life. I realised that I wanted everything that God had designed for me to have and I didn’t want anything less than God’s best. However in order for that to happen, you have to give God everything you hold close in order for him to bless you with what he knows is best for you.
I’m sure you may have heard of this story or a similar one but the one that I grew up with goes like this:
Once there was a little girl who had a fake pearl necklace that she loved. It meant the world to her and she took it everywhere with her, showed it off to the world however the necklace, being fake, started to lose it’s shine and the cord started to fray.
One day her dad approached her and said “Darling, if you give me your pearl necklace I will give you something even better”. The little girl looked at her dad and couldn’t see anything, didn’t know what it was or when/if she would actually get it. She looked down at the fake pearl necklace and her dad said, “Trust me darling”. So she did and gave her dad the dull, fraying fake pearl necklace.
Little did she know her dad had a plan, he took the fake pearl necklace to a jewellers to find a real pearl necklace that was the same size.
The next day the dad called the little girl over and told her to close her eyes and open her hand. He then presented her with a beautifully wrapped box with a gorgeous pink bow on it. “Open your eyes princess”, he said. She opened her eyes and she was filled with an uncontrollable excitement, she proceeded to open the box and when she looked inside, she saw the most perfect REAL pearl necklace. She flung her arms around her Dad and said “Thank you Daddy, this is even better than what I could have ever imagined”.
The little girl put her trust in her father, not knowing, seeing or understanding why her dad would want to take something that she loved and wanted away from her. But her dad had a plan from the beginning and presented her with a pearl necklace that would never lose its shine or depreciate over time – as long as she looked after it and that fit her perfectly.
So back to point number 2, if nothing happens – in my case I had put myself in this situation a few times and rather than praying to God before I got into the situationship, I jumped in with 2 feet and then prayed after the fact, after my feelings had got caught up – after the heart ache. God brought the story above to me the first time I went through something similar and I had to give up my favourite person at the time to him, but rather than waiting for my real pearl necklace – I latched onto the next bisuteria (Spanish for costume jewellery – oh you go’on learn something todayyy). So in my case God said nothing as he had already taught me a lesson and this was the test – which I failed miserably and still continue to do so, however as of lately I have been failing quicker and rather than letting it run it’s course, I can now identify the position I am in and try to stop it before it progresses. BUT the test will come again and to be honest as I am writing to you someone else has tried to pop up on the radar (about “Hey Bighead”) who I know in my heart is not right for me so this time rather than getting into a situation I am making the decision to just stay friends.
God we come to you in our place of weakness, you placed these desires in our hearts so we know that you will fulfil them. Help us to have the strength to run after and trust in the Plan A that you have for our lives as you are the blueprint holder and know the end from the beginning. Help us to understand your timing and to not compare ourselves to other people that seem to be getting their hearts desires before us. God you know how hard it is for us not to do things in our own strength, I pray that we will:
Trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding but that in all our ways we will submit to you and you will make our paths straight
Proverbs 3: 5-6
Love Always,
