The Waiting List

When I was younger I wrote up a list of the qualities I was looking for in a future husband. This has been on my mind lately and I feel it's time to write about it and make myself an updated list. I lost the old one but I still remember some of the main items.

Here is my new list:

●We must be good friends
●Loves children
●Strong relationship with God
●Close family relationships.. values family
●Shares the same values
●Fits right in with my family

Each of these things are equally important and my future husband must fit every single one of these things. No exceptions. I feel this way because if I were to make an exception I would be settling for less than God's best. 

**NOTE: the above paragraphs I wrote a couple of months ago, and now I am finally getting around to finishing this post. :) The following paragraphs will have been written now.

I want to encourage all of the single women, and single men, to create a list of qualities that you desire your future spouse to have. This helps keep your focus on the right things. Having them written down makes them a physical document that will become something you come across often. This is way to make sure the person you start dating is someone who will fit those things, and is something that you will be looking for as you get to know that special someone even more. Before making your list, be sure to pray and ask God to speak to you about what qualities are important to you in your search for a spouse. 

When you have a list of qualities you are looking for it is important to take some time to set aside your feelings you may currently have for someone (like, for instance, if you are already in a relationship) and really begin to determine what qualities are important for you to find in a husband. I believe that dating should not be about just having fun, dating should be a time where two people pursue a relationship with the potential of marriage being on their minds. This is why I believe that dating in high school is not necessarily the best decision, because is marriage really on the mind of teenagers? Sometimes, yes, but that is not always the case. 

Before I continue on this topic much longer, I will stop. I am going to write an entire blog post on the topic of dating with the intention of marriage, rather than posting it in here with the waiting list. :) Be blessed, dear friends! :)

Now Available: the World Wide Web =D

I wanted to write a post now that I have internet in my apartment. It is nice to have this luxury again, especially since it makes blogging so much easier. :) I am excited for what this is to bring.

So I sit here typing this blog while I am sick... yes, that's right. I don't know what I have, but it is some virus that is preventing my body from doing much of anything. About half way through work yesterday I came down with a sore throat that I thought was simply from not drinking enough water, so I drank more water. It continued throughout the night. I must have had a fever because I had chills and could not seem to get myself to warm up, even though I was under a really warm blanket in sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

My night was a bit rough. When I was able to fall asleep, I slept for a few hours and then was up every couple hours fighting with a dull headache. I'm feeling a bit dizzy and everything is just a bit cloudy, it is not real fun. I am just hoping I'll be able to make it to work tomorrow. I praise God that this happened on my day off, but at the same time I am upset because I had many plans for how I was going to spend this day. I was excited to go out shopping and take a trip to the library, but now I'm sitting on the couch hoping and praying that my sore throat goes away so I can easily swallow some water.

I have been learning a lot about patience and wisdom in the past few weeks. I feel that God is always teaching me more about patience, but more so since I've started a relationship. There are so many exciting things that happen when you enter into a relationship with someone that it is hard to hold back all of the emotions and excitement. What God has been teaching me is to hold tight and let His timing play out in my relationship. It is hard to keep myself from daydreaming about what the future might hold, and it is dangerous to do so. I need to keep my mind in the here and now and let God plan out the future. I know that God will tell me when the time is right to continue to go deeper in my relationship. It is all a fun adventure to be on, and patience is something that is definitely needed.

So this is a quick and simple update on what is going on. I am excited to write more blog posts in the upcoming days and see where God continues to lead me on this journey. :) Be blessed, friends!

A New Chapter :)

It has been a very long time since I’ve last updated my blog, and I have recently felt the need to update it. I have been without internet since I moved to my new place on December 3, so just over a month now. I have data on my smartphone, but it makes some things a bit more difficult to do, such as typing out blog posts. I am now typing this on my computer and then I will transfer it to my phone using my memory card. I have my ways around some of these things, as the internet is an expensive luxury that I can live without for now (especially since I now have unlimited data on my phone at half the cost of internet in my apartment).

So I have an update in my life to share, hence the title of my blog “A New Chapter.” I started dating someone a week ago today. I want to share a quick story of how that came to be. This blog began as my journey as a single woman, and it still remains that, a journey, but now I have a special someone who is on this journey with me. I plan on continuing this blog and sharing how God speaks to me either on the topic of dating or the topic of singlehood. My journey in life is not to find a husband and start a family, that is simply one of my hearts greatest desires. My journey in life is to seek God’s will and follow His lead as I navigate this world. It has been a journey with many ups and downs that I know will be a continued pattern. Now for the story. =D Make a cup of tea or coffee, this will be a long story.

The story begins on Christmas day when I was spending time with family. The day started out great, I woke up early to pull the cinnamon rolls out of the fridge so they could begin to come to room temperature to rise. I crawled back into bed and allowed myself to sleep a bit longer. By 7:00 I was up and showering, getting ready for the day. It was nice to shower and crawl back into pajamas, knowing the day would be a relaxing one. I packed up the car with gifts and the cinnamon rolls, making sure I had everything. I drove out to my parent’s house and when I pulled in I noticed the car of my sister’s boyfriend. I wasn’t expecting him to be there, so I knew it must have been a surprise for my sister as well.

I brought everything into the house, which was still very quiet. My sisters came down and greeted me and soon after the day’s festivities began. My mom and I got breakfast ready and then waited for the rest of my siblings to arrive (my brother and his wife, my sister and her girlfriend, and my sister and her son) so we could get breakfast started. The morning went well and I thoroughly enjoyed myself and loved spending time with my family. By the time the gifts were all opened and everyone began playing games, I started to feel a bit lonely. I knew that I was making a choice not to play the game that my siblings were playing, which was okay, but it turned into a few games that I didn’t care to join in on. I wanted to play a group game where we could laugh and have fun, not a game requiring as much thinking. My mom and sister-in-law played Skip-Bo with me and I started to enjoy myself.

Within a couple of hours the cold I was suffering from was creating a headache and I was not feeling the best, which was not helped by all of my emotional feelings. I decided that it would be a good idea to make some nice, hot tea, and see if that would help the way I was feeling. As soon as I found myself alone in the kitchen making the tea, tears began to form around my eyes and I was so overwhelmed by the feeling of loneliness, which was not realized at the time. I could not keep myself from crying and knew I had to find some place to be alone and talk to God about what I was feeling and process through everything. After my tea was made, I headed down to the basement to get away from the busyness of things. My sister-in-law had come into the kitchen and saw I was crying and asked if I was okay. I told her I just needed some time alone to think. Mere seconds after I had gone to the basement, she followed me down to try encouraging me, knowing somehow that what I truly needed was someone to listen and encourage me.

I explained that I was feeling lonely and was not 100% sure where these feelings were coming from. I told her that I was feeling overwhelmed by the fact that it seemed everyone in my family had someone to be with. My brother had his wife, my parents had each other, my sister had her girlfriend, my sister had her boyfriend, my sister had her son, etc. Then there was me, what did I have? I had myself, and it made me feel extremely lonely like I had never felt before. My sister-in-law told me that God would not keep me from finding someone if this is the way I was feeling, if one of my heart’s deepest desires was to find someone to spend the rest of my life with. She encouraged me to begin the search of finding places where I could meet someone. I immediately felt better and the rest of the evening went so well and I was able to fully enjoy myself.

The following Saturday I went to Starbucks to get some things done on my computer over the internet. While I was there, I decided to look up ways to meet people. What I decided would be best for me, as an introvert, would be to find a place online to meet someone. I decided to join eHarmony and began my journey of finding someone. The very next day, I started communicating with someone who responded very quickly to my questions and answers. There was an immediate connection and by the next day we were talking on the phone, getting to know so much about each other.

I took Friday night that week to spend time with God and seek His will and wisdom for this relationship. I felt such a great closeness to God that night and was able to put my emotions aside and really think about whether I really am ready to pursue a serious relationship. Everything kept pointing to yes and I was so in love with God in those moments. I had been struggling with prayer and reading my Bible up until that night, and when I felt that closeness to God, I knew that He was right beside me through everything, even in my loneliness. God spoke to me in those moments and I began to see how my period of singleness is coming to an end, and that God will answer my prayer with a yes to bless me with a husband and eventually a family. I am ready for this new chapter and see what God brings along the way.

We talked on the phone and exchanged texts for the next week and then on Sunday, January 4, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I prayed about the decision and felt God giving me the okay to say yes. Now it has been a week and I have met him in person (we went on a date this past Wednesday). We have so much in common and the thing that attracted me most to him in the beginning was that he, very much like me, is an introvert. His name is Mark and I am excited for this new relationship and chapter in my life. I would go into more detail, but this post is so long already. If anyone has any questions for me about this new chapter, please feel free to ask!

The Journey is Still Going

PREFACE: I wrote this on December 7 and have just now realized I never got around to posting this. So here is that post.

Hello, friends! I have had a lot on my mind lately and have felt God tugging at my heart to continue this blog I have started. This past weekend has been a weekend full of revelations into what I think God wants for me in my life. To sum it up, I took a class at my church called “Discipleship 101” which covered the church’s beliefs and the basics to becoming a disciple, and led to membership in the church. I took away a lot from the class and even more today with the sermon. The following is a bulleted list of what I will talk about in upcoming posts. I was going to cover it all in one post, but realized I had too much to say about each one. Therefore, I will make a post about each. :)

· A call to singlehood

· What baptism (immersion) is all about

· Stewardship – a process of faith

· Tithing

· The journey called life

Not only will I be discussing those topics, but I want to expand this blog to move beyond how this blog has been structured in the past. I have previously shared things I’ve learned in the Bible, and while I want to continue to do that, this has slowed me down in writing. The reason it has slowed me down is because I wait for inspiration to strike in terms of what the scripture inspires me with about singleness. Not every scripture will be able to inspire that, and that isn’t what my original thoughts about this blog intended.

I decided to look back at my first post to see what I had to say then. What I found is very interesting. The first couple of sentences say, “So what is this blog all about? Simple answer: singlehood. Complicated answer: only God knows.” I find this very interested. All along I was intending this blog to be about singlehood and every post to be about that. What I find interesting is the fact that I wrote “only God knows” and that this blog is turning into what I have titled it “A Single Woman’s Journey.” It is the title of my life. I am single and my life is a journey. God has taken me in a direction that I did not foresee. I continue to be amazed at how He blesses me and takes care of me.

Before I get carried away and ramble on, let me explain what I mean by this journey and where I feel God is calling me to take this blog. To make a long story short, I am a recent college graduate who is learning to live in the “real world” and make independent decisions. I have a full time job, my own apartment, my own car, and I live on my own. I feel that God wants me to not share solely about singlehood, but rather about my life journey and the things along the way to fulfilling His will. I am not on a journey to find a husband, I am on a journey to live out God’s will for my life. I don’t know exactly what that looks like, and I know this won’t always be an easy journey, but  I want to wholeheartedly live my life for God and follow His lead.

I want to share the journey of how I live on my own and make ends meet—this means including information about how I budget my money to live within my means, not beyond it. How to use my money for God and His Kingdom and to fully trust God with my finances. I have recently discovered that there are many things I spend my money on that are simply wants and not needs. I could be using my money more wisely. I am a thrifty person and want to be able to share tips and tricks with people that I have learned along the way and to share how eliminating many things eliminates distractions and creates a stronger desire to spend time with God. In the past few days, I have had no internet hook up. I have been using my smartphone to access the internet on a very minimal level. The only TV that I have watched has been DVDs that I own or have rented from the library. I want to live a life that is more focused on God and has Him at the center, rather than a life that has me in the center. When I am in the center, God has no control and I am doing other things before spending time with God or even thinking about Him.

God deserves our very best. I am going to begin each day in scripture and this will start before I get out of bed. I will be sharing in the upcoming days what this journey is like. I will share day-by-day in a journal type format where I discuss what happens on a daily basis. I am not doing this for myself, I am doing this so that God may use me to reach out to other people. I want to share of myself so that others may see or hear something that will help lead them to Christ and strengthen their relationship with Him. Be blessed, friends!