Thursday, June 28, 2012

Being a woman of substance

This is going to be a pure and simple rant so buckle up and hold on.  Women of substance.  I feel like we ("we" being myself and all the other women that I know who truly are intelligent and awesome people) as women of substance are passed over and pushed aside a lot.  We are the girls that are "good for marrying" but not for dating.  What does that even mean?! How can you get married if you didn't date first? This concept perplexes me. How do you get from point A to point B if you bypass point A? 
Anyways, I hear people tell my sisters and myself that one day a man will come and appreciate us for who we are but that will be 5 or (insert random number here) years down the road when they are mature and will value us for who we are.  So where does that leave us now? It leaves us as being their friend while they are dating the girls I will describe shortly and  us being supportive when the relationships do not work out.  We will be there for comfort and a shoulder to cry on. So now where are these men? What are they doing in this 5 to random number of years period?  My theory is they are being stupid.  They are dating the girls that we cannot stand, that have no brain cells, wear bump-its, but sure know how to have fun (ahem).  They are super high maintenance, shallow, and spend way too much time on their nails. Forgive me for the cynicism, but these days I am just really annoyed at men my age being afraid of substance and commitment.  I am tired of young women lowering their standards for affection and attention.  Maybe I am just tired.  I am a woman of substance.  I have lowered my standards, been in relationships that were not at all what I needed or God intended and yet again here I am where I started.....waiting for that man of substance to recognize me for what I am.  It's worth waiting for so I guess I will feel better after this vent session and just keep on waiting.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Who shall I fear?

If you have ever had an anxiety attack they are no fun for sure. You feel kind of like you can't breathe and the situation you are in seems inescapable and overwhelming. Anxiety is just plain and simple worry.  It is hard to control anxiety or worry when you let it manifest and continue to grow in your thoughts day after day.  I'm pretty sure we are all guilty of that. I worry about whether or not people like me, if I will have enough money to do anything besides pay my bills, my family, being single forever, getting wrinkles, not having enough pairs of sandals, etc.  Obviously I worry about important and some not so important things. Does worry about any of this help???? No. Of course not. I love the book of James and in his writings James says:
 "Look here you who say 'Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year.  We will do business there and make a profit.' How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone.  What you ought to say is, 'If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.'  Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil."
Or there is Matthew 6:34 when Jesus tells the disciples:
"So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today."
And of course David and his poetry says so eloquently in Psalm 55:22 :
"Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you."
I feel like at times we are all paralyzed with this anxiousness and have a worried spirit. I was bogged down with this for a better part of a year and the only reason I moved out of it was because I realized the Lord controls everything anyway.  Why should I waste precious time that I could spend serving Him and making His name known worrying about things I can and never will be able to control? There is no good answer to this except that I and we shouldn't be.
 As I child I was scared of the dark (don't tell anyone but I still kind of am) and my mom would sit with me as I went to sleep and she would say  "When you are afraid put your trust in Him" until I believed it.  It is still kind of like that now.  I sit in the darkness of apprehension, angst and concern and Jesus is there with me saying "When you are afraid put your trust in Me."

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of it's strength."
 -Corrie Ten Boom