Perfect Ways //

Two weeks ago I entered a new season of life. My twenty third year is already so marked by release, purpose and presence and I want to share about it. Basically, regardless of circumstances, Daddy God is faithful, He is mine, and in His presence is FULNESS of joy. 

Last summer I'd had breakthrough from my heart break that spring, I'd been given fresh vision for purpose after the future Id envisioned with Zachary was stripped away -- by mercy and perfect wisdom's plan I now see -- and at that time I was prayer-walking my city and listening for where I was to move. I was also investing in new friendships in other cities where we were cheering each other on in living the normal Christian life. Last October one of those friends revealed feelings for me and intentions toward me. I shared his feelings and was more than on-board with his serious and honorable intentions. I was so afraid of loss though and the fear was flavoring my feelings with doubt and anxiety. All the what ifs of another interest never becoming anything committed, of another envisioned future stripped away, of a loved man lost, of possibly having to endure the ache of someone having left instead of staying again. With all the patient reassurances of my friend, all his encouragement of this being a new thing and not what I'd been through before, of all the promise I saw written on the idea of "us", and simply believing that, whatever came, this man was worth the risk and I wanted it, I chose to begin again. 

Long distance, we took things slow in a sense, as we wanted to interact with each other and meet each other's "people" before making anything official, but we also launched, or fell, quickly into what I hoped never to recover from. For months I was reservation and caution. Then I was all-in. Then I was insecure in the amount of time we were taking between expressed mutual desires and a public commitment. In the midst of moving forward though my friend heard distinctly from Daddy God, "Wait. Don't get ahead of My timing." He wanted to ignore it because of his strong draw to me. He tried to ignore it but couldn't. Eventually he told me about the word and it revealed how much I needed some one-on-one time with Daddy. I pitched a fit. I kicked and screamed and told them both how not okay I was with this plan. "Daddy, don't you know that my security depends on things actually coming together and lasting this time around? What are You thinking asking us to wait? This messes with my heart so much." For months we went up and down this emotional roller coaster of limbo because my friend couldn't ignore the word and I really wanted to. When I realized afresh that I couldn't control the future, we spent some days apart. We prayed, talked, cried to our Daddy, and came back together on the same page: we needed to submit to this word and we thought the only way to guard each other's hearts while waiting to further pursue a future together meant disconnecting from each other for a period of time and then reconnecting afterward to reevaluate where we sensed things were at on Gods timetable and heart. So we did. 

For five months we avoided talking to and seeing each other, labeled ourselves "off the market", and opened ourselves instead to whatever Daddy wanted to do in us individually as well as with "us". 

Two weeks into our season of separation I got a call telling me that my parents had separated. My security depending on the faithfulness of loved ones and them not leaving had landed me on my face. The only one I had for intimacy in this confusing and painful time was the one who later would reveal himself to me as my Forever Love. 

Month by month, season by season, I walked forward with Daddy God and let him Father me, let Him love me. It wasn't about questions being answered or about circumstances being favorable or people being faithful. I was finding all I needed in the security and the hope and the steadfastness of Him. I was finding all I needed in the one who is mine -- forever. 

Time was drawing to a close in the separation season with my friend, a time for reevaluation was nearing. All the way through Daddy had assured me, "The man will know how to lead forward, and you will know how to respond to his decision." Then one week before my birthday a complete shift in my heart occurred and it wasn't my desire for my friend and I to pursue a future anymore. The man who had loved me well, led me patiently, walked through healing and confusion and obedience and silence with me, the one I'd thanked God for more times a day than I could keep track of, was very suddenly the man that I just wanted restored friendship with. I wanted so much to just begin again with him, after all the months of silence, as friends and just allow life to unfold before us as it would. 

In Daddy's perfect timing, my friend called, on my birthday, about a year from the date he'd initiated pursuing me, and what was the way forward that he'd clearly been told to lead in? Just beginning again as friends. Leave it to Daddy to get two of His kids on the same page without them communicating or seeing each other. I might add too, that although we were both sure this was the place to begin again and the way forward for us, our feelings for each other had come through the season still in tact. We still wanted each other as we had the whole year but we wanted other things more. My friend wanted healing from past hurts -- things that had been revealed to him during our season apart -- and regain the freedom of heart to be really vulnerable in a romantic relationship again someday. He wanted to continue in the callings and purposes Daddy had for him where he was. I wanted to be officially single again and have that freedom to run hard after all that Daddy had for me in the year ahead. I wanted to keep going through life's troubles with this security in my immovable Daddy and forget about romance until it was really time. We were so grateful and so glad that our friendship had been preserved. I was happy to have the possibility that down the road perhaps our hearts and Daddy's timing would line up and we'd explore a future together once again, but I also had so much peace that whether that happened or not is just fine. 

How is it that when it looks like all I feared came to pass that I came out so unwounded, so fearless, so secure in hope? Daddy is faithful and works everything to my good and won't ever leave me! Security that depends on anything other than Him leaves us hanging but security in Him leaves us soaring. 

My parents are walking through getting divorced, I've lost the hoped for future with my dear friend that we'd delighted over and prayed for, and through it all it is literally, to the depths of me and back again, WELL with me. This is the best year of my life so far. Bad news at possibly the worst timing -- my folks' separation right on the heels of my friend and I beginning our separation season, and then no restoration of hoped for relationship with my friend settled on my birthday -- has come to be just news that didn't shake me and that ended up being a blessing to me because my Daddy God reigns and hope in Him never disappoints. It's incredibly sad that my Dad left our family. It's sad that my friend and I aren't moving forward as we'd hoped. As always there's a season of mourning. But it was especially short for me because it was eclipsed by an extreme pleasure in the Presence of my Forever Love. 

I'm supremely satisfied. Perfect peace, an abounding joy, and supernatural strength are what I'm walking around in and it doesn't even make sense to me. By all "rights" I should be miserable or depressed or riddled with anxiety. But I'm a child of God and so by all heaven's rights I'm secure and satisfied and whole. I'm passionate about His presence, about abiding in fulness of joy, and in being the evidence of a God who is more than enough. He's really good. I can't even help it -- Im more in love with Him than ever!

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint or grow weary; there is no searching of His understanding. He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength [causing it to multiply and making it to abound]. [II Cor. 12:9.] Even youths shall faint and be weary, and [selected] young men shall feebly stumble and fall exhausted; But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired. [Heb. 12:1-3.]”

Isaiah 40:28-31 AMP

I haven't had a release to write about any of this as it unfolded the past twelve months but the time has come. Praying for clarity as I begin again to testify of all that the Lord is saying and doing for and through me these days. The best is yet to come -- always!