Let's Talk About Guys

Let's talk about guys. Let's essentially have a little pillow talk. Just you and me. Get excited.

We all want to be loved. I mean come on, admit it. When that guy who you've been eyeing for a while asks you on a date your heart melts a little bit. You get wide-eyed excited with happy butterflies. This will be your very own version of a Nicholas Sparks novel! Then you start thinking about how well his last name goes with your first name and everything is history. Am I right?!

This summer at camp all I wanted was to be pursued. In that environment it seemed like it was the perfect place to find the guy I had been looking for. Being in that hyper-Jesus-loving-cool people place it just seemed like it would happen. I was going to find my guy at camp. It was just going to happen. I was set on it. Then it became my focus and my only desire. It was all I thought about, it was all I talked about.

I became drained.

I was mad at myself for not being able to contain this and letting it consume me.

One day I went to my friends office and everything just seemed to crumple. All I wanted was to be pursued and loved well and I had never had that by a guy before. I ended up sobbing. After consoling me for a while Haily told me to go home to be with Jesus.

I got back to my room and opened a package that was just sent by my mom. In it was the book Captivating. I had been reading it the previous summer and I decided to pick it back up. The chapter I left off on was called Being Romanced.

In it Stasi Eldredge talks about how it is the desire of a woman's heart to be pursued and to be loved. Phew, I was normal. A woman feels the most alive and the most beautiful when she is being pursued. Preach Stasi. Then she continues to say that since there is no perfect man we will never be loved or pursued perfectly.

But wait, there is Jesus.

He loves and pursues us everyday and we don't even notice it. Yeah well that's cool and all but that is super creepy to think of Jesus in more of a romantic way. But I kept reading. She continues to urge us to ask God to show us how he is pursuing us.

So I did just that. Every morning I woke up and would take a deep breath in and say Jesus and then breathe out. I did that a couple times and then I would ask God to show me how he was pursuing me that day.

You guys, it changed me.

The grass was greener because God was telling me he loved me through green grass. Flowers were more beautiful because they were a little special treat from Jesus to me. At the end of the day I would write down my Jesus sightings. It was like a little treasure hunt with me and Jesus and it was the best game ever.

One night I was running late to an event and ended up walking out to the carnival site (super creepy and dark) all alone. I was feeling terrible about myself. Why wouldn't any guy think I was worth it? What was wrong with me? There has to be something. I started talking out loud to God and asking him to show me right then his pursuit of me.

I looked down and there was a crown on the ground.

Wait hold up what?! There was no way. I turned around and went back to pick it up. I felt like the Lord was saying "What the heck are you thinking?! You're the crown of creation. You are beautiful. You are worth it. I love you and I am pursuing you."

This summer I felt more full of joy than I ever have in my life. Not happiness, joy. There is a difference.

The Lord awakened deep parts of my soul and fulfilled them.

I realized that I was a wavering person. My moods and emotions depended on the guy I was dating or who I was with. Those people were my foundation and let me tell you it was the most exhausting thing. I started to ask Jesus to be my foundation.

I learned what it meant to have a constant in my life that was faithful, never wavered, and loved me perfectly - Jesus. Having Jesus as my foundation has changed the way I live. This is why I have a triangle on my wrist. ∆ is the top of the A for foundation. Every morning I wake up and see that ∆ on my wrist and am reminded that Jesus is my foundation and that he loves me perfectly.

I challenge you to ask God to show you how he is pursuing you. I promise he will.

I realized I was trying to use flawed sinful guys to fulfill an eternal thirst. There just wasn't a way it was going to work. Our heart was made to find satisfaction first and foremost in the only person that will fill that eternal thirst - Jesus. As Jonathan Haefs said, "It is like you are trying to get warm from a match when you could be using the sun."

It is the most stunning thing to have your soul fulfilled by the one who designed it.