Allowing God to Satisfy.

When I was thirteen, I couldn't wait to be kissed. 

It sounded so exciting and so grown up.

Not to mention that everyone else in middle school had started pairing off into relationships, well as much as those were 'relationships.' 

Suddenly who was kissing who became a really hot topic among the girls I was friends with. 

I was really frustrated with the fact that no boy was interested in me enough to want to kiss me back then. 

When I was sixteen, the feelings of wanting to be kissed intensified. 

I began to question whether I was normal or desirable because no boy had even tried to get close to me romantically. I watched friends all around me enter into what seemed (at the time) such beautiful romantic relationships. I thought if I finally had a guy who liked me back, I would be normal and complete. Then there would be someone who was exclusively mine.

We are totally made with this desire for companionship.

A desire to be known by another romantically and intimately.

I struggled in high school with feeling lonely and hopeless. I was single but it certainly wasn't by choice back then.

I had accepted Christ as my Savior at a young age, 

and even rededicated my life back to him at thirteen. 

I was still growing in my relationship with the Lord, but I had yet to grasp an important concept. 

The problem was I was looking for identity and fulfillment in all the wrong places.

My soul felt lonely and I had thought that a relationship with a guy my own age would fill that hole. I thought that a special relationship was what I needed to complete that loneliness and emptiness deep within me. 

Then I wouldn't feel those negative feelings anymore, I would fit in with all the other girls my age.

Truth is I did need a relationship, just not the kind I thought.

I needed my completeness to come from the Only One who would ever be able to give it to me.

Jesus.

Only He loves perfectly.

'No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, 

nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, 

nor anything else in all creation, 

will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

Romans 8:37-39 

'In this the love of God was made manifest among us, 

that God sent his only Son into the world, 

so that we might live through him. 

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us 

and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.'

1 John 4:9-11 

Only He never fails me.

See entire of Psalm 136 here.

'Even youths grow tired and weary,

    and young men stumble and fall; 

but those who hope in the Lord

    will renew their strength. 

They will soar on wings like eagles; 

    they will run and not grow weary,

    they will walk and not be faint.'

{Isaiah 40:31-31}

Only He is with me always me.

'Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me, 

    your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

    and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

    the night will shine like the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.'

{Psalm 139:7-12} 

As I grew older, I understood these beautiful truths more and more. The more I learnt these, the more He began to satisfy me. I came to realize that I am only complete when I seek Jesus to fill me and satisfy.

This is truth regardless of a relationship with a significant other.

Graciously the Lord began to teach these truths to me toward the end of my high school years.

Those days of loneliness served a wonderful purpose of turning me to the one who then captured my heart forever.

He began to show me in my senior year of high school and the year that followed, that He is the one I need to run to, no-one else.

Believe me when I tell you girls, I tried to look elsewhere for a long time.

I tried going to a guy I liked, I tried looking to my friends for comfort and fulfillment, I tried running to my parents for the love and affection I was craving, I tried in the relationship with my sister. 

Slowly God stripped all of those relationships away as I transitioned from living at home to living in a different city, a different country and went to college.

The summer of 2006 He truly got through to me, that He alone had to satisfy.

He paved a way for me to go on two different mission trips that summer and revealed his love to me in more ways than I can even remember.

He placed new people in my life who truly encouraged me and pointed me to Christ.

He started the process of learning (and sometimes relearning) that He is enough.

A lesson that is far from over.

He was enough when I felt I had lost my best friend for good after I moved back to England.

He was enough when I struggled and felt depressed because the pain from having my whole life changed was unbearable.

He was enough when I found myself in India unsure of the purpose of my presence.

He was enough when I felt Him call me on a trip to Africa which was due to depart in six days.

He was enough when I felt I would never find godly friends at college.

He was enough when my finances became a sudden mess, and financial support I thought I would receive fell through.

And when I thought through it all that I would never again be happy, He was enough.

He began to satisfy me fully.

To help me see that no other relationship in my life would ever be able to make me feel the way He could.

He filled that feeling of loneliness completely.

He filled the feelings of emptiness.

I see now as a married woman that this was an incredibly valuable lesson.

Loving my husband is only possible because of Christ's Love for me. As precious as my God-given marriage relationship is, I am never satisfied completely except through Jesus.

That significant person given to you will never satisfy you the way Jesus can.

They aren't supposed to.

Relationships in my life go so much smoother when my relationship with Jesus is being given the attention and intimacy it needs. When I am investing my time and energy into getting to know my prince, I don't look to my husband or friends for completeness.

When I do seek that love from others....they fail me.

Because they aren't able to love me the way He does.

Just as I can't perfectly love them in return.

I'm so glad now that Jesus broke my heart during those single years.

Because He pieced it back together and revealed to me my utter dependence on Him.

There is no perfect husband.

No perfect fiance.

No perfect boyfriend.

No perfect date.

Except for the one who creates them.

And he loves you.

Imagine that.

Much Love,

L