When You Stop Bossing God Around...

If you've been on the blog for a couple of years, you will remember my desert journey. If you're new...you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. So let me recap ever so briefly.

2 1/2 years ago, I was set up with a guy I'd never met before. We started talking, first online, then on the phone, and then in person. (Note...I did not MEET him online...we were set up through mutual friends. We just started talking that way.) We fell for each other pretty quickly and he told me early on that he wanted to marry me. Though we were never engaged, my mind was already convinced that this was my forever-relationship, and that's why I was utterly devastated when he told me God was calling him away into a wilderness to deal with some issues from his past - and he had to go alone.

For months, I waited, because I believed he would come back to me and we would move forward with our relationship. Furthermore, I felt God was calling me to wait...to be faithful even when everyone else was telling me to dump him and move on.

In the end, Isaac called me and told me he was not coming back and I should move on with my life. About a month later, I found out he was dating someone else, and they got married last year.

After he left, I told God in no uncertain terms that I was not interested in love ever again. I was positive Isaac was His best for me and if I couldn't have His best for me, I didn't want any settled-for second best.

People. It is not smart to boss around the Creator of the Universe. Let me just tell you that. Okay?

As my heart began to heal and especially as life began tumbling into the "Season of Suddenly" I talked about last week...with my new job...I began to ever-so-cautiously entertain the idea of new love. I went out on a few dates here and there, and every time I just knew it wasn't right. Either I had zero chemistry with the guy or I just knew it wasn't the right thing...or I got my heart broken again. The last heartbreak was so rough that it landed me in bed for an entire weekend, completely unable to get up to even eat. After that, I said it would have to be a clear sign from God if I was going to pursue a relationship again. Because otherwise it was just flat out TOO PAINFUL.

So...several weeks ago, I got a text from a friend of mine named Ryan. He and I actually went to high school together, and while we knew of each other back in those days, we weren't friends. (Not that we were enemies...we just didn't know each other well enough to be friends.) I got to know him better when I started attending the church I go to now...because he goes there as well. In the months that have passed since I went through my desert journey, Ryan went through a really tough relationship loss of his own, and it was after that...I received a text.

He said he needed to talk to me, and in my heart, I knew. I knew that although he had told me he had the same mentality toward finding a new relationship that I did (way too hard, so no thank you!!), he was a great guy and somewhere along the way, some girl was going to capture his heart and he'd rethink that decision. I knew it.

So I knew what the text was about. He'd found someone and he needed to curb his friendship with me so it wouldn't get in the way of whatever relationship he was about to begin. I told him he could come over and talk to me, and when he arrived, I was curled up in a ball on the floor of my living room, under a fleece blanket, shivering and trying not to cry.

He sat down on the floor beside me and began a detailed story (he's quite a good story-teller and includes ALL the details). I interrupted after about a sentence and with my eyes half-closed in pain, I said, "I know what you're here to say, so just say it."

He looked at me with surprise and said, "You do?" I nodded miserably and said, "Just SAY it. Just get it over with."

He took a deep breath and said, "Okay...I've started to have feelings for you."

(Insert stunned silence here, followed by a squeaked "huh?")

I'm telling you...when you stop bossing God around....