It's been over a month since I've blogged...whoops!  Things have been busy, but mostly I've just been exhausted from work and kind of went into hibernation mode.  I haven't kept up with my weekly NORs like I've wanted to mainly because the last thing I've wanted to do after work is to keep real clothes on and go somewhere.  I kept telling myself I would just do it from home, but let's face it...when I'm home after work curled up in my bed, my brain wants to just turn off.  I catch up on my shows online instead of processing life.

One thing I've discovered, though, with doing my church's Eat This Book Bible in 1 year challenge is that I really enjoy sleeping in on a Saturday and waking up to drink my coffee and read my Bible.  I am NOT a morning person and it takes me a good hour to feel awake and ready to go.  So my idea of a perfect Saturday morning is to stay curled up in bed with my coffee and catch up on my Bible reading for church and/or other reading.  This morning, I did my daily reading for church and then caught up on a couple of websites I try to follow.  One of them had a post that caught my attention and made me process a little.

Read it here.

I almost didn't read it because it starts out with the author talking about struggles she has as a mom in her 30s.  I thought to myself, "Ugh, here's another another post I can't relate to."  For whatever reason, I kept reading.  It went on to talk about two different kinds of love: love that is loyal, steadfast, and faithful (God's covenant love) and love that is full of desire and delight.  I ended up relating quite a bit with the woman who wrote the article because, although we're in different life stages, we both want to be loved through someone desiring us and delighting in us.

My past relationships scream this.  I clung to different guys because I felt a "connection."  I felt known, desired, and wanted.  I'm not saying that connection didn't always exist with those guys, but it was the connection that made me cling to those guys despite knowing it might be unhealthy or not right.  I made stupid decisions with them because, unconsciously, it was my way of making sure they stuck around.  I fear not being desired.

I see this in my friendships too.  I love when people show an interest in getting to know me past surface level.  I love when people ask me about difficult situations in my life (even though it's hard to talk about difficult situations sometimes) because it shows me they want to know me.  I love being known.  I love when people say "this made me think of you" or "I knew you'd love this" because it shows that they know the quirks and things that are unique to me.

I long for the day when I meet a man that knows me, desires me, and delights in me so much that he wants to do it for the rest of his life.  It makes my heart ache when I watch person after person find that while I sit on the sidelines.

I had a glimpse of that with Janaque.  My relationship with him was one that, for the first time ever, I didn't feel like being with him was wrong.  There were no red flags that I could see.  I felt so known after such a short period of time because we had many similarities in how we thought and what we wanted.  He made me feel so desired.  When we were alone, he didn't want to let me go.  On the phone, he didn't want to hang up and we'd talk for hours.  I miss that so much!!!  It felt incredible.  I felt on top of the world...alive...content.

Despite me feeling like it was right, God apparently didn't think so.  The timing of everything with us was always off and it ultimately became the deciding factor.  Since then, I've been trying to cling to God's covenant love: that He will always be there and He will always love me.  I always thought desiring love was to be found in earthly relationships and that I could just rest in God's covenant love.

No wonder it's been such a struggle.  God doesn't love us just because He has to and He's promised to.  He wants to and desires each of us.  God knows me and delights in me.  He knows my needs and knows what makes me happy.  ME...not just people as a human race...ME.  That's good news to my mind...but I need to figure out how that can comfort my heart and my soul.  How can I tap into that comfort when it seems like every other girl is getting married or having a baby or squealing "I love my little family!" while posting a million pictures of her perfect life on Facebook?  How can I find the same feeling I found with Janaque in God?  With Janaque, it was reciprocal.  I could hear his voice telling me things that made my heart happy.  I could feel the warmth of his arms wrapped around me.  How can I feel that and be comforted with a God I can't see, hear, or feel?  It's good news that God will always love us and never leave us, but for me it's even better news that I can experience a love full of desire with Him.  I just need to figure out how.