Regarding relationships.

This may will get a bit harsh. But it's the truth. And I'm just going to be straight up. Sorry, not sorry. It's something that I've heard addressed and talked a lot about within the last couple of years, especially since going to Northwestern College and The Salt Company at Iowa State. As I'm saying that (as well as if you look at the title), I'm sure you know what it is that I'm talking about...

There has been this obsession in the church and anything Christian for relationships, specifically to find a spouse and be with somebody else. Everyone knows it; that's how it is, and has been that way for a very long time. While it is not a bad thing to desire marriage in your life, it must never get in the way or be put above your relationship with God. Never ever ever. And it should not be as obsessed over as it is.

I am tired of romantic relationships being as glorified much as they are, and I am through with people idolizing other people. Because, truth is, no relationship is going to satisfy you... except for your relationship with Christ. Nobody is going to do to your soul what you need the most... besides God. Single or not, Christ is where your deepest longings will be met. He alone can quench your inner thirst, feeding your inner craving for something more than anything here on this earth.

Not going to lie, society doesn't help with this, either. It encourages selfishness in friendships, as well as other relationships. But that's a whole other thing that I won't get into here.

In some friendships, it [a relationship, or lack thereof] is brought up a lot. More than anything else. The person will talk about how single they are, then they talk about how they've been heart-broken. So I talk about my past relationships and what I've learned from them, then they talk about their list of potentials to date/marry... That goes on in every single conversation. And I am not even joking. They linger on their past failures in this area, as do I, then try to think of somebody to fill this newly-found hole in their heart. It's unpleasant. And highly discouraging. But really. Calm it down. Calm. It. Down.

My three questions for those people, as well as anyone else who is unsatisfied with their singleness, are as follows: Can't we just talk about God, as well as other things that matter, and not how single we are? Why is Christ all-of-a-sudden "not enough" for you? And, last but not least, since when is being single such a bad thing? I know that it may seem to suck seeing friends getting in relationships, engaged, or getting married, but why does it have to? It's an exciting time for those people, even though you may not be in that spot right now. Embrace where God has you right now, because there is nothing wrong with where you are in regards to your "lack of relationship." Seriously, though. If you think that, look at the life of Paul - better yet, look at Jesus. (I know that there are all of these theories and silly things saying that He got married... but they're all wrong. Yep, yes they are.) Anyway...Do you see them having been in a relationship, or having been married? No. Was that a bad thing? Not in the least. They still sought after God. Now look where they are: With God, and Jesus is sitting at His right hand, where they both belong.

You can find your growth and freedom in Christ, and in life in general, without being with someone. Honestly, for me, it is the greatest place that I could be at right now. And I am extremely content and freed with that place. Which is a total gift of God.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying in the least that I hate all of that. I actually love it. A lot. Love is lovely. It's a beautiful thing, as well as super encouraging, to see godly relationships, and marriages that take Ephesians 5 seriously: loving each other as Christ loved us, the church - His bride.

To all of the fellow single people out there:
Go look into Scripture at the life of Christ. Look into the life of Paul. And delve deeply into all that God did through them, despite their relationship status.

Stop the searching. Quit dwelling. Embrace where you are. If you can't yet, try to let go and move on. Go - humble yourself before the throne of the Holy One. Think optimistically about your life. Look up. Don't avoid those in a relationship, getting engaged, or married like the plague. Learn from them. If there is mending yet to be done in your heart from a past relationship or situation, take a step back and let your heart mend until you try to be with someone else. Give it to God. If somebody great comes your way, don't let them pass you by, do not take them for granted, and don't rush anything. Learn from what you go through. Find your satisfaction in God. Seek after Christ, above all else. Live life in freedom, for He has already set you free.

Even so, it is well with my soul.

It's been quite some time since I've last written on here! And a lot in life has changed this past month.

It has definitely been a crazy one, if I must say so. Much has changed, some stuff not so great, other things fantastic. Through it all, God is still good to me no matter what is thrown my way.

One thing that I have come to notice is this: When I start trying to rely on myself, things don't go very well. Also, whenever I do what I want instead of what I know is right, God shakes me up a little bit and whatever it was doesn't work out. Actually, scratch that last part: It only works out for so long. In other words, it is extremely temporary. Which is actually okay.

Because of money issues, I am home right now. And will be for the rest of the summer. Not in Ames, like I thought it would be. Life can get expensive when going by your own means. (I really don't like money. It stinks. Especially when it's lacking immensely.) Being home is soothing and healing to the soul. It's still difficult for me to have left Ames, but I firmly believe that, after much counsel throughout the past week, my decision to come home was the most wise. Now, looking for someone to take my spot for June & July will be difficult... but that's something I can [and am trying to] worry about when I absolutely need to. I need a break from stress. Seriously. I truly do.

It's been crazy to look at all that God has been doing, as well as seeing and trusting what He is yet to do in my life. I am constantly learning more about His provision for me, which has been awesome more than anything else. It's challenged me to be more patient - so much more patient - and self-controlled, as well as faithful to the One that is faithful to me and to others.

My life verse has been Psalm 61:2. It's such a beautiful reminder in times like these.

I have yet to make decisions about next year. A lot has come up, and, honestly, I am not sure I can even afford Iowa State anymore. Which is another thing that I need to decide, but for now I keep seeking after Christ and giving my worries to Him.

It is my prayer and deepest longing to look these fears, as well as other fears to come, in the face and say, "Even so, it is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul."

The one thing that I need to think of right now is how I can best glorify Christ with my life. So I will do that, with all of my heart and soul.

God is worth all of this turmoil; He is worth all of the hardships and problems. His grace overwhelms my brokenness, for He is holy and merciful. He is making me whole. And it is well with my soul.

As Christ has loved me.

You are important. You are valuable. And you are treasured.
That is the truth that God says about you. Always.
You will always be loved. You will always find grace. And you will always find hope.

For some strange reason, that first part is easy for me to tell everyone... but myself.

You see, I am very silly to myself. And this has been such a huge struggle in my life for as long as I can remember. I hope that my honesty can encourage you in some way, especially if you struggle with the same thing.

Honestly, I am constantly frustrated with myself. I often find myself wondering, screaming from the depths of myself, "Why can't you just love yourself already? Why don't you know how to take care of yourself? Just fix yourself already! It's not healthy! You need sleep and you need food."

Maybe whenever I see you, I may tell you how I stayed up until 5 in the morning last Monday night and had not eaten anything since 3 pm that day, without a solid reason. Then I might say how I need to take better care of myself. It has been such a vicious cycle that I pray God will free me of, because it's exhausting and brutal. And you may get frustrated with me as well, because you care about me and love me. The only reason that I can give for the fact that I don't help myself is this: it has been a hard for me to do that my entire life. Caring and loving others? That is so easy for me, because I see their worth. Caring and loving myself? That is difficult, because I don't see my own worth. That also goes back to my past self-hatred and people-pleasing. I also have anxiety and depression issues to go along with that. Basically, Through Your Eyes by Jenny and Tyler describes me perfectly. (If you haven't listened to it before, please do!)

What I have come to terms with, though, is that it may take me my entire life for things to change entirely. I used to always say that I can't truly care for others until I care for myself, but that is a lie, straight-up, because I care so much - that is a fact for sure. As crazy as it seems, I love everyone that I come into contact with - no matter what may happen, I always will.

One truth, during those times that I don't treat myself as I should, that I must remind myself is this: I am the Lord's temple. I belong to Jesus. I am His and He is mine. I am a child of the most high God. The Holy Spirit dwells within me. He has been stretching me in regards to this ever since I recognized it as a trouble, and I pray that He will continue to bring healing to me.

With that, know that when you tell me to take care of myself, it is not dismissed. I also apologize for seeming to ignore you in those situations. I merely ask for patience and acceptance, forgiveness and a listening ear.

I am not something to be fixed, because I am constantly broken. God just keeps piecing me back together, as He tells me everything will be okay and shows me that He is there. He also reminds me that He wants to take over me. (Also, these verses are good stuff.) When I do this, I also look to Christ's example of how He loved others, yet He still did take care of Himself. He was not selfish in taking care of Himself, not in the least, so I am not selfish to want to care for myself and love myself as Christ does. I long to mirror His humility in a healthy and proper way that brings God all the glory.

I am still learning. A lot. He is still showing me ways that I can help myself.

He is also continually showing me that He is Lord over the lies - that... 
I am important. I am valuable. And I am treasured.
That is the truth that God says about me. Always.
I will always be loved. I will always find grace. And I will always find hope.

God, the faithful.

The Lord is seriously so good.

He has proven this to me, even through all of the turmoil that I have gone through, how magnificently faithful that He truly is.

He has also proven how great His love is for me.

How He has provided for me the last couple of months has been astounding  using His wonderful children to help me.

He has provided me with His strength.

"My God is a God who provides."

["God is our refuge and strength; an ever-present help in trouble." - Psalm 46:1]

Prayer can move mountains.

It can shake the most calloused heart.

It can bring repentance.

Prayer can do the impossible.

So can faith.

And God knows our hearts.

He knows everything about us: All of our hopes, desires, aspirations.

Because He created us.

If we go to God in prayer, He will be faithful.

It might not be in our timing, but it will be in His.

It may not come in the way that we wanted it to, but He also knows what we need.

That's where our part comes in: trusting, believing, and having faith.

Take the plunge.

Jump into the riches of His grace.

God is so worth everything else that comes along, even when the waves come crashing down.

He will be there for you.

"And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." - Philippians 1:6

I know that in those verses He is talking specifically to the church of Philippi, but I believe it to be true for those that come to know Him.

He is continually making us more into His image, which is incredible.

No make-up for me.

As I have seen several things, including videos and articles on beauty, it has really been pressed on my heart to talk about why I no longer wear make-up. And haven't. For a very long time.

From the time that I was in seventh and eighth grade until I was a freshman in high school, I put on make-up every single day. Every day foundation, eyeliner, eye shadow, lip gloss - the whole shebang would be caked on my face.

But the reason that I wore it was this: I thought that I was ugly. (If you read this article, you would understand why.) Actually, I thought that I was really ugly. And a lot of other things that I still wrestle with, but partially that. So what else to do but put on that mask?

I call it a mask because that is exactly what it was for me: I wanted to cover up my "ugliness" so that I could feel beautiful for the small amount of time that I wore it.

Thing is (and this has taken years - and I mean years - for me to have realized), it has always been difficult for me to view myself as beautiful, flaws and all. But it wasn't until I came to know Christ (part of that story is also in the linked article above) that I could see my real beauty (which I wrote another article about a few years back).

For me, it became an issue, devaluing who I was created to be. I did not view myself that way and hid who I was with it because I did not see what God saw every time that He looked at me.

But now I do, at least for the most part. So I stopped wearing the make-up every day. I stopped trying to cover up my flaws because I knew that it was okay to be flawed. Obviously, there are times that I don't entirely believe that, but then I look to the truth that God says about me and is clearly seen on my face: I am an image-bearer of Christ. There is Christ in me. He is the One that makes me beautiful.

NOTE: I am not, by any means, saying that I hate make-up, or that I think it's bad. I just don't and haven't liked it for myself for the reasons noted above.

The last time that I wore it was for my sister's wedding... two years ago. And by the time that the wedding was over, I wiped it all off because my face was bothered by it. Ha. I've worn a little lipstick every now and then, plus cake make-up for plays (to which I, and every single person that's ever been in a play, say "YUCK" to), but other than that zero, zip, nada make-up for this gal!

And it's been really, really freeing. And it feels good to see myself the way that I should.

What faith can do.

Usually I am really bad at trusting God completely. A lot of the time, I am terrible at having faith that He knows what He is doing, as well as being faithful to Him. As proven by my posts throughout this year, it's been excrutiatingly difficult for me to let go of control and give it all to Him.

Over this past year, though, I have decided to trust Him, through that difficulty. He has given me the strength that I need to no longer clench these hands of mine, attempting to grasp at whatever it is that He decides to take away. He has been stretching me immensely; it's been a long and hard process that has taken me months to learn, and I am still learning. During that time He has taken and given, then taken and given some more.

You see, despite the way that I treat Him, God is really good at being trustworthy. He is extremely faithful, because He knows what He is doing - and it ends up being for my good (Romans 8:28). God is in control, and He is good all the time. All the time, He is good. Truly, truly. And He has proven all of these things to me time and time again.

So I will serve Him and remain in His love, with His Holy Spirit within me, because how can I settle for anything less? I have seen and tasted what is good - the Lord - and so I will indulge in the love and grace that He has lavished upon me, and that He continues to daily.

Now I will delve into the story that I was meaning to tell:

These last few months, I have owed a little over $5,000 to Iowa State. My parents tried to take out a Parent PLUS loan for me, but somehow it would not go through. This has been an issue ever since I moved here, even after having gone to their office several time to straighten everything out. They couldn't figure out what was wrong until a few days ago, and no dice: they were rejected and did not qualify; therefore, with this, I then owed about $5,000. They said that, if I was unable to find someone else to take out the loan for me or take out a private loan myself (which I don't think I would qualify for, and by then it would be too late), they would be able to give me $2,000. But... I still would have to come up with the $3,000.

I do not have $3,000 - not even close. Neither do my parents. And, the thing is, that was their payment on my house back home, but they were willing to give that up to me. YEAH. You see, my family is incredibly generous. And they would be willing to give me anything. But I would never want to ask for that kind of money from them, and God was telling me otherwise. And, by faith, I knew that there was another way. I just didn't know what yet.

This entire week, as well as the last, I had to borrow a lot of money. My money from last semester was draining quickly, then it drip-dried. I still needed money for a down-payment on my apartment, as well as groceries and things to get over being sick. (Which my family provided for me because they are really wonderful.) A huge blessing, too, was the fact that I did get a job here in Ames that is absolutely and positively perfect for me. Such an answer to prayer.

The stress of this much money not being on plate, however, caused me to be distraught and entirely overwhelmed; the tears took over, as well as disparity in my heart. During this time, like I have had to several times, I recited Psalm 61:2 to myself. I pleaded with God to show me how I could pay off this debt, thus being able to sign up for classes and keep going. After this, I sent several messages to close friends asking for prayer. As I did this, I remembered God's faithfulness throughout the Bible to those that chose to seek after Him, and today I reflected on the unfaithfulness of Israel to God, like me, yet He was still faithful.

Within the hour, as this was all happening, I recieved a private message from someone. I clicked on it to see what it said, then read this: "Hey, Amanda, I saw your message and I would like to give you the $3,000..."

Okay, let me say that again: "...I would like to give you the $3,000."

...WHAT. YEAH. All I could think to myself was, "There is no way that this could be real!" But, lo and behold, it definitely was. They had sent me that message and were willing to give me the $3,000 that I needed.

Did I have faith that God would provide for me in the moments before I got that message? A little, but that was all that was needed. I somehow knew that if I had that small amount of faith, He would do the rest, which He most certainly did.

If you have had doubts that God is faithful, it is my hope and prayer that you can read my story and be encouraged. Why? Because He is so faithful.

Another thing that I want to encourage you with is this: Dive into the Scriptures. Look through the Bible, in the New Testament (the gospels especially) and the Old Testament, to see how faithful the God of the universe has been, is, and always will be. Analyze the stories of those that chose to have faith in Christ and God, then how He healed and blessed them. Have faith in Him and He will bless you, whether it be here on earth or when you see Him face-to-face to praise Him for all of eternity. Either way, have faith.

And this, too: PRAY PRAY PRAY. "Pray. There is immeasurable power in it." I am proof of this. And pray to God in all things, as we are called to do in Philippians 4:6.

No matter what happens in our lives, whatever is given to us or taken away, it is all for the glorification and goodness of Christ. And no matter what, He is worthy of all praise and gratification.

To the person that gave me the money: THANK YOU. I honestly could never say it enough, and you are just such a huge blessing. My heart is so full or gratitude. You are a gift.

All glory, honor, adoration, praise, and thanksgiving goes the Lord of everything today, yesterday, and forevermore.

Rest.

"Just take things easy and don't stress." That's what I have to tell myself all of the time. You see, I have a big problem with over-exhorting myself to the point of utter exhaustion and sometimes even getting sick. There are times that I just get so overwhelmed that I do not want to do a single thing. I may not be physically doing a lot all of the time, but sometimes just thinking of the list of things for me to do makes me want to curl into a ball and sleep, or just lay there and make them all go away. Like now. I have two tests to take today and I'm actually sick and extremely exhausted because sometimes I'm really stupid to my body. I am what you would call a Martha. (Read Luke 10:38-42 and you'll understand what I mean.) I also am still learning how to say no.

Why is it so hard to just sit still sometimes? Why is rest so difficult for?

Well, one thing is this: College students love to stay up late. The night life is strongly encouraged. Don't get me wrong, I love to stay up and hang out or have late-night conversations, but not every night. It weighs on my body in ways that aren't so great. Also, there's a verse from Psalm 127: 2 that was shown to me last year, and it was very convicting: "It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to His beloved sleep." There's something to chew on.

Rest within my Savior has also been difficult to find; by that I mean time spent in prayer and in His Word. Something changes drastically in my life if I find myself not spending much, if not any, time with God. If we look at Jesus' example, He would go to be alone just to talk with His Father. We can, and should, do the same. Jesus wants us to come to Him, finding rest in Him. (Read Matthew 11:25-29.)

Another reason has been all of the things being thrown at me over the last few months. Actually, this whole year. Sometimes I just find myself paralyzed, not knowing what to do with myself because so much has come my way. But those times I just need to take a step back, figure out what to do, act upon it, then move on, putting it to rest. Matthew 11:25-29 fits perfectly here as well.

This week, I want to take a week of rest. By rest I mean not doing as much with other people (at least not super late), spending time by myself and with the One that created me, and going to bed at a decent time. Afterall, rest, both physically and mentally, is extremely important. If you're in the same situation as me, or similar to me, I suggest you do the same this week. It'll be so worth it!