Ready To Wait

5-6-13

For those of you who either read my blog from the beginning or you knew my story from before, you all have one thing in common.  You all knew I used to be boy crazy!  Since I was 13, I had to have someone in my life to make me feel like I was a “somebody”.  Sadly, I didn’t realize I was already somebody and a special somebody at that.  I would like to say I wish I knew better when I was younger but then I wouldn’t have my 2 very special beautiful little girls and that for me is not an option.  God always has a plan, I might have taken the reins and done things my way, but I was His, and He was going to lead me back to His plan, even if it was painful to get back!
When all this mess happened with Chris in March 2011, I made a couple of vows.  I vowed to not run into another man’s arms.  Instead, I was going to run into the only arms that could handle all my pain and heal me, from the inside out.   I vowed I would I be pure (pure thoughts and pure actions).  I vowed that I would take all the time God felt for me to take until myself and both of my daughters were healed from the pain and betrayal.  It was more to me than that.  I didn’t just want healing, I wanted readiness and joy in thinking about allowing someone else into our little family.  There were many things that I knew I wanted to happen before I would open my heart again.  My vow started April 10, 2011 and vowed for a year.  Honestly, when I made this vow, I had to pray over it EVERYDAY!  I knew me, I knew my desires, I knew where my bondage was and if I knew, then the devil did too. 
I was actually shocked when the year came up and I hadn’t even blinked an eye.  I was so very proud of myself.  That alone to me was a miracle!  I was letting the healing happen, God’s way, not mine.  Anger, hatred, unforgiveness, bitterness, anger (oh wait, I already said that), I had already walked through.  What I was not expecting to deal with was my past before Chris, all the way from my biological father, to men who hurt me, and then myself.  As my year came up, I knew I was nowhere close to being ready.  I extended it another 6mths.  I am so glad I did.  There were some things that the girls and I had to walk through.  I never wanted to express to them that I was ready or ask them if they were.  I wanted them to be able to come to me, on their own terms, and tell me how they felt.  I never wanted it to ever come back to me that I rushed anything onto either one of them.  Those 6 months showed all this. 
When October 10, 2012 came around and I felt in my heart that I was ready to be “available” I set up an appointment with my family pastor.  As I prayed before the meeting, I told God that whatever Pastor Nathan said, I would take as a confirmation and I would obey.  I was expecting bright red stop signs, yells of “no, no, no”.  Instead, I was so richly blessed by his words.  I felt like, for the first time ever, I really got something right.  I was listening to God and I was letting Him make decisions for my life.  I was blessed with some books to read as I started my new journey.  I made guidelines of not meeting someone online, even on a Christian site.  For me it was going to be someone at church or someone through someone I knew and trusted.  I was not going down the same road of meeting someone that nobody knew and could not speak up for their character.  God of course is bigger than those two options but for me it was a much needed guideline.  
Since then I have talked to a few guys, I prayed earnestly, and I knew my answers within a week or so on the situations.  In November, I even pushed a guy for trying to kiss me.  I met a new Sarah that day, a Sarah that says no and meant it!  I love that chick!  As the next month went by I met another new Sarah, a Sarah that saw the signs and saw them quickly.  After these 2 men, I emailed Claudette & Gilda about my “situations”. Claudette emailed me about her thoughts on me being “available”.  She wasn’t in disagreement with my decision after talking with Pastor Nathan but she wanted to share something she felt very strongly about.  Her words were “ready to wait”.  I had gone through my healing and now it was time for me to wait after the healing.  She felt I should not pursue ANYONE, but let God orchestrate the whole thing.  I could have not agreed with her more!!   
In February, I met someone through a mutual friend.   He seemed godly and good, so many things were being checked off my need/want list for a Christian man in our lives.  But then as I prayed, and others prayed, I saw the red flags start waving.  He was a real counterfeit due to the kind of man he seemed to be to me.  I believe he was a good man but he was not our good man.  Before I met this guy, I started to read “Redeeming Love”.  What are the chances I would end the book the very night that God gave me courage to end the friendship with this guy?  As I read the book, I cried many times, some of the times I couldn’t even stop it.  It just kept pouring.  I got more healing from this book.  I didn’t even know I needed more healing but God used this book to show me that I did.  My God is AWESOME! 
As I was curled up in a ball that night with unstoppable tears, I texted my mom at 1:30am "U awake?”  She called to her daughter blubbering like a baby and I had to squeal out I was ok.  All I said was "I finished the book."  She said "Oh".  I sat there forever just crying.  All I can say is "WOW".  That book was healing for me.  If there was ever a book that I could relate to the main character of how she felt about herself, it was Redeeming Love!!!  After we got off the phone, the tears came up again and I began to shake.  All I could hear over and over and over again "Your Michael is coming, Your Michael is coming, Your Michael is coming."  I couldn't even speak to my Father I was so overwhelmed.  "Oh Michael you are SO worth the wait!!!" 
I am not going to say I don’t have days asking God “why, when, where, who, and how?”  Some days are harder than others and each time those days come; they only get harder to walk through the loneliness.  Since that night I finished Redeeming Love, I accepted I will have those days but I am so “Ready to Wait!”  I am not only ready to wait, but I am waiting with GREAT expectations.  I stand firm on Mark 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”   





6 comments:

  1. Wow Sarah! What a great place for you to be! I am so proud of you...taking the time...doing the work...and waiting. What a new message to your girls and other women that will be faced with relationship decisions. Bless you...and Praise God for keeping you by His Love and Grace.

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  2. Very Good Sweetheart!
    When you first told us that you ".. vowed to not run into another man’s arms" for a year, I -- was -- ecstatic!! Mama and I both were thrilled and gave you our hearty approval and support. I was hoping for two years, but honestly I would have been ready to jump up and down over a vow of a couple of months!!! But I gotta tell you I was also very skeptical! I thought to myself, 'yeah, her heart is right, but the flesh is going to win this one. By the end of the summer when all the frantic chaos has subsided you will start to feel that bitter bite of loneliness and you'll start compromising.' How very pleasantly surprised I was when Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around and you had not crumbled! I thought for sure that those two holidays would be your undoing. One thing you've always been very good at and I've always admired about you: you are one determined bull dog when you ball up your fists, grit your teeth, and make a decision, and apparently this was one of those times. Sometimes it worked against you (when you had that same determination about a bad decision!), but for the most part that 'bull dog' has served you very well. And this is a prime example. I'm not saying it wasn't hard, and I'm sure you cried and hollered and threw things, but I suspect you never actually regretted making the decision. And even if you did, it was just a momentary bump that you quickly recovered from. Mama and I both know only too well how absolutely crushing the day after day scorching bite of loneliness can be, and it's all the more reason we are so proud of you for sticking to your guns. We are not designed to be alone. Something a pastor pointed out to me many years ago when I had resigned myself to spending the rest of my days in that awful aloneness thinking that's what God wanted for me, was that when God was creating, after every day of that process he said 'it was good'. But in all that perfection of creation there was one thing that he said was 'not good', and that was for man to be alone. It wasn't long after that when God brought me Mama. She was well worth the wait. I can't imagine another person on this planet that I would want to spend these days with. You have the same thing waiting for you. I'm sure of it. You've proven to yourself your determination to wait for God's choosing (you didn't have to prove anything to him), and now I'm praying for him to bring you the one that will make you say, "He was well worth the wait." We are both so proud of your unswerving dedication to trust God with your future (and your girls' future). Just keep your eyes peeled. There is nothing the enemy would like more than to trick you into dropping the ball 6 inches from the goal line.
    I love you Honey,
    papa

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    1. A couple of months...now you tell me? Just joking!! Well, you got the 2yrs you were hoping for. Thank you so much for all the times you have heard me cry, responded to an email,or just held me for a moment and told me I was going to be ok. I don't regret my vows. How can I? It's made me who I am and my daughters who they are and how they look at me. They saw me make a promise to God and keep it. "Go Mommy!" I think Katie is ready for that promise to be fruitful but she trust me and more, she trust God! Thank you for this comment, it made me smile and ggggrowl! HAHA!! Yes, keeping them peeled :-)
      I love you too,
      "bulldog"

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  3. Took me long enough, I'm sorry. I read it and was coming back to respond later after gathering my thoughts and then I, then I, who knows, had an over 50 moment. Besides, what could I possibly follow with after papa. He spoke for both of us, we are very like minded. I haven't ever met someone so on the same page, spiritually and otherwise. That is what God will do for you and more.
    You have always been special to me, my only baby, (well until you gave me more babies:) I'm just sorry, I wasn't able to make you feel it for yourself. Maybe you just have to feel it for yourself before you can make someone else really feel it.
    I am so very proud of you and I love you to the moon and back.

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    1. Hey mama! I was just thinking, "Wait Mama hasn't wrote a rely on this one." Then here you are :-) You did make me feel special but I think I was so busy looking for it an other ways that maybe I overlooked you doing it. For that, I am sorry! I am so happy that I make you proud, means alot to me!! You said "That is what God will do for you and more." THAT IS MY PRAYER and I know it is yours and Papa's too. I love you too mama, so much!!

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