The Adventures of Darcey & Watson

As I was driving the other day, I passed a man on Hebron who was holding a sign that mentioned his wife is on oxygen and they are having a hard time financially, so any help would be appreciated. I’m sure some of you have seen him there before if you’ve driven down Hebron past where all the restaurants are before the Dallas North Tollway. There are actually a lot of people who hold signs for help in the area, and I usually say a quick prayer for them and keep on driving; but this time I was stopped at that light and I looked at his face.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. In his eyes there was such a sad, deep pain that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. As he ever so slowly walked by with his cane, I also noticed a cross necklace around his neck. He was dressed in a casual white t-shirt and khaki pants, his hair was white and his beard was messy, his face covered in dirt. This whole scene made my heart ache. I felt the Lord saying, pray for him. So I did.
I wish I could have stopped and helped him in some practical way, but then the Lord brought to mind the elderly in the retirement home that we have the opportunity to touch on such a personal level. I don’t think I will ever really grasp what it means to them for us to visit these people every other week. Who knows what the Lord is doing in their lives through us being Jesus to them.
Praise the Lord I am able to do something practical for these people by loving them and listening to their stories. Building relationships with them. I still pray for that elderly man on the corner of Hebron and Marsh, who knows if his story is true, or if he is even a believer… but God knows him. He loves him. Knows how many hairs are on his head, the deepest desires of his heart, and wants to call him his son.

Source: A Heart for the Elderly

As most of you know, I am in a relationship with one of the most amazing guys in the world. We’ve been courting since August of 2012, so it’s been almost a year. We started this courting process with the intent of figuring out if the Lord wanted us to get married in the end. After a whole bunch of confirmation from the Lord, we discovered that yes, the Lord has His hand all over this relationship and yes He is leading us towards the path of marriage. Now, the tricky part is I have a past. I know we all have pasts, but mine was quite traumatic and the Lord has had to heal me of A LOT of lies and deception that I had come to believe and cling to. That being said, the leadership that Tim and I are going to have said that it would be good for us to wait and make sure we are as prepared as possible and have a solid foundation upon which to build a marriage and life on top of.

Waiting is HARD! For a long time I was confused and fighting bitterness in my heart because I thought it quite unfair that we should wait when we know the Lord is calling us to get married. What did books have to do with the Lord working in our lives? Though time has given us a lot of time to talk about subjects we may never have covered had we been engaged and married sooner rather than later. The Lord has grown us so much in areas that are rather important in a marriage. Areas such as submission to authority, leadership, willingness to listen and accept correction, etc.

I don’t really think Tim and I have ever really hit the “Star-struck lovey-dovey feelings” towards each other stage. Yeah it comes up every once in a while, but I believe for the most part we have had pretty level heads for a couple. Which probably helped with the fact that we were best friends for about two and a half YEARS before getting the go ahead to start a relationship. So we were able to dive into tougher subjects when we started courting instead of starting at square one with questions like “So, what’s your favorite color? (insert batting of the eyes here)” We started with questions like “So, what are some of the things you have struggled with and are struggling with in your life, and how is the Lord helping you with that?”

Yesterday and today there was a speaker, Pastor Chuck, who came and spoke to the young single staff at Gospel for Asia about relationships and singleness and the Lord. I think it was rather long overdue for the singles here on staff to hear the things he talked about, and I rather liked hearing that Tim and I are on the right track and aren’t WAAAAYY off the mark in our relationship. But the main thing that these seminars held for me, was they gave me an “aha! moment”. I’ve heard it before, but for some reason, this pastor talking about it finally made it click. The outcome?

I’M OKAY WITH WAITING.

If waiting means that Tim and I will be on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ before even starting our marriage, then when we are married, the Lord can use our relationship with each other as a reflection to others of His love and provision. Through the healing He is doing and will continue to do in our lives, the Lord can use us to reach out to others who may be in similar situations we were in earlier in our lives.

To be used by God in such an intimate way to minister to His body… I can’t wait. I can’t wait to be used like that by my Lord, but before I can be used like that, I have to wait on the Lord and wait on the leadership that He has placed over me. And I am FINALLY content with that.

Source: Am I Content to Wait?

I have learned that after I study someone for a while, I begin to expect the same things from them. But when they do something unexpected, it can sometimes throw me through a loop and I have to rethink whether or not I can trust them still. Lately, some things have been happening that I was not expecting. I can’t go into a lot of detail, but these things were pretty big in my life.
This makes me think. What is trust exactly? Dictionary.com says that “trust” is “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence. Confident expectation of something; hope. A person on whom or thing on which one relies.” But how does this play out in my life?
Well, I think there are different “levels” of trust that I give to certain people in my life. There’s my trust in the Lord, where even when things don’t exactly go my way, or something happens that I wasn’t expecting, I will look to His promises and know He is growing me ever closer to Himself through ALL things that happen in my life. This kind of trust is indefinite, will not fail, because I can trust the Lord knows what’s best for my life. He knows the beginning and end anyways! Who am I to question that?
Another level would be the trust I have in those whom I submit myself to. Those in authority in my life. That would be Tim, leadership here at GFA, and my Mommy. These are people who the Lord has placed in my life as an “umbrella” of sorts to protect me from stupid decisions I might make on my own. Though, this is the kind of trust that I tend to struggle with most. Because these people are human, I know they can make mistakes, and so it’s hard to listen and believe them at the drop of a hat like I would with the Lord. This is probably the one level of trust that when broken or when unexpected things happen, bitterness can creep into the easiest.
The remaining levels of trust would be the trust I have in my friends, and the trust others have in me. Please pray for me as I combat bitterness head on and that it won’t take part in my relationships with others. God knows what He’s doing, even when I’m confused.

Source: Different Levels of Trust