sting be gone... |letter #80|

Dear My Future Husband,

I'm sorry. I've done something bad and I'm paying the price for it now so that you won't have to deal with it later. I've been waiting for a while to get these feelings out. They've been permeating my inner core for some time now, but frankly, I've allowed them to boil for too long. It's taken residence within my soul. How I want freedom from this pain. I want redemption from these perverted expectations. I was never supposed to be with him. I was never supposed to experience this hurt. I was supposed to save myself for you. I hope you don't take this the wrong way.

I have been praying about this baggage for months now but the more I pray the stronger my awareness becomes of it. It's as if God is tearing me apart just to rebuild me later. He's preparing me for you. He's claiming my allegiance back to Him. I want God to do the rebuilding now. The ripping of my heart is too much to bear. I feel everything. I see the memories. I hear the moments. I don't want to deal with the consequence of giving my heart away. I wish I would have known it would be this excruciating for God to steal it back, just for Him, just for you.

Because the thing was, I really liked him, even when I knew I shouldn't.  For the first time, I felt like I really fit with someone and the only person he would ever accept was the one who was really me. I was used to pleasing men to get my way or acting like a pseudo female to allure them to me. I was so bad at getting into relationships that I believed I needed to change how I acted to finally get what I wanted. Well, it didn't work for him. Instead, it made him push away from me. I found that our spirits coincided in the times I showed him how soft-spoken I was and eccentric my habits really were. He accepted it. He embraced it. He made it just too easy. 

It was that much harder for me to give it all up. I didn't want to lose something when I was so close to having it, this special relationship I desired since I could walk. I didn't want to be forced to choose between him and God and him and you. I know you will be better, but then I knew him. I know you will be more, but then I liked him. I still like him. In my utter bluntness, I'm saying that God needs to make you a million-trillion-infinite times better for me to forget about him and focus on you. He just has too. Yet, what I love is knowing that God will do just that. God wants nothing better for me but the real deal. 

You are the real deal because you have been designed for me before I inhaled my first breath. You will be everything that I ever wanted and more. Not only I am confident, but my God has confirmed it to me in His words. I will be your perfect match. You will be forever mine. Our relationship has been one ordained by God. It was written in the Book. There is not turning back from what God has already manifested in the spiritual realms. 

But, I am not silly enough to think you will fulfill me and I am not lonely enough to settle for what is "good" and not "God." However, I am smart enough to know that the God who loves me will give me the desires of my heart. I am even smarter to know that my God is all that I will ever need. If I never got you, I will be more than okay. I only stand firm on these beliefs because God doesn't lie. My feet rest on the steady ground of His promises over my life and yours. I also know that I will never be ready to receive you until I am fully satisfied in my relationship with Jesus Christ. I don't even want you until I am complete in my Jesus. 

This is the part when it starts to make sense. The very introduction of His name brings both clarity and peace.  You see, Jesus Christ died on the cross for me. He carried the burden of my heartbreak so that I can receive everlasting healing. He suffered so that I can be free. He hurt so that I can find joy. Simply experiencing the rough pain of my separation from a man who was not my betroth is not even a taste of the agony Jesus felt just for my sins. He felt the sting the moment I gave my heart away. He felt it so God could give my sorrowful face a second look. God covered me in righteousness instead. 

The rebuilding of my heart has started now because I surrendered this pain I kept captive long in my heart.  Because of Jesus, I am scrubbed clean and shaken free. Due to His good sacrifice, I can be your wife: pure, holy, righteous, new, and yours once and for all.  

I hope you're ready for this. I'm one beautiful piece of Godly work, a rare diamond in the rough.

Love, 

Stephanie

the illest message i'll ever write... |letter #79|

Dear Ladies,

The past couple days have been rough for me as I am experiencing performance anxiety in my workload and transitional repercussions of moving to a new city on my own and living on a drastically different schedule.  I was being really hard on myself for not getting things right. I was making each moment stink by my bad attitude and hopelessness. I refused to go to God, my heavenly provider and friend. I felt as if He just wanted on me to get it right. Oh, how the devil likes to lie and how often do we fall victim to his sneaky schemes?

When I finally turned to God with my burdens, He had much to say. I write down what He tells me in my notebook. Today, He wanted me to share it with you what He has written to me. Here goes something good: 

September 21, 2013

Daughter, I want you to smile despite everything that is going on. Why do you continuously insist on being perfect? And on your own? Do you notice that without Me you will never get anything done the way you hoped? If I expected you to have it all together, I wouldn't be living inside of you because My trust would have been on you to never mess up and always be where I have you. I don't expect that from you. I know that you are full of weakness. I created you to need Me in every area of your life. I created you to trust Me to help you accomplish things, big or small. 

I have given you the word freedom but My child, you have not learned yet what it means. When you are out enjoying yourself, you are thinking about doing something else. You can't enjoy the moment without berating your actions. Leave that to Me. Leave the convictions to me. I never once convicted you to do certain things yesterday. Understand that it was you making yourself feel guilty, dumb, ugly, and unworthy with the expert help of Satan by your side. You have closed yourself to hearing from Me because you are so scared you will mess it up. Since when was this about you and your performance?

You would never be in the picture without My Son Jesus. He made you relevant. You didn't earn righteousness so you don't have to work to keep it. You are righteous already because of what Jesus did. Your label does not change because you decide on a different course. I help you stay faithful to Me. I give you the love and admiration to follow Me when you ask. You could never love and obey on your own without My interceding hand. I made you this way but when you try to do things on your own, you sinful nature comes in. You will always end up disappointed and unsatisfied when you try to dictate your live on your performance based on this sinful nature. 

Your new identity is found in me. Anything outside of Me is your flesh. It is not from My spirit. So when you don't ask for My help in your spirit, you are solely depending on your flesh to reproduce results. Like this, you will experience guilt, shame, failure, and unrealistic thoughts and expectations. Do you not think I know how tired you are and how you want to quit early? This is when the power of the Holy Spirit can work the most, when you can't do it and when you are weak and wounded. I can come in and shine within you to get you to the finish line for not your own pat on the back but for My glory. You will learn how much I really love you even when you forget to depend on Me and instead run off to handle it on your own. 

Daughter, I am not grading you on how good of a Christian you will be on this earth. I am simply asking you to trust Me so that you can accomplish all that I have for you in My kingdom. I will help you store treasures in heaven, but this is not based on your performance but on your ability to give to Me and trust Me with what you have sown. I help you offer to Me. Do you think you would give Me all the money in your bank account if I asked without My help in giving you an obedient and trusting heart? I change you. The changes I made in you are found in My spirit alone. If you don't depend on My spirit, you will only be depending on your flesh. 

Your new attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, and actions are found only connected to Me through My spirit in you. This is how you are connected to the heavenly realms. You are mistaken if you believe you will find the changes I've made in you outside of My spirit. I constantly infuse in you these changes through My spirit as long as you are connected to Me. If you distance yourself, you will receive less and less and base your actions and judgments on whatever you have left. 

Do you understand how this works, daughter? Every chance you get should be to bless My name for there is much to bless My name about. I have given you food to feed yourself, clothes to wear, furniture to decorate, and friends to enjoy. I have blessed you more than you deserve. Yet, your flesh only wants to criticize what you don't have and what you haven't done. What importance have you done without Me? What have you done outside of Me? I have given you the brains to do all that you have already done. I make it so easy for you. I am a reservoir of strength, courage, joy, and faith that you don't have to wait to run out before you can refill. Stay connected to Me and you will never run out. Stay connected to My spirit in the heavenly realms and you will always be doing what you should, when you should, and how you should. 

It's going to be okay. You can walk every day knowing that you have everything you need when you are connected to My spirit at all times. Suffering comes when you battle the flesh. You want to think about sex when the Spirit tells you to wait until marriage. You want to drink when the Spirit tell you to focus on Me instead. This is a constant struggles but it comes with being human. You are not a god, but a man that comes with limitations in a sinful world. But take heart, I have overcome all that you will have to endure. It's not going to be easy but you are an overcomer already. Stay constantly connected to My stream of life and trust me to deliver you through the bad times.

I will never leave or forsake you. My hand will never leave your head but I will not force you to depend on Me. I want you to with all My heart but I will never force you to trust. Ask me and I will instill in you the heart to do so like I planned for you. You don't know My path but you must respond when I call you to act. Don't let the devil fill your head with silly excuses and dumb reasons why you can't do what I have for you. Come to Me with your concerns. I don't particularly enjoy watching you listen to his lies that break you.  I don't like cleaning up the pieces he damaged but I do it because I really love you deeply and immeasurably. I want you to know this. 

My love for you cannot be measured or even contained. I have to infuse it into as much as you can handle at a given moment. I hate it when the devil has his way with you. Is My love not enough for you to trust in all that I say about you? You are beautiful and worthy and important and special to me. There is no one like you that I have ever made. If I can't be with you, my heart will be broken. I can never have a relationship with you that can be found in someone else. This applies to everyone. I made each person so different that even my interactions with each are unique. If I can't enjoy the interactions I created to have with you, I will lose something I can never get back. 

You are special to me. I have given you a combination of dreams, ideas, traits, and life experiences that no one else has all together in one body. And I have made someone else so unique and different from you that will fit you perfectly when it is time. Together, under My hand, you will accomplish what I have for both of you as one. I will give you a relationship that you have always wanted but never truly understood. I will make you happy and teach you how to be a good wife and partner to My son. I will teach you his weaknesses and show you how you can use My light to touch and affect them. I will show you how to love him, challenge him, and inspire him to be a better man of God. I will teach you how to love yourself so that you don't depend on his love for you. I will constantly infuse you with My love so that you can love him as he needs and vice versa. I will teach you both how to serve me together for My purposes. I will break the awkwardness you have when having someone by your side. I will teach you how to live and work with someone in My kingdom. I will teach you how to be vulnerable and transparent without fear. 

 I want to teach you that humanly perfection does not exist and that it keeps you from experiencing true freedom. I will teach you to live for Me and helping others, instead of exalting your own name. I will teach you to give to people and lay your life down for others and not be concerned with lifting your own name on a platform of success and goodness.  The only name you should be concerned with is the name of Jesus Christ, My son, the name above all names and which none others can compare. I want you to trust Me with every single detail of your life. I want you to not worry about long you spend doing what you trust that you are walking into something I have already planned for you. I want to break the chains of control and perfectionism in your mind. Once you depend on me, you will see how nicely things will lie before you. 

Are you finally ready to have things My way and be free? Do you want to experience true freedom found in Jesus Christ, My son? If so, say yes and get ready to embark on an amazing path to the freedom found in Christ Jesus. If yes, get ready for a life-changing adventure.      

I love you.

-God Almighty 

After a message like this, I could only praise His holy and beautiful name. 

Love, 

Stephanie