Hosea

Do you think God calls people to be modern day prophets like Hosea?

For some reason this one in particular seems to be a struggle for me.  The other day I was doing one of my favorite things:  personality profiles and came up with this as a description for who I am.  I feel like it's pretty accurate.  The problem with being "empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed." is that when it comes to co-ed relationships my need to be self-sacrificing for others can get me into a whole heaping mess.  I see the potential in other people.  The profile goes on to say that, "Healthy Twos warm others in the glow of their hearts. They enliven others with their appreciation and attention, helping people to see positive qualities in themselves that they had not previously recognized.".  So I see someone who is on their journey towards maturity and wholeness just like the rest of the population, someone who has broken places in their heart and I see the beauty of God within them and want to cheer them onto to wholeness, thereby fully agreeing with God's love for them....I fall in love too.  Which is great, until they don't love you back.  The downside of my personality profile is that, "their inner work is having to face their underlying Center fear of worthlessness. Beneath the surface, all three types fear that they are without value in themselves, and so they must be or do something extraordinary in order to win love and acceptance from others."  So I'm already in love, and feel like I'll never be loved back unless I do some heroic act which I'm not really built to do, and then rejection is compounded. 

All this is not theory.  It's a day in and day out reality for me.  Just yesterday I again confessed my undying love for a guy, told him 15 things that I love about him, and how much I long to be his partner in life.  What did I get in return.  Bumpkus. 

Literally his response was, "I value my friendship with you so much that I'm not willing to risk it by getting involved in a romance."   (The underlying reality though was that he is willing to give up my friendship by not getting involved in a romance because I just can't be around him without being in love with him.)  He also stated that he feared that he would fear rejection from me if we were in a romantic relationship, while he doesn't fear rejection from me now.  Lord help me....help him!

So today I sit, heartbroken for me and for him.  And I wonder if I should love him like Hosea loved the prostitute.  When do you choose to love yourself first and others second?  When is God ok with that?  Doesn't he call us all to love self sacrificially?

That being said, I don't regret what happened yesterday.  I don't regret telling him I love him.  I don't regret saying that we can't be friends anymore if he can't be something more.  I am in a season of learning to choose myself over others.  Learning to take care of myself.

I have started a raw food diet, because I want to be healthy.  I am cutting off relationships that are not life giving, or are draining for a variety of reasons.  I started planting a garden today to grow my own vegetables to eat.  I am working with a lady to clean up my credit.  It's small things but it's a bunch of "baby steps" that have me headed in a healthier direction for me.

If God showed up and told me to love this boy like Hosea loved the prostitute I would.  I'm not sure that it would change the heart of a nation though.  But you never know what God can do.   

Words

I've been asked to put words to the webpage, words I'm not sure I have.  So this may be a hodge podge sort of blog, but here goes:

1.  Things I'm grateful for:

1. lower gas prices
2. good conversations about prayer
3. dreams of God being shared with me
4. my comprehension that it's primarily His work and my partnership instead of vice versa
5. friends who stick by me
6. the healing of my life that cancer brought
7. time with a precious newborn named Autumn, that is much easier than i anticipated
8. grace to choose a raw foods diet for almost a week
9. my brother passing all his tests to become a fireman
10. tentatively more hours that I'll be scheduled to work=more $

Post Cancer Update:  I should be going to the dr sometime soon to for my first 3 month check up.  I don't want to go.  I dread it.  i don't know why.  I don't know if it's cuz I'm afraid that it'll be bad news or just the normal dread a woman has about "girlie exams".  I am taking a hormone patch and a pill.  It's a lot of estrogen, and I would like for my body to not need so much.  We've found out that my thyroid was running extremely low, so I've started taking a new thyroid med as well.  This has changed things quite dramatically.  For those that have known me for a long time, I used to get so cold that I would have to take a bath to warm up.  Now I'm sweating like a hooker in Sunday school.  These pills along with my new diet will hopefully begin to help slough off the extra weight I'm carrying and help me feel better.  I quit my surgeon after several frustrating events and will be working with the Southwest Cancer Center again.  Hopefully they will be nice to me. I still struggle emotionally and probably need to talk to a counselor.  I find that I'm in a season of self pruning.  It's time to cut off a lot of dead weight, or cut out the cancers of my life.  God's promises at the beginning have remained true in my life:  He is jealous for me and Health is on the other side of this mountain. How very little I know about both of those issues.  I've been thinking a lot about the work/worship connection in the Hebrew language.  It's more than a connection, there the same thing.  I find that in my need for more hours both because of the finances it provides but also for the sanity it provides, I understand a side of worship that I never saw before.  Worship brings sanity.  It brings things into a right perspective.  Worship brings order, therefore work brings order in our lives too. 

Things I'm praying for:

1. My credit score to improve and the finances to provide for me to buy my own house so that I might become a foster/adoptive/host parent in this next year.
2. A permanent location for 24-7 prayer amongst university students in Lubbock that is not attached to a denomination in anyway. 
3. God's continued guidance and connections for 247 in Lubbock. 
4. Healing Grace for my body and mind.  I've spent many years exercising my spirit, now it's time to exercise my body & soul so that I can be a unified healthy piece of the body.
5. Jobs for my brothers that they both enjoy and in which they are well paid.  

Things I've learned about prayer recently:

1. It really has less to do with my wish list or agenda, and much more to do with what is God's heart and will for my life, the unification of prayer amongst university students and his will for my brothers.  Lord, not my will but your will be done.