Part 2... I'm not finished yet! :-P

This should be interesting. I think the last time I did a two parter I couldn't remember where I was going with what I was saying and I ended up just kind of rambling...

Overview of the last post:

-I have a history of seeing my femininity as a weakness and am secretly embarrassed by some simple expressions of it.

-I'm a pessimist. I've resigned myself to accepting and making the best of the lemons that life gives me, but I don't expect anything better than lemons.

But, there is error in my thinking.

I know that.

First of all- I don't remember where I was going with talking about my view of pink or how pessimism fits into a conversation about it...

Either way, I have been and am still learning to embrace the simple joys of being a girl- like drinking tea from a pretty teacup with Beatrix Potter's animal friends painted on the saucer, because it's cute and I can if I want to and it's not something to be embarrassed about. I call my husband to kill bugs in the house now. Can I do it? sure, but I still find it gross, so I let him be my shining knight. And maybe I even squeal a little bit. But I'm being myself.

I am a woman.

And I'm also a little girl.

And that's okay.

I've had to do a lot of thinking and, I'm not sure how accurate this phrase is but, soul searching to see those things and just let go and be me. In the process I've opened a whole can of worms...

Y'know how God sanctifies us by causing us to see our sin? One day you pray that He would make you more holy and the next day you're on your worst behavior and thinking, "What about my prayer?!" Until you realize that you're always like that but you had to see it in order to change it...

I'm having one of those moments.

Well, I dunno if you could call it a moment, it's taking a while to work through.

You see, my pessimism isn't the problem.

I believe that God is good and that He gives us the very best for us and for His glory.

I also believe that God is all powerful as He says in His word.

But I don't believe that dreams come true.

That last statement didn't come out of left field. I've been learning, that not all medicine tastes bad. Sometime what is best for us and for God's glory is having our dreams come true. I'm not being all that clear...

My pessimism is driven by a lack of faith. Though I believe all the things I stated above, I had failed to believe that God is perfect and powerful enough that He could possibly have designed history in a way that would allow room for His best for His glory and my pleasure to be one and the same thing. In my heart of hearts, I thought others were meant for receiving temporal joys. But not me, that was not my calling.

I believed that I was destined to have lemons. I believed that lemons where what I needed, that they were the best tool for me to glorify God with. I believed I would never get anything but lemons and I was okay with it. I want to glorify God. I want to grow in sanctification. So I didn't refuse the lemons but, often, gladly accepted them and used them as I could.

But I put God in a box.

The Bible is very clear that God cannot be contained, not by physical restraints, such as time and space, nor by mental capacity, such as the limit to what I can imagine. He is powerful enough to do anything and everything that He pleases. And it pleases Him to give gifts to His children.

I'm not saying that it is God's plan for me to live the life I dreamed of as a child. I'm not saying He will make me rich, famous, and happy if I only have enough faith.

But I'm not saying He can't.

My husband and I have a dream of owning a large home someday and having many children and making our home and family a rest and haven for those who need a break from life. We want to have a guest room that is never empty and when our guests leave we want them to be better from having come.

We made plans and wrote out ideas. We looked at roofing and fixtures and layouts and paint samples. We wandered through a tile store and looked up building companies in our area. We imagined what it would be like to live there and how daily activities would progress... Mind you we don't have any money, but it was all in anticipation for someday.

For him.

I viewed dreams a little less realistically. I was using my imagination, not my heart.

He believed someday we would own a home and have lots of children, if that was God's will.

I was playing "house" just the same as I had when I was a child.

Because the god in my mind wasn't amazing enough to do anything beyond what I believed. The god in my mind planned for me a life of hardship so that I could glorify him through my contentment.

But that is not the God who created me, redeemed me, sustains me, sanctifies me, and blesses me!

How wonderful that I am not God!

I see now the gaping hole in the fabric of my faith. Though I knew the truth I had not applied it to my world.

I have not turned on a dime. I don't know how to do that. I'm still not sure how to practically look forward to the future with full faith and yet not knowing what it holds.

Perhaps it will be lemons.

But it could be a dream come true.

Either way, my God knows what I need.

And He also knows what I desire.

I pray that I desire it to please Him and not just myself.

-Samia