Monthly Archives: February 2014

Feb 26 2014
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Friendship

Be My Galentine?

It’s February 26 and I’m writing a post semi-related to Valentine’s Day.

BREAKING ALL THE RULEZ!

Let’s get down to business…(to defeat…the Hunnssss)

I think it’s a fairly common misconception that single women are perpetually lonely. When people ask me about my love life and I respond with, “I don’t have one,” approximately 94.3% of the time they will follow up with a version of, “Ooo are you okay? Are you lonely?”

No. I’m not lonely. And here’s why:

I have AWESOME friends. Both male and female.

On February 13th, some of my lady friends and I got together for the 2nd (hopefully annual) Galentine’s Day celebration. (We copied the idea from the television show Parks & Recreation. You should go watch it then we’ll be friends for lyfe.)
We got together at a restaurant and just spent time together being friends. In fact, some of us stayed there for 3 1/2 hours. That’s how much we like each other.

I have another friend that knows me so well, she can tell what kind of mood I’m in based on my text message responses.

I have other friends that bought me a bacon shaped bag clip and a Civil War history book as Christmas/birthday gifts.

These people have celebrated with me in the highs, and they have weeped with me in the lows. These people know me. They know me because about 4 years ago I realized how easy it is to fall into the misconception of loneliness just because I’m single, and it doesn’t lead to a pretty place.

I’ve realized that friendship is EXTREMELY (and I can’t stress extremely enough) important. The significance of having people in my life that know me deeply is something I find hard to put in to words.

In the second chapter of the entire Bible, God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” We were created for relationship. We were created to know and be known by others. The desire to be connected with those around us has been with us for a very long time.

Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I’m lonely, but it would be easy for me to fall in to that. Luckily the Lord has placed some amazing people in my life to keep me from falling in to that loneliness. For a period of my life I specifically prayed for God to bring solid women into my life that love Jesus, and He faithfully answered that. One by one, people started coming in to my life that won’t be leaving any time soon.

Do I sometimes feel lonely? Yes. But does loneliness consume my life? No. Because I’ve got my Galentines.

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Feb 19 2014
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Relationships

What Match.com Taught Me: Round Up

Welcome to the final installment of “What Match.com Taught Me” brought to you by Buffalo Wild Wings and Starbucks. Thank you, America.

As I reflect back on my stint of online dating (a whole woppin month!), I can’t help but be grateful for what God has taught me. I think the past three weeks I’ve spent some time bashing other people but haven’t really addressed my heart/idol factory in the matter.

You see, when I first joined the website that I was pretty sure was going to introduce me to my future husband, I did so with extremely selfish motives. I was throwing the pity-party of the year and decided to seek validation from a computer screen or those on the other side of it.

I decided to play god. And I failed.

All of those things I wrote about–insecurity, labeling, standards–are all things that I struggled with because I was “lonely.” My eyes were focused on me, not Christ.

And that’s what happens, isn’t it? We get caught up in the kingdom of me and lose sight of the kingdom of God. Oh how easy it can become to wallow in self-pity and insecurity and act like there is no way out.

But there is a way out and His name is Jesus.

Continue reading →

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Feb 12 2014
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Relationships

What Match.com Taught Me: Part 3

Standards of faith/a relationship with Jesus aren’t that big of a deal to most people.

Disclaimer: if you are a follower of Jesus and are in a relationship with someone who is not, my aim is not to offend you. My goal here is to tell my story and my viewpoint. If you don’t agree with me, that is okay. Chances are we can still have a civil conversation with one another and talk things out! I like to think I’m pretty easy to get along with!

Now, on to the fun stuff…

Last week I mentioned that I like to think of myself as a woman of standards. I think that there is a huge gap in our lives of what we label ourselves and how we live.

With that said, I also think there’s a huge gap in the standards we have set for ourselves when looking at someone as a potential spouse.

Over and over again I read profiles full of statements like, “I’m a Christian but it’s okay if you aren’t. It’s not that big of a deal.”

In fact, here are two descriptions straight from the horse’s mouth:

I go to church basically every Sunday. It’s really not much time a week, but gives me a chance to reflect, pray, and learn to try and become a better person. It’d be nice to find someone to share this faith with me also. I’m not asking you to believe exactly what I believe, just be with me.

Lutheran guy, born and raised. I can respect you and your beliefs as long as you respect mine. Details are details, but having faith towards an idea or belief is a good start in my book.

In other words (and yes, this is my interpretation), these guys don’t really care if their dream girl has a relationship with Christ. Is this okay? Is it enough to just go to church and “be with” someone while you’re there? Is a mutual faith that important in a relationship?

My answers: No. No. YES.

And here’s why:
If growing in Christ and towards Christ isn’t the goal of all of my actions, what’s the point? If I’m dating/married to someone that is not leading me toward Jesus, then it ends up being a self-serving relationship that does not bring glory to God. And as a Christian, the goal of my life is God’s glory.

Now, I must also add that I believe there is nothing that God can’t redeem. If you are dating/married to someone that doesn’t believe in Christ, it doesn’t mean that person is out of God’s reach or that you are in the wrong. God’s grace is bigger than any dumb blog post I could ever write (praise Jesus!!).

However, I still believe that we are lacking in standards in our relationships.

Maybe, just maybe, if I set a standard of faith that a guy must reach before I consider dating him, we’ll end up having a great friendship resulting in a marriage that brings God glory.

And, for the record, my standard is this: a guy needs to love Jesus more than he loves me, but love me enough to lead me toward Jesus and care about my relationship with Him.

Unrealstic? Nah. I don’t think so.
Because at the end of the day, as sinful people, if we don’t have Jesus to rely on individually, we really don’t have anything. I will fail you and you will fail me.

Also, it’d be great if my guy also loves hunting. And baseball. And bacon. Aaannnddd queso.

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Feb 05 2014
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What Match.com Taught Me: Part 2

Part 2 in my online dating lessons: Labels do not equal Lifestyle.

I like to think of myself as a woman with standards. One of the filters I set up on my match.com search to aid in meeting those standards was that a man had to identify himself as “Christian-Protestant,” “Christian-Catholic,” or “Christian-Other.”

On any given day I could click the search button and scroll through more than 200 guys within a 50 mile radius that labeled themselves as one of the above. Talk about getting my hopes up!

The problem came when I would click on the camo-clad profile picture and actually read what the self-labeled Christian wrote. Over and over again I would read through profiles of guys that when given the chance to give more details about their faith would leave sections blank and never mention a relationship with Christ. It became ever so clear to me that so many in our culture claim Christianity but have no idea what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Now. Let me finish. I can hear some people now, “Well Kayla, you don’t have to beat the Bible through someone’s computer screen to prove you’re a Christian. Why should it matter if you write out the entire 119th Psalm in your profile or not?!”
To which I respond, “You’re right. You don’t have to give me your entire faith story on a screen, bbbuuuutttttttt it would be nice if you would at least let me know that your faith means something to you. Even if we end up not agreeing with each other.”

It’s not enough to label yourself as something. Back your stuff up. Live it out. Make others believe you are what you say you are.

If I told you I am a basketball player, but I can’t dribble a ball, then I’m most likely not a basketball player.

If I told you I am a volleyball player, you would be able to tell in .07 seconds that I’m not. Mainly because I kinda punch the ball whenever I try to serve it. My bad.

If I tell you I’m a Christian, I need to have some ground to stand on. You should know how important my faith is to me. My lifestyle should reflect my label, but my label does not automatically qualify my lifestyle.

Had even half of those profiles mentioned something along the lines of, “I know Jesus. Hope you do too!” we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.

I’m worried that we’ve come to a point where just labeling our faith is enough. My challenge this week is to examine areas in our lives where we are satisfied with just a label being projected as a lifestyle. Once we find them, let’s change them. Let’s let our lifestyles dictate our labels. And let’s make sure they’re leading us towards Christ.

*note: editing contributions made by H Mae Wright. She’s da bomb.

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