Love like a movie.

Being a 7th grade small group leader, there is one thing on most of my girls minds: boys. 

Twice this week I have sat down with older girls and the conversation always gets back to one thing: I just wanna be in love.

Anytime I have a conversation about this topic it usually leads to the same thing.... a love like the movies.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good chick flick, and I am famous for always wanting to see the the new Nicholas Sparks movie, but the more and more these conversations kept happening the more and more I kept asking myself, "why do we want what's in the movie?"

The Avett Brothers said it perfectly: So you want to be in love like the movies? But in the movies they're not in love at all. And with a twinkle in their eyes, they're just saying their lines. So we can't be in love like the movies. Now in the movies they make it look so perfect. And in the background they're always playing the right song. And in the ending there's always a resolution. But real life is more than just two hours long.

girls: 

wake up call. 

-a guy isn't gonna walk across the United States because he found your picture in Iraq and thinks you are his guardian angel. [the lucky one]

I'm gonna step on some peoples toes here with this one, but oh well. It kills me when I see tweets about how girls want this "love like a movie," but then are "talking" to a guy who won't even hold the door open for her. You want a guy to love you the way Jack loves Rose in the titanic, then talk to a guy that knows how to respect you enough to even open the door to a restaurant. 

Love is so much more than someone writing letters to you for 365 days [the notebook], kissing you in the rain [dear john], or running off the football field out into the bleachers to find you [a Cinderella story].

Yeah all those things are great and what every girl dreams of, but when I think about falling in love, and finding my husband, I can say with everything in me.... I don't want a love like in the movies.

I don't want someone to love me for the way I look, for the way I dress, for what size jeans I wear, or for how I act. I want someone to love me for the way I love Jesus. 

I don't wanna stay up late having him tell me how perfect I am so I feel good about myself. I wanna stay up late and have him constantly reminding me who Christ says I am. But I also wanna be strong enough in my faith that I know who Jesus says I am, and I allow him to love every part of me. When you get to that point then you open up the door for someone else to step in and love you. 

I don't wanna talk for hours on the phone about nothing, I wanna talk for hours on the phone about how absolutely blown away we both are at what Jesus in doing in our lives.

Because I know if someone is in love with you because of the way you love Jesus, your love for each other will surpass anything you could see in a movie, and I know when someone falls in love for your heart they absolutely adore every other part of you. 

So girls, next time you fantasize over the latest chick flick coming out stop and ask yourself what you really want your love story to be.

Then you come to a point where you know what you want in a man, and what Jesus has been doing in me is showing me everything I want my husband to be to me: an encourager, a listener, a safe place.... I have to be right back to him.

So tonight instead of praying: Jesus bring me my husband. How about praying Jesus turns you into the woman your husband wants/needs you to be for him. 

I would trade inside jokes over 365 letters any day. Why? cause it's unique. 

When you allow Jesus to write your love story, everything about it is unique, and way better than anything you see in the movies.

[Proverbs 31:10] 

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.

That is what you want. Someone to say you are far more precious than jewels. 

So Jesus, don't give us a love like in the movies. Give us someone who is in love with the way we love you. 

Thursday is coming.

I will remain confident in this: I will see the goodness of the Lord. {psalm 27:13}

Today I looked back through some old journals to try to find things that I had written in the past as Novemeber 21 has come and gone, and honestly I couldn't find one thing. November 20, November 22, but never the 21. I guess I always try to escape it, try not to even think about it. If you don't know November 21 is the day my daddy passed away. But this year, I am writing. Because this year I have seen the goodness of the Lord.

I don't think I can explain this year in a way that would do it justice, but I know I can sum it up: Jesus is forever faithful.

Ashes to beauty has been the hope my hands have been gripped around the past couple months just as I have walked through some things, and today as I am leaning into Jesus with everything I got, I am realizing that there has always been beauty in the middle of every circumstance but it takes a journey to get us to a place where we are able to see the beauty. When you see the beauty you find the healing.

This year I have seen the beauty and I have found the healing.

Jesus so specifically puts the details of our lives together that even the hardest days will all be pieced together to form something so beautiful, and when we see them pieced together, we stand in awe of who He is. This year I feel like I have seen some of those hards days be pieced together, and it makes me go back to the simple phrase: This is why.

You read the blog, you came to church that day, you watched the podcast, or you see my millions of instagram pictures with the kids. But with November 21 coming closer, I am blown away all over again of how Jesus has brought a family into my life that has changed me forever. (if you haven't seen/heard the story you can check it out at, passioncitychurch.com/watch, the title is: available.)

But what you haven't seen is the days that followed generosity Sunday. The carpool lines, the football games, the many nights of mac and cheese, the laughs, the fits, the hugs, the carrying of booster seats, the singing of christmas songs in front of the fire, the late night talks after the kids go to bed... The relationship that has been formed, and the bond that has been made that I believe will never be broken. I have seen the rocky mountains and the oceans but nothing will ever be as beautiful as the way Jesus has orchestrated my life to cross paths with the Pray family. 

So let me be the first to proclaim over your life that nothing you walk through will ever be meaningless and I have learned this more this year than I have ever have.

I have seen the ashes turn to beauty.

I think about this past year and the people Jesus has surrounded me with and tears are the only thing that can express the gratitude I have for so many of you that didn't even know me this time last year but have stepped into my life and loved me like you have known me for years.

And then I think about the future and I get chills. I see the text messages going back and forth about boy advice. I see the trips to the mall. I see me picking up that same little girl, all grown up, and can hear the words so clearly coming out of her mouth of her story of when she realized: this is why.  

So this year I write, and this week I celebrate because Jesus is faithful, my father is cancer free, more alive then he has ever been, and because healing is real and it comes. Believe it. 

This week:

We remember a father.

We remember a husband.

We remember a son.

We remember a brother.

We remember a friend.

But this week I remember not one life but two.

One life that was directly involved in mine. A man that loved me as any father should love their daughter. A man that watched me take my first steps, heard my say my first words, and showed me the above all else Jesus is the most important thing. 

Another man that I never got to meet, but in a strange way feel like I knew for years. I see him in the smiling faces of his children. I feel the overflow of the way he loved people by the way his wife has loved me. 

There aren't many words that can measure up. But the lives of these two men could never be put into words. 

Today, I believe in the promise of heaven more than I ever have.

So we remember.

We remember and we never forgot.

11.21.02

11.21.12

Constant.

{psalm 48:14}
For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.

constant: occurring continuously over time a period of time. 

His love is constant: continuing

His mercy is constant: continuing

His grace is constant: continuing

[He is constant]

If every part of Jesus is constant and never changing, the healing hands He provides on our life are never taken off of us. So even when we feel like a new wound has been ripped open His constant healing is being provided and taken place.  So we have hope, we have hope because Jesus is working even when we are blinded by other things.

Jesus, take us to a place where our confidence is in the fact every part of you is constant.