A Teensy Bit Frustrated With Technology

I can't get my photos to upload, from my trip. I did about 1/4 of them, before dinner, and now I can't seem to get the rest to work. Urgh. I have so many neat pics I want to share, of mudpots galore (yawwwwwn, Yellowstone), and millions from the beaches in Oregon, where I want to move and sleep listening to the surf every night.

Speaking of wanting to move - I'm wanderlusting. You think that coming off one of the world's craziest road trips I'd have a little more sanity than that. (Have YOU ever tried to sleep in a driver's seat, with bags of groceries, cd's, one of your best friends on the seat next to you, at 3 in the morning in front of the Wild Bill Hickock Center in Cody, WY?) But now that I've revisited the glorious Oregon coast, I'm dying to get married, move there, start an organic/gluten free bakery & have lots of babies and hang out at the beach a lot, all the while doing short term missions trips and making someone insanely happy.

Yeah, if you had to sum up what I want to do next week, that's pretty much it. So, I guess you could say I'm not just wanderlusting for travel, but for so much more.

I'm at a place, again, where God could do anything, and I wish He would do something major. I want to be shaken up, completely reliant on Him (aren't I already?) but I want it in a different way, I think. In a lot of ways, I feel ready for so much more, but my readiness isn't necessarily the catalyst for what I want God to do in my life. His timing encompasses so much more.

At the heart of all this, again, is the dealings with Un-Chivalrous-Ex. We talked last night, for a good hour, and I prayed about how to handle things all this morning. Today's Daily Bread verse was out of Ephesians, where Paul admonishes us "Wives, submit to your husbands as unto the Lord." and later he says to respect your husband. For the first time in my life, the weight of that verse sank in, as I realized that, if as a stubborn, wilful and hardheaded woman, I had trouble submitting my spirit to the Lord, it was gonna take one heck of a man for me to submit to him in equal fashion. I thought to myself this morning, or maybe I've known it all along, that there are just some men who naturally garner my respect and some who really have to work to get it and some who just can't win in that department at all. I can think of the ones that have my respect as naturally as they breathe on one hand - they are few. The rest, well, it's a tough battle with a woman as independent as me. UCE is a great guy, I'm sure. He just isn't someone who I can respect spiritually, because, well, he's just not.

Mulling all this over, I decided to see wise counsel, from Kirstie. She reminded me of the actions of Ruth Bell Graham, when she told Billy to take a hike. At the time he was pursuing her, he wasn't the spiritual leader she needed, much less deserved. In her rejection of his advances, he came to his senses, shaped up and became the man that our nation has adored - a man of God. Remembering this, and remembering the story of another woman I adore, the wonderful Elizabeth Elliot, and how she and Jim waited years for one another, though their love was there, I realized that, though I have been receiving attention I crave, that I am wired to crave, from UCE, I am really selling myself short by even thinking of granting his requests to get back together, with a guy who spiritually I just can't respect and who I just don't love (especially not with the remnants of feelings for one man I really do respect still lingering, albeit stubbornly & not exactly welcome). Not only might I be robbing myself of God's plan for my life, but I'm allowing him to continue on unchanged, stagnant in his spiritual state of lapse. He's a good guy, to be sure. He's just not a good enough guy for me. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. I'd rather be single for the rest of my life than marry someone I have a hard time respecting, and who will not or can not be the spiritual leader I so long for and deserve.

This might be a case of way TMI! But, it's me, it's my life, whatev.

I called him again tonight, and told him in the nicest possible fashion that my mind hasn't changed, that I am sticking to my guns, and don't see a possibility for us to be friends, much less date again. He took it nice, he has before. I pray, I really do, that this time he'll back off and that the Lord will give me a chance to either return to the state of contentment I had with my singleness, or bring me that someone who I adore, respect and in all ways view as my leader in Christ. Maybe someone with a heart for the mountains, or the beach. Definitely not someone who doesn't like the outdoors. Because after these last two weeks, this city girl is craving some serious nature time, and anyone who loves me better be ready to hit the road again, for the beauty of our country, it is a'callin'. The freedom of being open to God's plans, that is calling even more. Speak Lord, for your servant is ready to listen & go.