Psalm 19:14

It's really hard to come back to a quiet office after working on houses with a bunch of crazy middle schoolers for a week. It makes me miss it, and them, even more.

Psalm 19:14 says this: "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." The Spirit recalled this verse to my memory countless times while working on the houses, especially when my mind started to wander. (Which is almost always!) I realized how often the meditations of my heart are not pleasing in His sight. They're so counterproductive. They're so pointless and silly and just a waste of time. They distract me from the Lord's voice and from His leading, and they kept me from seeing clearly for two years. Two. Years. That is ridiculous.

But finally, during a week when I thought God would be using me to change someone else's world, He used eight 14, 15, and 16 year olds, and one 21 year old to change mine. He moved in my heart and I feel so…weightless. My heart is no longer bound to lies and selfish, ignorant longing. Things are clear yet unclear, but in an amazing way. The clarity is liberating, and the lack thereof is exhilarating.

The course of my life has taken an extremely unexpected turn in the past month, and for the first time in a long time, I'm smiling at the future. I'm so excited about watching things unfold, and watching God do with me whatever He wants.

I have a really hard time finding random things to discuss on my blog. Crazy, I know. (Especially if you know me.) I'm attempting to do just that with this post.

First…I'm moving to Virginia. I'm crazy excited. Yesterday while talking to Emily, I compared it to having a new "love"…I get giddy. Is that weird? Anyway, I'm moving up to Lynchburg and going to Liberty University. (I still can't believe it…if you only knew how anti-Liberty I was two months ago.) I'll be majoring in Women's Ministry, which is the source of most of my gid. Don't ask me what I'm going to do with that major, cause I don't have an answer. Hey, I just realized that today is exactly one month before I leave.

Moving on. Last night I was laying (lying?) awake in my bed thinking. I was thinking about hearts and love, and Song of Solomon, and relationships, and the Nooma "Flame". The bride in 'Song' urges women not to awaken love until it so desires. But how do you do that!? This frustrates me. How do you know when love desires to be aroused? Must it be very slow and gentle, starting with consciousness, then a gradual opening of the eyes as things slowly come into focus? Or is it startling, tense, heart-racing? Maybe it's both. I don't know…and I don't like that.

I was also thinking about a woman's love. When a woman gives her heart away, really gives her heart, it's almost impossible for her to take it back. That's probably why the Bride urged us to be cautious. But again, how do we know when it's ok to let our guard down?

Lord, help me.

Then I thought about the three different Hebrew words for love, especially ahava; love of the will (I think it's ahava, either that or raya).

And right before I finally gave up my seemingly futile thought process, I thought about how so many men abuse the heart of a woman. They have no idea what they're doing. (Women are selfish too, but I think the difference is that they DO know what they're doing! They know they're manipulating.) I know I'm not the origin of this phrase, but I love it, and I'm saying it now to all the men who ever take the time to read this thing: Don't ask for a woman's heart until you're willing to ask for her hand in marriage.