Perspectives from a desiring heart

I can cook, clean, dance, sing, drive, work, write…but it’s less about what I can do, and more about what I am.  People make resolutions every year, but I don’t really do that.  Instead, I keep an ongoing list in my journal about the things that I want to be.  I want to be that person that I was created to be, but often I get caught up in the things that I think other people want me to be; this life is not about my image through others’ eyes, but about my image through God’s eyes.  So I started this journal list years ago to remind me of the things that I should be, as a woman of God.  I’ll type it all out so you can understand exactly what it is that I’m talking about.

To be:

Prudent

Wise

Merciful

Kind

Loving

Patient

God-fearing

Truthful

Humble

Joyful

Peaceful

Gentle

Self-controlled

Slow to anger

Pure

Teachable

Prayerful

Repentant

Listener

Compassionate

Teacher

Integral

Virtuous

Perseverant

Counselor

Discerning

Generous

Faithful

Trusting

Loyal

Diligent

Meek

I look at this list and I see that I have a very long road ahead of me, but with God’s grace I can look behind me and see the little things that have changed since I was fourteen.  I’m not the same person now that I was then, and I pray that in the future I will be able to look back and say the exact same thing, and praise God for the many things that I have become.

As a young woman who desires to be loved, it’s hard for me to see many of my friends with significant others, fiancées, husbands and wives.  But then I look in the mirror and realize that it’s okay because I have a lot of work to do before I’m ready for all of that!  There’s no point in chasing after “love” when the woman in the mirror lacks many qualities that would prepare her to accept love.   When that woman concentrates on being the person that God has called her to be and strives to attain characteristics that resemble her King, when she is able to stand on her own two feet and be a woman of God with only Jesus to lean on, not a man…then and only then will she be ready for a relationship.  Not only that, but she will actually be worth pursuing.  She will be the woman that is most desirable because she has not found herself through worldly means, but through Jesus Christ.  That is the woman that I long to be.  This is not a New Year’s resolution; it’s an every single day resolution.  I’m making a moment-to-moment resolution and even though I constantly fail, I look forward to the times when I succeed and hear my Maker saying “Well done”.