Since beginning this blog adventure I have debated on when I would introduce my romantic life to the picture. I recognize that the sweet love stories add so much, and help to get to know the writer on a deeper level. I have been hesitant because although I am currently writing an amazing love story with a wonderful man (rather, Christ has written and is currently unveiling it to us), I want the greatest love story of my life to remain known to be my love story with my Heavenly Father.
One of the greatest struggles of my life has been the desire to find the "perfect guy", "my other half", someone who "completes me". I had a set mentality that if I just found "him" everything else would magically be perfect and fall into place. Can you blame me? Society teaches it. While I knew and had a relationship with Christ, there is no doubt in my mind that sadly I was putting more value in seeking my "perfect man". I wandered off the path God had for me, even knowing it at times and asking Him to join me where I would venture. I will tell you--God will go anywhere with you. He will never stop pursuing you. And boy, did He go everywhere with me; often comforting me as I had made the sad attempt to lead us somewhere that was not in His plan for me.
The relationships that left me with a broken heart were not necessarily all bad. However, what made them all bad was my desire, need and intention to seek total fulfillment and comfort in those relationships. Lesson #1: No relationship with any other being on this planet will provide you with fulfillment or completeness. That fill comes from Christ, and Christ alone. Lesson #2: The man to spend a lifetime with is one who loves Jesus more than anything else. I learned these lessons probably more painfully than God would have had me learn them, but He did tell me time and time again to follow Him. I simply continued to conform to patterns of this world in many ways. This ultimately required me to be broken before God in order to really hear and see my need for Him and Him alone--Christ; my love, my life, my everything. Praise Him for His unconditional and unfailing love.
I learned through Him to be thankful for the trials and for the heartache, but most importantly, I found my "perfect guy". It was Him. It has always been Him, and will always be Him.
God loves me so much. Aside from never leaving my side and seeing me through the greatest and darkest times of my life, He has blessed me with a true prince.
Everyone, meet Jon.
Isn't he so handsome?! His heart is even more handsome.
I just love him.:)
Our "Love Story"
About 6 months ago, I definitely was not in a place in my life where I was looking for a relationship. I was in the "brokenness" stage of the journey I previously described, clinging to Christ with everything I had, but feeling as though I had so little to offer.
My brokenness consisted of me feeling as though I had nothing good to bring to a relationship, fear of being crushed further, not trusting, feeling undeserving and so far from beautiful.
I had no idea what to do or how to handle anything really. The only thing I knew for certain was that I needed Christ. Well, as He would have it, He had plans to show me His love in ways that I had never experienced.
I knew I was lost in a lot of ways, but I had faith that Christ had a man on this earth for me. I was already praying for his well-being. I just didn't expect God to be so quick about it. He was quite pushy actually. Jon literally
walked into my office. He found me. He was super sweet, but out of my
brokenness I did not trust anything about our meeting really. In fact, I
pretty much had a wall up during all of our interaction. Thankfully,
my boss (who is a second father to me), saw the good in this young man.
Still very hesitant, I decided to give him my number after rejecting
the first opportunity to do so. Silly me!
Jon actually lives about 4 hours away
from me, but while he was in the area upon our meeting we were fortunate
to get a bit of time together one afternoon for a walk. Up until this
point I had thoroughly questioned his intentions. It did not take long
at all to see and to feel this man's love for Christ. He was so open,
honest and sincere that in a lot of ways I was left speechless. I
remember I cried and prayed the entire drive home that day because this man was everything I had hoped for, everything that God had whispered in promises to me if I would only surrender my search to Him.
Now that I had found him (or he had found me, actually), I felt at a place of being so incapable of loving or accepting love from another. However, if God truly wants you to love someone, you will regardless of how capable you think you are. Jon and I joke now by saying that "I had no choice, really". The funny thing is, I don't think I did. God had it for me to fall in love with this man.
However, it did take time, and
would never have been possible without Christ. Claire of the past would have jumped to fall helplessly in love with hopes of finding complete happiness and contentment in this wonderful man. However, Broken Claire was all too familiar with the outcome promised by God if I dared to take that route once more. Also, the Lord was changing my heart. I
desperately needed to love Him and to feel His love. He had undoubtedly laid this on my heart with promises of true life in doing so. I needed to be romanced by Him before I could be romanced by Dear Jon. Parts of me believed that since he had the love of Christ in his heart I could have something with him. I wanted that. However, in our first weeks as I saw and felt love like I had never felt before, I still felt my sweet Father asking my undivided attention.
Here I was, slowing trying to mend, spending precious time with Prince Charming, but being asked by God to let that go for the time being. There was something so strange in how I was feeling. As much as I hated to give up one second with Jon, I felt God's promise to come through for the both of us. I'm not sure what this looked like yet, and it was quite scary because I did not want to lose this treasure of a soul.
In all of our interaction, Jon was so true to Christ. Fearful of losing him in taking time apart, I knew he would be nothing but supportive in an effort to serve, understand and grow more in his Father. A beautiful servant of Christ, he is. I am so thankful. He was more than understanding as we took time away from one another to focus on God. This may sound sad, but don't be. This is an extremely marvelous and happy story. Words cannot describe it, but I felt a sense of comfort, peace, calm in our hearts during this time, a comfort that only comes from Christ; and a
hope, a hope from which my heart was learning so much.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.--Hebrews 6:19
During this time, Christ spoke to us in incredible ways, revealing the same bible verses to us, embracing us, teaching us and loving us as His children. For me, He let His love, forgiveness and grace overflow my heart, my soul and every fiber of my being. In Him I was truly reminded of the unconditional love He has for me, the love He gives for us to show the world. He assured me of my beauty and worthiness, and illustrated to me what is was to trust in Him, so that I might once again trust in others.
He restored me.
He restores my soul. --Psalm 23:3
Christ had been clear to me in communicating that He had work to do in my heart before I could give any of it to this sweet young man He had placed in my path. Praise Him that I wholeheartedly listened for a change! Turns out, He wanted time alone with Jon as well. This time apart couldn't have been more perfect actually. In fact, looking back on it, I don't really see it as time apart because Christ was connecting us in so many ways, something I pray He does until the day He calls me home.
This time "apart" lasted only a few short weeks. Since then, we have moved forward in Christ together. Jon is truly a blessing. He is everything my Father had whispered in promises to me as this world so diligently strived to convince me it didn't exist. Nice try, world. Don't kid yourself. God will always prevail. And praise Him for it.
From the day he walked into my life, I have felt a love from Jon that is so different from anything I have ever felt in a relationship. It is quite clear to me that the reasoning for this is that the love he shows me is not of this world or even of himself, but instead the love of Christ flowing from his heart. This is so evident. If we do not seek this love from God to give to one another, we are doomed, for
God is in fact love. This love causes me to blossom like the woman God created me to be, to really live, to spread that life, love and the beauty of our Creator. He is
so good, and I am so grateful.
loving with
His love,
Claire
