Reflecting on it this morning, it reminded me of the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke Chapter 15):<\/p>\n
11<\/sup>Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12<\/sup>The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. <\/span><\/p>\n 13<\/sup>“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14<\/sup>After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15<\/sup>So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16<\/sup>He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.<\/span><\/p>\n What had happened in these past two weeks? HOW did I suddenly become so starved for male attention that I was longing to fill my stomach with what the pigs were eating out of their trough?!\u00a0 Last night, I just sat there, frozen in place, hoping that something would happen to salvage this terribly degrading experience, or that someone — anyone — I knew would walk into Ben<\/em>‘s Next Door <\/em>and rescue me.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Epic Face Palm<\/p><\/div>\n The Bible says the Prodigal Son “came to his senses<\/a>,” finally, saying: SURELY<\/em> back at my Father’s house even the lowest servants are treated better than this and have food to spare.\u00a0 I DO NOT HAVE TO BE HERE!!! I will go back home to my Father’s house and be a servant.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n SURELY my God — the lover of my soul who laid down His life in complete and perfect sacrifice just for me — would shower down love and glory and honor upon even someone as lowly, broken, and unclean as I! I DO NOT HAVE TO BE HERE!!!!\u00a0 No one came to my rescue, I just got up and walked out. Granted, it was an hour too late, but I did <\/em>get up! And I high-tailed it out of there, never looking back. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I am not single, sad, and lonely<\/em>. But I definitely have been lonely these past two weeks.\u00a0 It is a feeling that I am solely unaccustomed to feeling and so, when it rears its ugly head into my airspace, I generally handle it poorly — by going on bad dates, for example, when I could’ve had a V8. It’s like when the loneliness comes, I completely forget who God is and, most of all, who He has already been to me.\u00a0 He has never let me die of loneliness before, why would this time be any different? And when God has uprooted weeds in my life before, it was not because He desired me to be sad and alone, it was because those weeds were choking my growth and distracting me from chasing Him with my whole heart. Why did I insist on planting myself in a garden of weeds? I DO NOT HAVE TO BE HERE!!!!! Paul prayed this over the church in Ephesus (Ephesians 3: 17-21): And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18<\/sup>may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19<\/sup>and to know this love that surpasses knowledge\u2014that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. <\/span><\/p>\n 20<\/sup>Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21<\/sup>to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.<\/span><\/p>\n Oh! To know and understand how deep God’s love is for us! To “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” To understand that God can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine!” How many more situations would we give up on in life? How many times would we acknowledge that we DON’T HAVE TO BE HERE!!!!! That <\/span><\/span>God doesn’t want<\/em> me to be here, though He will give me the room to choose that destruction, if that is what I want. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n As I was looking for a church to attend this morning, I came across a website with the following scripture: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n So every now and again, I completely lose my mind, forget myself, and go on dates with men God has clearly shown me — in more ways than one — that I have no business being around. Inevitably, the date is a disaster, I am utterly disrespected by a guy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[233,494,561,829,945],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-usual-dithering","tag-dating","tag-jesus","tag-love","tag-self-love","tag-the-prodigal-son"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7nB6F-iR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookeobie.com\/districtdiva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.dcdistrictdiva.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/epic-face-palm-300x158.jpg\" "\\"epic")
<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\n
\nmy soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you,
\nin a dry and weary land where there is no water.
\nI have seen you in the sanctuary
\nand beheld your power and your glory.
\nBecause your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
\nI will praise you as long as I live,
\nand in your name I will lift up my hands.
\nMy soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
\nwith singing lips my mouth will praise you.
\nOn my bed I remember you;
\nI think of you through the watches of the night.
\nBecause you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
\nMy soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n