With A Love That Quiets All My Fears...

head for the past few days, but I need to get them down in words and recorded for the world to see.

• No touchy - Nothing, but hugs. No hand holding. No kissing. No kisses on the cheek. No touching someone’s arm or back. No playful pushes. Nothing, but a quick hug to say hi or goodbye.
• No cuddling - Meh. I love me some schnuggles, but they are not allowed. With anyone. Just no.
• No flirting - Know the line between being nice and peppy and being flirty. Be honest with yourself. If you catch yourself crossing the line, tone it down.
• Write a love letter to God every week - Take time to reflect on how your relationship has improved with Him in the previous week. Thank Him for all He has done and given you. How have you failed Him? Apologize. Think of how you can improve your relationship in the coming week. Adore God. Give Him praise. Love Him.
• No Facebook creeping - If you say you don’t do this, you’re a straight liar. Own up to it. If you meet a guy, get to know him in real life, not based off of what you see on Facebook. Facebook can be so deceiving. You can either build up someone to who they say they are on Facebook or you can completely be turned off by somebody great who seems boring or weird of his/her profile. Facebook creeping turns into an obsession and takes focus off of God.
• Spend time with Him - Go to adoration at least once a week. Spend time just sitting there with Him. Talk with Him. Adore Him. Hand Him over your worries. Let Him help you with them. Give Him your full love and attention.
• Thank Him constantly for the gifts He gives you - Everything you have was given by Him. We often think of food and shelter, but think of the tiny things that make HUGE differences. Can you imagine life without toilet paper? Seriously. When is the last time you thanked God for toilet paper? Small thing. Big difference.
• Get involved in church - Find a ministry to get involved in or to help with. Spend more time at church. Be a part of the community.
• When you talk to Him, focus only on Him - No lazy half-hearted, I’m-thinking-about-other-things-and-getting-distracted prayers. Put all of your attention on Him completely like He deserves.
• No planning - This means weddings, babies (however, if a cute name is heard, I am DEFINITELY adding it to the note on my phone), or my husband. I can’t plan any of these things and I don’t know who I am going to end up with or what his life looks like and how it will affect mine. I can prepare for those in my future, but not to the point where I am looking at which bridesmaid dresses are my favorites.
• Take care of your temple - Your body is B-E-A-UTIFUL and gosh darn it, show it some respect! Workout often. Eat healthy. Prepare yourself. Be healthy for not just yourself and God, but the ones who love you.
• No dirty mouth - No swearing. No dirty jokes. No gossip. In a relationship, you need to give some in order to show you truly care for the other. By giving up on these, you are showing God that you care so much about Him. Plus, God loves everyone. You should love those your love loves (does that make sense to anyone else?). Would you gossip about your best friend’s mom? No, because she loves her mama. Well, everyone is a child of God. If you want to be closer to God, don’t diss His children or swear at them!
• Don’t listen to/watch bad media - I touched on this a bit before, but don’t listen to music that denounces God or goes against His teachings. Same goes for other types of media. It’s totes awk when you’re trying to strengthen your relationship with God and then you get into the car and listen to a song screaming about getting all hot up in a club with a bunch *****es. Get my drift?
• Love yourself - Ok this is huge for me, but I am going to try to go one day a week without wearing any make-up (breathe, Colleen, breathe). I know I am beautiful and fearfully made, but then why do I wear make-up EVERYWHERE and hide behind it? I need to love myself. Go without make-up. Try. Love your skin. It’s beautiful. Just the way God likes it.

Yesterday (day two!) was my sorority’s informal event. The theme was “Unofficial St. Patty’s Day.” It was so much fun dressing up for! Being at the event reminded me of the vows of purity and chastity I had made to myself, God, and my husband years ago. It was a great reminder of how I should (and shouldn’t) be living my life. I love all my sisters dearly and respect that they are in charge of their own lives, choices, and morals, but most are of this world. I would like to belong to His world in Heaven. The man I choose to marry will see that I am looking past this world and up at Him.

There were a few things I saw last night that reminded me of what it meant to be of His world in the context of purity:

• Dress like a woman of God - I am a conservative dresser and that is especially amplified at events like this. My body is something to be truly cherished. I am a work of art and God is my masterful creator! I only want to share my body with the one who appreciates every part of me. In today’s society, there’s no such thing as a naturally “perfect” body. God looks at all of us and sees the love and beauty He put in each of us as He created us. I can show great love for others with the smile God gave me. I don’t need to reveal anything else. I am clothed in dignity. By covering myself, I am showing to God and others that I am respecting the gift of my body given to me by the Lord. I am cherishing it. That will quickly weed out the unwanted attention from guys who have no place for God and His way of a chaste life commanded for us in their hearts, let alone me.
• Look at others as works of God - Along the same vein, change the way you look at others. Our society looks only at flaws. Just look at the amount of products out there that combat wrinkles alone. Then the surgeries! People are voluntarily cutting themselves and risking their health and lives to get rid of a single flaw. Can you imagine how different society would be if we all looked around at each other not as bodies with flaws that need to be addressed and instead as wonderful sons and daughters who were created and crafted BY GOD in the likeness of God? I need to work on this and I completely admit to it. Every single one of us is a beauty. We need to start acting like it.
• Respect the hearts of others - When I was single before my ex-boyfriend, I was an avid fan of what I deemed “innocent flirting.” I was a flirty friend to many guys that I knew. I naturally have a very bubbly and peppy personality which tends to come off as flirty in certain circumstances, but this “innocent flirting” was deliberate. As humans, we like the sensation of touch. We swoon after something simple like a hand touched to your back or placed on your arm. We like how we feel when we are flirting and it’s being returned. We like compliments and the feeling that someone is interested in us. The problem is that what I may think is innocent flirting for fun could lead to a very real and serious attraction in the other party. By flirting with guys I have no intention of ever dating, I am not respecting them as sons of God who were given hearts that can love and break. I was using them and objectifying them (yes, women can objectify men too!) as tools of my own personal entertainment and self-boosting. While admittedly none of them were very likely to create an attachment to me (the whole waiting until marriage thing can be quite the turnoff to the wrong type of men) and were simply friends, I was also showing that I didn’t respect the heart of my husband. Can you imagine your future spouse running around flirting with every person of the opposite gender? Touching arms, winking, sending flirty text messages, the whole shebang. It gives you the shivers, doesn’t it? How selfish is it for me to not want my husband to be doing that and yet here I am? Last night, I thought I did pretty well with it. After being with my ex-boyfriend for a year, I had to almost relearn how to be friends with guys without flirting with them. That is continuing now and I’m appreciative. It’s definitely more of a struggle being single, but it’s a struggle that’s well worth it.
• Respect yourself - Some of the things I saw last night made me so sad. So many women are used for their bodies today. Our society has turned our bodies into tools, ladies. Many men have taken note and, again, society has told them it’s ok. The way girls were grinding saddened me. Many guys were doing what they wanted and putting their hands where they wanted. My beautiful sisters. Being used like a squeeze toy until they could later leave together and do whatever else more. A woman of God respects herself as a woman of God. You can have a glass of wine or two, but please don’t get drunk. You become a person you can’t control. You become a person you don’t quite know. You become a person that can be easily manipulated in the right hands. You do silly things and you wake up needing others to tell you what those silly things were. You throw up (not a pretty color on anyone) and you feel awful. We are worth so much more than that! You can still have a great time while stone cold sober! I did! Haha. God has plans for each of us. Getting blacked out on a Friday night and spending all Saturday with a huge headache, trying to fall asleep, and piecing together your night from the accounts of others is never in His plans.
• Don’t judge, just pray - I used to be VERY judgmental of others who didn’t live the way I thought they should. How dare I? My freshman year, I came into school thinking I was so wonderful and perfect and everyone else needed to get their stuff together and act more like me and the world would be a better place. I’ve since realized how proud I was. Pride is a sin I am constantly struggling with and God has really done great things with it. We’ve made big strides together towards my humility and I pray we continue on that path. Last night, I wasn’t looking at girls grinding or chugging or screaming along to horrid rap songs with contempt or judgment. I was looking at them as my sisters of Christ who lost their way. I prayed for all of them. I want them to see the beauty I see in each one of them. I want them to see they are worth so much more than how they are treating themselves and their bodies. On the day of judgment, God is the judge and He is the one who will see their hearts and look back at their behavior in these days. I pray that there will be a point when Jesus is able to say, “and here your heart changed and you decided to live your life for me and change your behavior.” So I don’t need to judge and I won’t. But you better bet I am praying so hard for them.
• Find fellow women of God (or at least those who share similar values) - I ended up hanging out with a fellow sister and her friend she brought. None of us knew the songs (rap ain’t my thang, yo), so we ended up bonding over it. We joked about how awful we all were at dancing and spent some time being awkward dancers and laughing. Such innocent and free joy! When the random oldie would come on, we would sing along. By surrounding myself with other women who were conservatively dressed, sober (or close to sober), and just enjoying the company of others, I found it so much easier to be pure and to have pure thoughts. To steal from the Everts, you need to meet your bridesmaids before you meet your husband. I need to surround myself with more godly women and to develop stronger relationships with those people. I can talk to anyone about boy issues, but only a woman whose heart is in Christ can help me with my heart and can suggest a path towards love that is endorsed by God. It’s hard to talk about your struggle with purity with someone who doesn’t see value in living a chaste life.
• Surround yourself with positive, pure, godly media and influences - While the relationships you are in are the biggest influence over you, media also has an influence over you. Since coming to college, I have been hearing more and more ungodly music. I have gotten into some of it. I put it on my iPod. Eventually, my days of jamming to KLOVE during my trips in the car turned into ragers with dub step blasting through the speakers and not so nice words or messages accompanying them. That music influenced and signalled who I was becoming as a person. Suddenly, I was struggling to not swear here and there whereas it hadn’t been an issue since I stopped swearing years ago. The messages were awful and permeated in my head. Songs of hate filled my ears and I sang along with them, sometimes pairing different people in my life I was particularly struggling to get along with to a song. Something as simple as the playlist I hit while getting ready in the morning could completely alter my day and the choices I made. By listening to my Christian or innocent music, I can start my day loving God and choosing His path. The songs call me to look to Heaven and to choose Him. Music is just one example, but things like your TV shows (I recently stopped watching Girls because it is literally horrible and so ungodly, I could make an entire post on it if I truly wanted to), magazines, and books can do the same thing. Your environment controls more in your life than you even realize.

No flirting! No dating! Nothing, but focusing completely on Jesus Christ!

Feel free to take a read. I could use the encouragement!

waynoly:

Broken Glass and Butterfly Wings: dear tumblr, I am 100% hardcore, intense CATHOLIC. let me explain.

myscatteredlight:

you know what this means?

It means that I am pro-life and believe in human dignity, from the time of conception to the time we die. I believe that…

(Source: my-scattered-light, via hreinleiki-deactivated20121123)