Two steps back, first. iCare.

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So there’s something about the beach and God, it’s as if He’s much closer in the waves then on land. Anyways, this time to just sit out on the porch and listen to the waves is like having God sit right beside me and chat. This morning we had a chat and in peaceful way He told me to do something potentially chaotic. It went something like this:

Me: Hey God! What’s up?

*Insert God saying something cheesy like “Me! I’m ‘what’s up’” (ha-ha-ha)*

God: Anna, this is what I want you to do today,

*dlkjfoieljfoj* <-- God telling me stuff

Me: …um, okayyy. But…how is that going to be beneficial? I don’t understand.

God: I know. Trust me.

Ehhh…He stumps me every time. Do you want to know what He told me to do? Here goes...He told me to write out things about every guy I’ve ever liked and to diagnosis what went wrong and all the mistakes I made. Also to look at why I liked them and the amount of time I was spending with Him during these times. Did you just turn ghostly pale? Because I definitely did.

So I got out my paper and went at it. I wasn’t expecting to write all that I did and to still harbor so much emotion towards these guys who were just names on a page. Now, don’t go thinking I wrote down 34973498 guys because I’m not that kind of girl…but I did have more than one. After I wrote all this stuff about each guy I went back and added how it all ended between each one – that was a hard thing to face. There were two categories for the endings: 1.) They got ripped from me (pretty much) or 2.) I walked away and let it go (much simpler in theory).

The hardest part of this little Godly homework was to face my own insecurities within each of these phases of my life. One positive thing I noticed was after each one I got better about guarding myself. Now guarding can have two extremes because you can guard yourself so much that you don’t let anyone in or you cannot guard yourself enough and let everyone in to hurt you. Thankfully I kept a pretty good balance between the two for the most part.

Another hard part of this assignment was to examine the amount of time I was spending with God during each of these phases. Can you guess what I discovered? My focus was usually on not losing the guy instead of listening to what God was saying about the guy. I remember so many times the Holy Spirit distinctly telling me to stop talking to a guy, but because things were going so well with such guy I didn’t understand why God would want me to not talk to them. But God being His loving and caring self was trying to protect me before I got hurt, embarrassed, and things ended extremely bad. Why don’t we just listen? I find it no coincidence that the amount of time I spent with God was a direct reflection of how my friendship with each guy turned out. I’m not saying they all ended badly, because they didn’t. But a few of them did and I blame myself for not listening to what God was trying to tell me all along.

This blog doesn’t really have a huge point, but I really wanted to be raw with you all about how serious it is to listen to God in all things. We usually turn to Him in the bad times, but we need to turn to Him in all times because He cares enough to warn us during the good times of things that could harm us. I also want to encourage you all to not be afraid of having feelings or caring. Our generation has prized themselves for becoming numb and they think they’ve reached the top when they can walk away from casual sex or a relationship unharmed. WRONG. Completely the opposite of what God intended. Do not be afraid to care for people and to have feelings. I deeply care and I have many feelings, while having healthy boundaries in the process.

Okay, that was kind of intense. Here’s a *hug*, because I care about you.