In His Likeness w/ AntTBri

It is no secret, nor is it a badge of honor that abstinence is my choice of life and love while I’m single. When people ask me “how do you do it” or advise that God understands we have needs” my response always throws them because it is not laden with Scripture although it is seated within my conviction and commitment to honor God, myself and my future.  It’s that I’m a coward in terms of loving. I don’t know how to do it half heart or haphazardly so I dare not try to perpetrate a fraud. I’m not that daring to attempt such strides without knowing how to out maneuver the propensity to crash and burn. Been there, done that I dare not try it or tempt life and love again. Who wants to volunteer for heartbreak?

I speak of the the piercing pain that accompanies life and love once it’s over and proves to be nothing/not worth it. I talk about the emotional and mental blow to the self esteem and about memories of being wrecked, torn down and broken in the aftermath of attempting life and love on my own accord. Personally,  I don’t have the strength,  stamina and security needed to live and love haphazardly without God backing my effort. I know I don’t have another round of fruitless, fake and foolishness in me. If I’m going to risk my heart, my peace and overall well being to be with someone it’s going to be with God’s favor and blessing.

For me, it’s not about having or not having a moment as much as it is about the moments there after.  I have to be able to live and love in them knowing it’s worth the investment, my involvement and is intricately connected to God’s purpose for my being.  I need something more substantial,  something real…authentic.   I believe that’s what God desires and designates for those who dare to trust Him for life and love. I am daring enough to prove God.  I dare to trust His heart towards me and believe it is in my best interest and is what is best for me. He knows best, He gets to choose and provide. I dare to wait on Him and encourage my skeptical and speculating friends to do the same.

It’s not always easy but it is possible to stay committed to honoring God, ourselves and others. When life and love challenges our conviction and threatens to contort our character we can think opposite the thought, feeling and desire.   We can choose God’s Word, way and work for how we will live and love.  They say, women need security…what better security is there?  Surely not hormones or a humans word…child boo both fluctuate are flighty and fickle.  Don’t you dare base your choice on them…you will live and love to regret breaking God’s, your own and another person’s heart.

When I’m tempted, feeling lonely, the need to be touched and held in more intimate ways.  I’m honest with God about what I’m thinking and feeling. I ask Him to HELP me reign it in and I find away to channel the frustrated energy elsewhere.   The Holy Spirit in me, working through me helps me remember God’s heart toward me… that He gives what is good for me.  He also helps me recall how my choice without Him brings me hurt and harm I can live and love without. He is my constant reminder that my life and love is not my own…God has purpose for my being and I have to value that and be sure persons connected to me value and honor that as well. That’s the prerequisite of how close we get or how much we’re able to share.

Why settle for a moment of great  with the wrong one when you can have a lifetime of great with the right one?  A lifetime full of being valued for the gift that you are. Giving yourself to the person God will use to reaffirm His love of you.  It’s all in the way you choose to see it, waiting on what will manifest into perfection or wasting time, energy, emotions and effort on people and things that will leave you lacking…living and loving opposite God, your best interest and future.

Do value yourself, hold yourself in a higher esteem.  What you have to give and share is precious, priceless and purposeful.  It is an extension of God’s love toward another.  The fact that you choose to live and love in  abstinence will honor God, your physical, emotional and spiritual well being and your future.  Your future can be as vibrant and victorious as it is meant to be minus the shadows of regret, remorse and remembering all the bad stuff that transpired in a wayward past. You don’t want to be laden down or forced to live and love with that. Live and love in God’s favor, with Him backing your effort and energy to intimately connect to the person of His choosing for you…you can trust His heart towards you…it will be good and bring you no harm. Abstinence is the only option for those of us who dare to completely trust God for the particulars of life and love.  Daring to believe and bless my future with (good to you), (good for you) and (good gracious what a gift) in the perfection of the intimacy shared between us knowing God will honor and favor that.  My friends tell me I’m special, that I have a way of thinking all my own and as I listen to their horror stories and reflect upon my own I think: “Lord help us as women to value ourselves and live and love up into your standard of what love is and what love should produce…more than a wet (well you know)…but then too maybe not because they keep asking me how I do it. I do it in the strength of the Lord, with my heart and head held high…without regret and resignation because it honors God, myself and the future and I’m able to live and love with that~AntTBri