why we run

i'm always running [away].

The crazy thing is that girls want to be pursued, want to know that their hearts are worthwhile. And yet, we run away. Is it because we are afraid that someone will find us beautiful and will pursue us? Or is it because there is a terrible fear of being weighed and found wanting, and being left alone?

We want to spend our lives with men "like these, they are just like trees, planted near the streams of water; with roots that grow deep, deep into the ground" (Shawn Mcdonald). But what is the cost? Being women like these, learning to be planted just like trees near streams of living water? There are all kinds of water, but we need to be planted near the living streams.

I think we want to be taken and made beautiful.

this week is going to be interesting. will i spend it running away? i hope i won't. i hope i will be brave and sweet and strong and kind. Jesus, give me grace [i have so little on my own].

I am embarking on a journey. It is a journey that I know is dangerous and where so much about the destination is still unknown. The map says the destination is the heart of God. But there is so much between here and there that I am almost taken aback by how far I haven't come. The start of this journey is learning about desire and my own heart, made in His image and twisted by the fall. I live a little in trepidation, because I know that where I am going requires change, and even though I have lived with myself for almost 23 years, I'm not exactly certain of what I'll find in the deepest places of my own heart. I'm not afraid of finding glory, but of finding darkness; not of potential, but failure; not of power but of infinite weakness.
But once I get there I KNOW I will find not only who I am, but who I need God to be, and what He needs me to be. I am glad, in some ways, that it will be a challenge, an adventure that spells ruin. To be ruined for the ordinary, ruined for the past, ruined for everything but the glory of the Lord and intimacy with Him is all I want. That's really why I am allegorically packing my hypothetical bags - to get rid of them.