Cheesy title...but it's only been in the past year that I've come to accept this truth: The Creator of the Universe is in Love with ME. Say that to yourself...

I read this passage from Genesis 29 this past weekend and it made me think of my own past relationships:

31 When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to have children, but Rachel could not conceive. 32 So Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said "The Lord has noticed my misery, and now my husband will love me."

33 She soon became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. She named him Simeon, for she said, "The Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me another son."

34 Then she became pregnant a third time and gave birth to another son. She named him Levi, for she said "Surely this time my husband will feel affection for me, since I have given him 3 sons!"

35 Once again, Leah became pregnant and gave birth to another son. She named him Judah, for she said, "Now I will praise the Lord!" And then she stopped having children.

Now granted, I have no children, but as a woman, I can totally relate to Leah's situation. We feel unloved, lonely, or scared we actually might end up alone, and so we manipulate circumstances or become someone we are not in order to gain affection, in an effort to feel loved and accepted. Looking back on most of my signficant dating relationships, I often compromised my values and lowered my standards in order to gain the love and affection of a particular guy I wanted to be in a relationship with. I desperately wanted someone to really get to know who I was and what I believed in. Someone who understood my hopes and dreams and fears and walked along side of me. Someone who pursued me with interest and was willing to go to great lengths to ensure my happiness.

I never realized it at the time, but what I was searching for all those years was God Himself. So it's no surprise to me that I never really knew myself until I knew God. This idea of a relationship with Jesus - it was completely foreign to me. For all the years I had been going to church, I never understood that the Creator of the universe wanted a relationship with me. I could've saved myself a lot of heartache if I had learned this earlier...

Is it possible this was God's plan all along? Maybe He knew exactly what it was going to take for me to accept His love, so He let me take my sweet time going after what I thought I wanted, only to end up with a bad ending every time.

I have to say I'm not where I thought I'd be at my age. But most importantly, I am learning who I am in the Lord's eyes and trying faithfully to follow His will for my life. It's not easy because the world tells me I am someone else - that I should look a certain way, act a certain way, that I should get nervous because I'm almost 30 and not even close to being married...

As women (myself included!), we need to do a better job at allowing Christ to be the One who fills our cups. We need to get out of the mindset that we need a man to bring any sense of excitement to our lives. We need to stop basing our sense of self-worth on whether or not a guy is interested in us. We need to focus on becoming who Christ says we are and who He created us to be, so that we are ready when He decides it's time to bring us the man chosen for us... the one who will be the overflow in our cup.