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God has been teaching me an unreal amount of things in the last 6 months--things that it seems he has to teach me over and over, but by his grace I am making progress, slowly but surely. I am so thankful that God's love for us doesn't depend on the number of times that he has to teach us things or the amount of progress that we make--he just loves us because he loves us.

A few weeks ago as I was reading through Jeremiah, I came across this verse in Jeremiah 2:13 and was particularly struck by it.

"For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me--the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!

How often do we chase things that we think will make us happy, only to abandon the only one that can truly fill us up? In the interest of keeping it real with you guys, I want to say that for the LONGEST time I have been chasing relationships. Not in the way that some people do. I was not by any means a serial dater, in fact I have only had 2 boyfriends ever. But in my mind and in my heart, I believed this lie that when I found that special "one", I would be complete. Now the thing is that it wasn't a constant state of mind, but I would definitely cycle through seasons where that was literally all I could think about.

Now I am not sure how theologically correct this is but I am going to go with it. I think that sometimes when we are constantly chasing things that the Lord knows are not going to fill us up the way he wants to, he lets us taste them so that we can see that they actually are not as satisfying as we believed that they would be. I would encourage you to test that before you take my word for it but I believe it to be true. A little bit ago I started dating an incredible guy who seemingly had everything that I was looking for. But after just a few weeks I realized that even he could not fill or satisfy that longing in my heart. It was the strangest thing! I turned to God and I was like "I get it! I finally get it!"This idea that had been planted in my head by society and whatever else that finding a man would in a sense "complete me" had at long last been uprooted and I finally came to the realization deep down in my heart that only Jesus could satisfy. Time and time again I come to the conclusion that everything else is broken cisterns that cannot hold any water. There is only one source from which we can drink and never thirst again.

So I feel like a new woman. For the first time in my life I can say that I am content in my singleness. I have these new lenses where I now see it as a gift and not a curse as I once did. Thank you Jesus.