Welcome to your final phase of The Don't Love Dare.
I’m so proud of you that you’ve made it this far.
I know that you are each still going through your own crazy struggles, but I hope that something we all have in common is that we have found rest and comfort in all of God’s love and grace for us, even though we are so far from perfect.
Also that we’ve gotten a taste for what God can do when we truly surrender our stuff to Him.
It is indescribable!
Oh girls do things get ever so complicated when we’re outside of God’s will. And a time of healing and restoration for our spirit is so necessary.
A time of just letting God nurture your soul back to health and life.
I hope that is what you’ve experienced so far.
A precious and bitter-sweet time of allowing Jesus to be like a spiritual chiropractor, just tenderly aligning you back to a healthy clear state.
How refreshing that is!
How necessary that is!
But as we venture into the last section of this book, my goal is to leave you with more than just some help and healing for your breakup.
I want to leave you with some things for the long term.
The timeless no-matter-where-you-are-and-what-you're-going-through kind of stuff.
Since I’ve begun working on the last section of this book, God has been shaking up my life in so many ways.
And I just need you to know that the things that we’re going to be talking about from here on out, are things that I am right in the midst of going through.
Oh girlfriend, I wish you only knew how much I am really going through them!
And I know it’s no accident on God’s count, but oh, I just pray that I would get it right.
That as God is delivering me out of my own selfishness and fears, that he would equip me with the proper words and lessons that would be meaningful and useful to you.
Please Jesus let it be so.
Oh girls, I want to be effective in this life.
That is such a deep desire of my heart.
I want my struggles and strife to mean something and be put to good use!
I think that you do also.
So let’s try to let God get us out of our own ways and do things with us that are beyond what we would be capable of doing with ourselves.
That people would look on at our lives and say,
“that has to be God, because that is certainly not her.”
He is so good to us!
And His book is a trazillion times better than this one!
I have been reading it lately and let me tell you that it has got everything!
Things about going beyond ourselves and living how we’re called to live in these times. It reaches and teaches all things that we need.
I need to tell you that I have never found refuge and guidance in God’s word as much as I have lately.
It just is the thing for me right now. My husband could testify that lately I’ve just been falling asleep at night with my open bible just across my chest, or my side, just embracing it with my arms.
Like hugging it. Really.
It’s been my peace and my refuge.
So in this last phase we’re going to be focusing more on getting into God’s word. Reading scripture, and finding truth and refuge there, hallelujah.
And you need to know that I’m not just going to be pulling random scriptures out of nowhere.
These last topics are things that I’m actually going through as I’m writing this, and these scriptures are the very ones in which I have been finding my own guidance and refuge in! Thank you, Jesus!
Girlfriend, get to know Him!
Girlfriend, your God is so crazy about you, and He wants to do so much for you and through you. Get. To. Know. Him.
It’s time to get right to the source!
Without Jesus my biggest natural inclination is toward myself. Bettering myself, beautifying myself, glorifying…myself.
But the depths of my soul tell me that I was made for more.
Far bigger things than myself.
Things that I can spill my life and energy at the feet of.
Things of Jesus that need accomplishing here on this Earth.
That’s what we’ve been set free for, dear sisters.
That’s why we’re here.
That is what we are talking about when we talk about purpose and destiny and doing the very thing you were created to do.
The appointed tasks that God has for us here on this Earth are what bring our lives the kind of fullness that we crave.
I have no idea what that will look like for you, or what the Lord has in store for you from here.
Only He knows that.
But I can tell you that it is what you were made for. And that:
I have no idea of the wonderful ways in which He plans to bloom you into that amazing woman that he made you to be. But that’s not for me to know. That is a gift that is only for you from your God, Jesus Christ.
*It is yours and yours alone.*
Let’s open our lives up to those gifts and blessings and callings, by being willing to let God do with us what He’d like.
To have his way. To move us past…us.
Yes, it is definitely important to allow ourselves time to heal when it’s time to heal, time for God to cleanse our minds and restore us, hallelujah where would any of us be if it weren’t for that!
But we also need to be willing to move forward when it’s time to move forward, and get over ourselves when the time calls for us to get over ourselves.
Willing to get swept up in something bigger. Like a child, the way that he goes happily through the wonders of his day in an enormous and complicated word, resting securely in the simple peace of trust.
To be okay with being a small part of the bigger picture, rather than trying to make the bigger picture revolve around us.
Are you picking up what I’m putting down?
He is so good and has such plans for you, sweet girl.
I want to ask you a question. I’m going to ask you again a little later, but give it some good thought even now:
Would you be willing to break out of your chains of self-centeredness and be that rare woman who really lives out her calling in this world?
“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. “–Proverbs 31:10
I want us to be those kind of women so badly!
To break through some of the things that not many people break through. The things that keep most people, including Christians, in a state of unfruitfulness and ineffectiveness.
That you might be one of those rare women who actually rises to the occasion of her time, her life, and her calling.
Forward moving. Wise. Ready. Alive.
So with that target in mind, and hopefully in heart, let’s get started with Phase 3.
I love you that you are still reading this, and I cannot wait to go through this with you!
The first few days we’re going to be combing through Galatians 5:13-14, because I believe that it speaks so beautifully and straight-forwardly about God’s purpose and expectation for us here in this life.
“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” - Galatians 5:13-14
Read it one more time.
Sisters, let’s get excited about what God wants to do with us!
Let’s not be chickens!
Let’s dive into Him head first and be willing to be changed, moved and humbled. Help us Jesus!
Let us become those rare women of virtue because we are willing to surrender to you in a way that is so complete that it’s rare.
Jesus, hear each girls heart even now as we enter into this last phase of this journey together.
And Jesus, just continue to do what only you can do. AMEN!!
THE DON'T LOVE DARE WILL RESUME ON MONDAY!!
THE DON'T LOVE DARE WILL RESUME ON MONDAY!!
