Anybody Know a Good Seamstress?

My last few runs have been pretty lack-luster to say the least, hence why you’ve not heard from me. NOT to mention, I’ve been doing a marvelous job at pushing these wedding plans to the side until my fiance comes home…  almost makes his return bittersweet… don’t worry dear, less bitter than sweet… (kinda).

But on tonight’s run, I really started to wrestle with some things. I read a blog post earlier today that really shook me. Written by a heart that is very obviously captivated by Jesus, but also very obviously teaching with an uninformed agenda, I quickly felt my spirit burdened by this beautifully passionate Jesus follower, still not seeing the big picture…

Jesus is love, the basis of the blog post I read this morning. We’ve heard it. We’ve said it. We’ve used. And perhaps, more than anything, we’ve abused it.

We’ve used this all-encompassing compassionate biblical concept to excuse wrong behavior that we don’t intend on changing… to excuse the sin patterns in our life.

There are some pretty cool things that happen when you run.

Obviously, one, you get a nice toned up behind and some pretty cute quads. Two, you start to feel better; you breathe deeper and stand straighter and have a little more energy to burn.

But what’s even better is that your body starts to offer you some serious benefits. When you run you release all those gross, nasty toxins that are built up in your body. You get rid of a lot of the crap inside of you. AND as it’s doing that, it also releases endorphins, helping us let go of some stress and giving us a natural happiness boost. Not bad, eh?

Well, for all the good it does us, we sure don’t like it, do we? (okay, I sure don’t like it)

No, because it makes us push ourselves. It makes our muscles hurt. It makes stretch and move in ways we really don’t want to.

From everything I’ve heard, marriage is very much the same way. It has a lot to offer us. It’s fulfilling. It can help complete us and make us better people. It gives us someone to love and walk life with. It offers us the chance to show people what God’s love for the church looks like.  (…and the tax break isn’t bad either)

But they don’t usually last, do they?

No, because they hurt and they’re hard and it makes us stretch and move in ways we really don’t want to.

Sound familiar?

Here’s what I’m getting at. Jesus is love. But just like you don’t get nice lean legs by sitting on the couch, or a happily ever after marriage without weathering the storms of a committed relationship, you don’t get to be in perfect relationship with God without moving past the crap in your life.

We must push ourselves to run the toxins of our sinfulness out of our relationship with Jesus, so we can truly experience the fullness of His perfect love. We must push ourselves in our relationships with our spouses (or soon to be spouses) through the painful times so those sweet, powerful endorphins can be released and offer us the joy we long for from our marriage.

 If we don’t push each other to do that, while we may not be upsetting people, we may be letting them miss out on best Jesus has for them. His love is whole and complete, and He wants to make our lives reflect that.

So here’s the question?

Are we willing to push each other past our sinfulness so we can truly experience God?

Or are we going to sit on the couch and let ourselves go and convince ourselves, “Oh, my wedding dress will still zip up in a few months… “

Might be time to call the seamstress…

Wedding Count:
130 days- 6 miles