antipara

an excerpt from Chapter 8 of "Let me be a woman"

by Elisabeth Elliot

Perspective makes all the difference in the world.

If you catch even a glimpse of the divine design (and who can see more than a glimpse of any part of it?), you will be humbled and awed at least. I believe a true understanding of it will make you grateful. But there are those to whom being a woman is nothing more than an inconvenience, to be suffered because it is unavoidable and to be ignored if at all possible. Their lives are spent pining to be something else. Every creature of God is given something that could be called an inconvenience, I suppose, depending on one's perspective. The elephant and the mouse might each complain about his size, the turtle about his shell, the bird about his wings. But elephants are not called upon to run behind wainscots, mice will not be found "pacing along as though they have an appointment at the end of the world," turtles have no need to fly nor birds to creep. The special gift and ability of each creature defines its special limitations. And as the bird easily comes to terms with the necessity of bearing wings when it finds that it is, in fact, the wings that bear the bird-- up, away from the world, into the sky, into freedom--so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts, her special calling-- wings, in fact, which bear her up into perfect freedom, into the will of God.

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That principle can be applied to the unparalleled season of singleness.

If one sees it as "God keeping something that is good (e.g. marriage)"

then the season would be a curse.

Yet if one saw it as it is, a gift from God, then singleness will be

a blessing.

Also, it all boils down to your view of who God is and the truth about God.

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Psalm 34:8-10 (New International Version)

⁸ Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

⁹ Fear the LORD, you his saints,
for those who fear him lack nothing.

¹⁰ The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

Romans 8:32 (New International Version)

³²He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

esta es mi oracion en el desierto

Dear Queen,

if you're lost you can look--

and you will find me

time after time

if you fall I will catch you--

I'll be waiting time after time

this love is unbreakable,
through fire and flames,
when all this is over,
Our love still remains.

God's love.

Enduring.

Unfailing.

Immense.

All-encompassing.

Inexhaustible.

yet still is Indescribable.

My Lover,

Your fierce passionate love right now is so real in my life.

You are indeed the Lover of my soul.

I can feel you pursuing me every moment.

Suddenly, every love song is about us, sunshine, stars, meals, people,

every smile, every situation is like a neat little package from You.

Every passage is an assurance or an affirmation from You.

I know that in every situation that I am facing is Your way of

IMPRESSING me, a way to showcase Your Strength.

I am joyful in whatever situation I am faced with, because I know

You will be there to prove Your Love, Your Grace.

I AM IMPRESSED, impress me even more!

I love being in the desert because it's a place for vulnerability, a place wherein You will be

seen, a place of refuge, a place where I can meet with You alone.

I LOVE YOU TOO my Lover.

I am Yours.

--

Your Bride.

Queen

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Romans 8:35-39 (New International Version)

³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?³⁶As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jeremiah 31:3 (New International Version)

³ The LORD appeared to us in the past,saying:
"I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness.