My Only Statement About the Election

I know who I think is a good leader for the U.S. in 2012-2016. If you knew my family - blood & non, you would know that I am mostly alone in my decision.

But because I am human, & my heart is deceitful above all things & desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9) & because God uses the foolish to confound the wise & the weak to confound the strong (1 Cor. 1:26-28) so that “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov 14:12)…in simple terms I can’t trust my opinion any more than I can trust yours.

For this reason, I started fasting at sundown today and will continue until the election results are broadcast tomorrow. I don’t really expect to change my vote or for you to change yours. This is me presenting to God Almighty my sackcloth & ashes & saying “Lord, the fact is: I’ve got nothing, no answers, no solutions. Whether we live or die, go to war, starve, make any progress or rise above any depravity, it will be because You move among Your people. So move. At least in me.”

Are you in?

Composite

Many people are blessed to be able to have one job/career that makes them money and gives them purpose.  Shoutout to those people. My papa was a PA, my cousin’s wife works in geriatrics. My aunt and cousin are elementary school teachers. My uncle and cousin are pastors. Several other family members (second-cousins, great-grandparents) are teachers and ministers (preachers, elders, deacons).

But God has blessed some of us, namely me, differently. I am the sum of all of my parts - my mothers and fathers, my sisters and brothers, blood and earth.To try and cut out pieces of myself in order to fit a cushy, 9-to-5 mold is to dishonor the composite God has created.  It might not be easy this way, but it’s what I’m supposed to do, where I’m supposed to be. I am not only the artistic daughter of an artistic father. I am not only destined to teach. I am not only destined to preach.  I am not only destined to write.  I am not only destined to serve my community.  I am not only destined to mother. 

I am the sum of all of my parts.

I just pray that the Lord continues giving me strength and diligence to honor them all.

Did you all see this?  This woman is very brave. God bless the people around her. 

From "So Worth Loving"

Ashley Fielden at So Worth Loving wrote:
I like many other woman have been obsessed with romantic love. The idea of it. The possession of it. The identity I cling to from it.
It is altogether a whirlwind of magic and or devastation.
When any person places the weight of their entire identity on a house of cards it will smash into a thousand pieces.
I’ve come to learn "Friendship makes a LIFE even more deeply than (Romantic) love" (Elie Weisel).

I am all for love! I love- love! However I am not EVER for placing your hands around someone in an attempt to control them for the sake of your own happiness.
I am also not a fan of ultimatum “love”, the I have to have it “love” or the being entirely lost without him love.
I was once this girl. Fragile and needing to cling to a man. In affect suffocating him and unconsciously hating myself for it!
This way of being was never intended for us as women.
I am coming to learn the value of investing in myself. People may say it is self indulgent or selfish. But I can say with the utmost confidence it is the best gift you can give the world!
Nurture your own light and love!!!
Being in a place of utter contentment with who you are is a very rare beauty indeed.
Unimaginable for most of us. But I have slowly put in the hours of truly, undeniably loving myself. A friendship is built on hours of time spent in mutual trust and admiration. Not on a high of a look or touch. And so it is with yourself.
Time must be invested in oneself so that you may and WILL have that rare beauty of loving yourself!

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I don't have much of anything to add. I agree with what she said, and she said it more simply than I usually do.  If you want to be beautiful, you have to know inside and outside, up and down, front and back, in the morning and at night that you are beautiful.  It took me about two years to learn this.  Perhaps if you don't hate yourself to start with, it won't take as long.  But this mirrors a relationship with another person. You get to know them/yourself and then you come to love them/yourself.  If you won't do it for yourself, why should someone else do it for you? 

I saw the So Worth Loving post on To My Future Spouse

Proverbs 31:30

Click here to see the  original post:

(I copied what I found)
After going viral on Reddit’s ‘Funny’ section for being odd-looking with facial hair, the girl above gave the following graceful and fresh response:

“Hey, guys. This is Balpreet Kaur, the girl from the picture. I actually didn’t know about this until one of my friends told on facebook. If the OP wanted a picture, they could have just asked and I could have smiled :) However, I’m not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it’s who I am. Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn’t reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying ‘mine, mine’ and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a seperateness between ourselves and the divinity within us. By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. So, to me, my face isn’t important but the smile and the happiness that lie behind the face are. :-) So, if anyone sees me at OSU, please come up and say hello. I appreciate all of the comments here, both positive and less positive because I’ve gotten a better understanding of myself and others from this. Also, the yoga pants are quite comfortable and the Better Together tshirt is actually from Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that focuses on storytelling and engagement between different faiths. :) I hope this explains everything a bit more, and I apologize for causing such confusion and uttering anything that hurt anyone.”

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What a beautiful story!

Ladies, are you this comfortable with your face, hair, skin, body? Better question: are you this submitted to the God who gave you your features? Even better question: are you this proud of who you are, who you were very specifically made to be?


“Why would a loving God create a woman like this, who will get made fun of? Why would He put her through that?”
Why are you offended on her behalf when she is not offended? Why are you mad about what she has embraced?  If she were as commercially beautiful as YOU wish she was, would she have an opportunity to gain national media attention about being comfortable in the body she was given?  Perhaps she was created for this photo, for this moment, in order to teach you that what matters is REALLY what’s inside.

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised (KJV).

Psalm 37:4 - Delight

“Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” (NKJV)

I know this verse by heart. When I saw the reference on @KrissysToyBox ‘s profile, I immediately knew which verse it was.  And as often happens when I think of my friend’s life, I wonder how I can get on her level, how I can love and serve God more and get the desires of my heart.

My heart has one primary desire: a Godly marriage that will minister to both of us, our community and our future kids.  Mostly everything else I want I have, or I know exactly how to get it.

But this morning, for the first time, I realized that I have been reading a few words into that verse that don’t exist.  If you had asked me, “What does Psalm 37:4 say?” I probably would have quoted it correctly, as it’s written above.  But in my head and heart, I have always believed it to say “Delight yourself IN THE LAW OF the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”
Huge difference!
 
I am learning more and more, better and better to love God’s law (almost as much as His grace) - read Psalm 119 over a week or less - but that’s not what that particular verse says.  That verse says delight yourself in HIM, in His person, in His personality, in His presence. 

It reminds me of a song I learned my freshman year of college.
“I want to sit at Your feet,
drink from the cup in Your hand,
lay back against You and breathe,
feel Your heartbeat.
this love is so deep,
it’s more than I can stand,
I melt in Your hands,
it’s overwhelming.” 
 
It sounds like she’s talking about a man doesn’t it?  She’s not. She’s talking about God.  And I used to feel that with God often.  John and Stasi Eldredge write in Captivating that “the essence of holiness is romance.” So moments with God when you can feel His hands and His heartbeat, that is when you have entered into the Holy Place, maybe even the Holy of Holies.

The statement my friend made that caused me to look at her profile was: “The best thing I ever did was fall in love with Jesus!”  I relate to the sentiment, but in my memory, not in my current practice. I spend a LOT of time dancing in the outer court, I even worship in the inner court.  And I live to serve God and His Kingdom.  But I haven’t spent a ton of time lately in the deeper places, delighting in God, being romanced by Him, romancing Him. The Eldredges also assert that the Lord waits to be wanted. I can surely relate to that. 

Let me be clear. I am NOT saying, let me get close to God so that I can get my man already.  Because you cannot get that close to God with an ulterior motive. But I do believe that the more I am wrapped in the glory of God, the sooner I can partner with the man who wants to dwell with me there. There is no greater love than God’s anyway.

Reach Out Your Hands

When I was young, I let my feelings run me.  When I was happy I laughed, when I was sad I cried, when I was angry I cursed.

Somewhere around 17, when some people I trusted saw my love for a boy, my dedication to it even though he didn’t return it, and made fun of me and told secrets behind my back, I started teaching myself to cover my feelings.  I can’t act like having composure is bad.  Grown-ups have to learn not to take their problems with them everywhere, crying at work and such.  But I over-corrected.  I put my feelings so far down that I hid them from everyone but God.  And honestly, even when they came out before God, I was angry at my vulnerability.  As far as I was concerned, a strong person simply never cried.  A smart person never allowed anything to hurt.  Unlike many who close off their pain, I let my laughter run free.  For years, the only emotion I had was laughter.  I learned to laugh at things that weren’t funny, because laughing kept me from hurting.

Over the last months, I have learned how to be vulnerable again.  I have learned how to say when I’m sad and be sad without falling apart.  I have learned to say when I’m irritated, and be irritated without cursing.  And amazingly, I have even learned to love in moderation.  That sounds so false.  Love in moderation.  But I’ve learned to do it, not because it’s good for me - I prefer to go all in - but because moderation is all some people can stand.  And I can’t be mad at them for that.

At the beginning of the year, I learned (more or less against my will) that I still want to love and be loved.  I had convinced myself that I was fine without it.  And I am fine.  But I want better than fine.  Interestingly, even the man who reminded me that I wanted that was unable to meet me in love.

Now, I can pretty well say that my emotions are all back in the right place. I still laugh way more than I cry, and I relegate my tears to safe places.  I keep my love and affection at levels people can handle.  And I want a love to call my own.  It’s hard to want and not have.  But I am untrue to myself if I behave like I’m not a feeler.

As a told a dear friend just the other day, “God can’t give you what you’re not ready for, but He won’t hold back what you are ready for.”  And sometimes, He’s not holding back what we’re ready for, we just need to reach out our hands.

Make the Choice - Video Blog

Hard Concept - Make Me a Wife

“God will make you into a wife before he sends you a husband.”

I got that from my pastor (although I can’t say for sure he didn’t read it or hear it somewhere else). And then he asked us to pray, as he often does, “Lord, make me a wife.”

I distinctly remember when he first said this. Maybe two years ago, he was preaching and he made that statement. Everything I had built up in myself about independent women and what we stand for and who we are and are not, all of that rose up and got angry at his statement.

“Make me a wife”?!?!? Um, no. “If a man can’t handle me on my worst day, he doesn’t deserve me on my best.” Y’all have surely heard that. I am just fine the way I am. I do this and this and this and know this and this and this, God shouldn’t have to change me into some strange archetypal Proverbs 31 woman that I’m not in order for someone to want to marry me? Why can’t I just be me?

Does that sound crazy, or relatable?

It took me until approximately March of this year to understand that this wasn’t an insult or a personal attack on my character or nature.  I had to read Captivating again, and realize that being a wife is what woman was created to do (the fall is what made this hard; there is no flaw in the design) because being a wife is the closest you can be to a man without being God. I had to go through the motions in my head for months before I finally saw what my pastor was saying.

If you’re doing things God’s way, you won’t have to struggle to transition from being single (not alone but all-one, my pastor says). You don’t have to learn everything after the wedding, you can learn much of it, specifically the spiritual posture, the attitude and the outlook beforehand.  The first few years of marriage can be more bliss than burden when you’ve done your work upfront.
Here’s a behavioral example. I have always been a proficient cooker who knew how to make my own favorite foods, but I’ve never been great. I used to mess around with a guy who always said he couldn’t date a woman who couldn’t cook. My attitude was, “if my cooking skills are the deal-breaker, then we would never last. That’s petty.” And to an extent it is petty. I was also more upset about the potential rejection than the statement/ideology itself.
Now, I am getting better at cooking all the time. I cook because I realized that it’s cheaper and healthier and I actually kind of like it. I’m a creative; it’s edible art! I decided to start cooking for myself. That’s a behavior that has changed in me. I was not in any type of relationship at the time I decided to make the change.  But I guarantee you that my future-husband will appreciate my desire to feed and sustain him. Not only do I find pleasure in it now, but I can sow it as a seed into my future marriage. What if acts of service is his love language?  It is a service I will provide for the man and the family I love, but it started in me bettering myself for myself.

The idea of “becoming a wife” took years for me to understand. But I fully believe that my spiritual and emotional transition from single to married is well underway and that I’m over the hardest parts.

It may feel wrong, but I challenge you with this: If you ever want to be married, ask God to show you what it really means to be a wife. Read Captivating; it’ll help. And then pray, “Lord, make me a wife.” He answers prayer, you know.

Hidden in God - Video Blog

Not Why I'm Here

Things This Blog Does Not Seek To Do:
(Any of the following statements can be followed up with the phrase: “…that’s not why I’m here”)

To turn you into a good girl or a lady…
“well-behaved women rarely make history.”
Neither Ruth nor Rahab nor Esther were particularly well-behaved.

To tell you exactly how to be a perfect Christian…
I can’t tell you because I don’t know. I’m just trying to do the best I can with what I have. The blog is called Almost 31 Women because I know what the standard is, but I also know I haven’t reached it yet. All we can do is strive.

To tell you why I’m right and you’re wrong…
I’m wrong a lot. I just believe that God works my mistakes out into victories.

To do Biblical and theological apologetics…
If your beliefs are set a certain way, only God can change you, not me.  But there will be times when I will explain something really in-depth.

To keep it clean and neat and tidy…
I keep it REAL only, and sometimes that’s dirty, ugly, or unattractive.

To keep you single…
We all want love that lasts a lifetime. I don’t begrudge anyone that. I also don’t think you should spend all of your time caring about that.  And I know that I know that I know that it’s infinitely more difficult to find the right man when you are not the right woman. I believe in working on self first.

To get you married…
I have never had a relationship longer than 4 months. I can’t help myself get married, much less you.

To push a political agenda…
I deal with politics on najjustiz.tumblr.com…but I’m trying to keep that stuff at a minimum in general.

To promote natural hair or healthy-living…
I have natural hair and I believe in healthy living. I am also clinically overweight. I believe that God cares about our health, but not our body type. I am active so that I have the energy to play with my baby cousins and live a long, successful life.  God promised us 120 years. I think it’d be awesome to make it all the way.  I am here to promote swag at any shape or size. I am here to tell you are beautiful no matter what.

My Ideal Man

At the end of the day it comes down to this: I am called to minister to people through spoken word, through the Internet, through books, through preaching, through teaching. And as any good teacher, preacher or activist (because what is a preacher if not an activist for Christ?) knows, some days the work that is set before you is hard. And some days you come home weary, or frustrated, or just vulnerable in your soul. On days like that, days like today, I need a man whose natural inclination is to minister to me (as Christ loved the Church) by metaphorically carrying me to the Throne of God. I don’t need him to intellectualize. I don’t need him to ply me with food or sex. I need him to pray over me with a God-given strength.

If you don’t know God like that, if our spirits aren’t connected to each other and each other’s callings and purposes like that, then we can’t be an effective ministry team.

My goal is to be some king-man’s “ezer kenegdo,” his life-saver (cf. John and Stasi Eldredge “Captivating”). And for him to be to me as Christ is to the church (Ephesians 5:25), my redeemer, my servant leader, and my husbandman, my caretaker, the One who looks after me like a gardener looks after his garden (John 15).

That’s the ideal man, the one I’m waiting for, the one any man can be and any woman can have.

All of life starts, continues, and ends with Jesus. That includes relationships. That includes marriage.

Get Out of Your Own Way

“No one can get you outside the will of God except you.”

Mentors, church leaders, and unwitting random people I know have been speaking books and poetry competitions and festivals over my life for five or more years.  I have yet to write a book…I pretend like blogging is good enough.  And I’ve only followed through on one poetry competition…I pretend like the open mic is good enough.

“You cannot be over what God has put under you until you are under what God has put over you.” - Pastor Charles Martin, Integrity’s Voice of Victory Church

That said, you can’t be under the spiritual authority/calling that you want to be under until you fulfill the requirements of the calling that God has already placed you under.  You can’t be promoted if you don’t finish training. I am supposed to make a ministry out of this (Almost 31 Women), and help this bloom. I am supposed to have at least one book out.  I can’t step out from under the single women’s ministry God put me under as training for my ministry as a wife and mom until I fulfill the initial requirements of the training as a single woman with swag.

I’ve had this inkling before but never paid close attention to it.  I am in my own way.  If I would do what God told me to do a long time ago, I might speed up the process of dating, engagement and marriage.  Just because I think I have met the one, or because it was prophesied to me that he was on his way to me, does not expunge (get rid of, replace) my former callings.

I came upon this realization again one night when DearHeart was texting me. He likes to see me perform and I was telling him about my YouTube channel.  I mentioned that there were more ministry videos than performance recordings (why? I’ve been a poet longer).  And then I started rambling to him about needing to get back into ministry mode, studying the Word, relinquishing my control to God.  All of the sudden at 3:30 a.m. all I wanted to do was study my Bible and set up a schedule of topics and posts for this blog and outline my book.  So that’s what I did.

I’ve blamed my singleness on a lot of things, but I have rarely considered that I’m in my own way.  If you want something you don’t have, consider what you might ought to be doing that you’re not.  Preparation is a prophet.

My Purpose

After I had been blogging on tumblr for about 8 months, God blessed me with a vision to show people what He is doing for me as I walk through life as a single 24-year-old.

Christians are called to be different and set apart from the crowd, but that doesn’t have to mean that we are weird social pariahs who don’t like anything “normal” people like. 

Singleness is not a disease.  I think everyone should stay single until they know who they are and what they want.  Dating and breaking up in a never-ending cycle hurts everyone. 

Being female does not mean being substandard - even in the Church.  Our place is different, and interesting, and misunderstood.  I want to explore it.

This blog was originally called "Christian Single Girl Swag." I didn’t create it because I wanted to remain single forever, but because that's where I was in my life at the time - trying to live the best single life possible.  It's not about waiting for or going after a man either though.  It’s about being the best I can be, living life with the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19), and making the greatest commandments real.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).  I renamed it Almost 31 Women based on Proverbs 31 as the standard for what a godly woman looks like, and the 31 Status movement.  I acknowledge, though, that I’m not in a relationship or married and I don’t know how soon I will be.  I also am not perfectly in line with the 31 Status standard.  I called it Almost 31 because I am getting there.  And I want to reach out to all women who are trying to get there.  None of us are perfect, so I’m also exploring ministry through the lens of my humanity.  The point is that God is the only One perfect, the only One righteous and pure, so whatever gets done here is because of God’s mercy and grace.

My goal is never to tell anyone what to do, just to tell y’all what I’m doing and how God is taking care of me through EVERYTHING! I believe women (and men) can have swag and still be Christ-like, or better said: I can be me and still be His - and so can you! I believe we can be beautiful and still be sanctified. 

To get really blunt, I deal a lot with sex. I try to live with my heart open and my legs closed.  Too often we shut down our hearts because we misinterpret Proverbs 4:23. Too often we use sex to cure loneliness. I am all about real talk and honesty. If I give information that seems too revealing it’s because I want to be clear: God is God over every little thing - including, especially the messy stuff. 

I am a very active part of a church family - Integrity’s Voice of Victory Church in Oklahoma City, OK - where God is exalted, Satan is defeated, and Jesus Christ is Lord. I took a ministry class there, because I want to know as much as I can about how to walk out the call God has placed on my life.

I used to go to and still have a lot of love for LifeChurch.tv.  I am fully submitted to my Pastor Charles Martin at IVVC, but some of my ideas and theories were developed by Craig Groeschel at LC.tv and Pastor Danny Chambers at OasisChurch.tv in Nashville also.