Perfect Romance.

I've been so blind, so terribly blind.

It's been such a weird few months in my life. I have felt so...defeated. It's the only word that comes to mind. Just defeated. I feel the Holy Spirit moving around me, and I feel like in light of many recent circumstances I've grown leaps and bounds in my relationship with the Lord.

But still I feel like I'm running, screaming out His name, calling to Him to catch me when I feel like I'm falling so hard. And in so many ways, I feel like God is so far away.

Recently in a conversation with a good friend of mine, I've realized how undeniably mistaken I've been to assert that God is the one that is far away. God isn't far away at all; It's me whose been closing my eyes but still expecting to see Him radically changing me.

We aren't the ones running after God at all, but instead HE is pursuing us. He's romancing us in a way a man romances a woman. He desires more than anything to be in a relationship with us. And when we feel that God is no where to be seen or felt, it's because we aren't looking right in front of us. We've closed our eyes and hid our head under the pillow, but still expected to be able to see what is going on around us. And I've been aimlessly wandering around looking for the God who has been standing in the same place all along.

Sometimes I feel like it takes an amazing talk with a friend or a beautiful story about an orphanage in Mexico or an encouraging story about how God is working in someone else's life for me to lift my hands to the Lord and give Him thanks, but that can't be enough. God isn't JUST in the amazing things where we can so blatantly see His work. He's in everything; He's in the Brooke Fraser song playing on my stereo right now, He's in the yummy smelling candle right next to me. He's in EVERYTHING. And I want to live a life that appreciates Him and all He provides me with.

And it's so up to us to recognize His pursuit.

But when things don't go the way you've planned, when your heart gets broken, when life takes an unexpected twist, it's hard not to want to close your eyes sometimes. It's hard to always see beauty in everything around you when continually feel a cloud of darkness following you around. But this, I've learned, is the time when I must reach out to Him the most.

David asks God in Psalm 17: 8 to "keep me as the apple of your eye," and I absolutely love this wording. It brings so much comfort to me to know that I, Stephanie Ann Bradley, am the apple of God's eye. How freaking amazing is that? God is romancing us everyday and just loving on us the most perfect way possible ALL THE TIME.

God is always there. He is always pursuing us and romancing us. But it's up to us to open our eyes and praise Him in everything in this life.

And He's the only thing we've got that is immovable, unshakeable, and perfectly reliable.

I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. Isaiah 42:6-7

I love you guys.
Steph