When I began writing this blog, I was frustrated with the difficulties of my allergy free life. About that same time I realized that I was not living the set apart life for God that I so desire to have.
I began with goals for improving my life, all aspects of my life. I want to be content with everything that I am given. I have been writing a list of three things at least a day that I am grateful for. I was becoming extremely annoyed with God for what I thought I should have but which He was giving to others. It was making me bitter. God doesn't have to give me anything. Then I began to think about Job and I realized maybe God is trying to see how I will handle the challenges.
I also am aware that not only was I becoming bitter with God, I do not love or value myself like I should. If you know me, then you know that I have dated a string of guys who were lacking what was right to be with me and if I had valued myself more I may not have dated them at all or as long as I dated them. I want to love myself. I hope that if I truly love myself then I won't be in a relationship just because I want someone to love me.
In order to find the time to gain a deeper relationship with God and to love myself, I am giving up dating until my 24th birthday. That will be a total of 13.5 months which would be a really long time for me. Since I began dating in the 8th grade I have always had a boyfriend or at least gone out on a date with no longer than a 6 month gap in between. Except for this last year. Oh wait, did I forget to mention that I haven't gone on a date since October of 2011? By the time I reach my 24th birthday that will be 25.5 months of no dating. What!?! That seems like an extremely long time, especially since one of the things I want out of a life is a Christ-dependent marriage. In is definitely an antithesis to think that I want to be married but I am not even going to date.
Each month I have a big challenge and then a reward because I know that it will help to keep me on target and if I am treating myself I won't be as likely to start to date someone just because they are "spoiling me". Weekly, I will also pick one part of my body and try to find what I like about it and then for that week truly try to love that part.
Some of my goals are really hefty goals. For example, July's goal was to go to church weekly again and to read Lady in Waiting. I started this challenge with 15 days left in July. I managed to go back to church and partially read Lady in Waiting.
September's goal is to stay on top of my school work and to run a 5k in under 30 minutes. At the moment, with 18 days until my race I am fairly certain that It will be more likely that I can do it in under 40 minutes because I haven't been training. School has also been suffering because I was working more than I should have been and I had no time to study. I have cut back on my hours, so hopefully that will help.
So this is the new direction I am taking with this blog. Hopefully you will find encouragement from my journey.
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