Heartbreaks and Love Stories

So I just read a news article that says that Nicholas Sparks is divorcing his wife.

If you knew me when I was 17 and head over heels 'in love' with a so called 'good Christian' guy, you would know what a hopeless romantic I am - so I LOVED romance novels.

And at that point in life Nicholas Sparks was one of my favourite authors and his novel 'The Notebook' was my favourite book.

I read the book till I could answer context questions on it and cried over it till my eyes were blurred and I couldn't read anymore. It was 'the best love story ever' for me at 17.

The story line is something like this: This beautiful rich girl, Allie falls in love with a poor guy named Noah and they have a 'glorious' time together before her mother takes her away because she doesn't want this boy to marry her but he keeps on writing letters to her (for which he doesn't get any replies because the mother hides the letters from the girl) and then (fast forward a few years) she gets engaged to a different man and just a few days before their wedding she goes back to that old town and meets Noah and spends time with him and end up having sex with him and then breaks off her engagement to marry Noah and they live together till they grow old and then Allie develops Alzheimer's Disease and Noah faithfully looks after her even though she couldn't even recall who he was.

To my 17 year old self - this was IT - this was a story of REAL love. (I have read quite a few books written by this man - and trust me all I needed tissues to finish reading each. one.

Later on, after I got dumped by my boyfriend - which was the turning point in my life that led me to the foot of the cross and the Lord started teaching me about what true surrender to Him was (which is also a long story about which I would hopefully write a blog post one day) I started realizing that Nicholas Sparks got it all wrong.

His book, 'The Notebook' says that disobeying/lying to your parents, sex before marriage, unfaithfulness to the man you have given your word to be married to, is the foundation for a lasting, loving, faithful marriage.

The purpose of this post is not to judge Nicholas Sparks for not getting his marriage right after writing so many love stories that has been sold ALL over the world and become bestsellers. The purpose is to share this with you:

Hollywood had it all wrong. Our world has it all wrong. They paint a picture of romance and love that could to yours by following your selfish desires. It tells us to follow our hearts and that then we can make our dreams come true but I want to tell you that this is a BIG lie. I tried it and I know countless young men and women who have tried this - it does NOT give you what it promises. Instead it leaves you with a broken heart and a hungry soul. It leaves you with ashes and dust.

But the good news is that there is a God who can heal broken hearts and satisfy hungry souls. He can turn ashes into beauty. I know this because i have experienced this love. And today I have a man after the Lord's heart waiting to marry me (in 54 days: D ) all because of the grace the Lord has showered upon me. So if you want to know the secret to a lasting, loving, faithful marriage - it's HIS face that you should seek and HIS ways you should follow - because HE is THE AUTHOR of love. And who could teach you better about marriage than the Lord who created love between a woman and a man?

The Hungry Ones...

"Blessed Are The Ones, Oh Blessed Are The Ones. Oh Blessed Are The Hungry Ones"

I belong to the group of people who would listen to the same song over and over AND OVER again if I happen to like it, and currently this is the song you would hear if you happen to walk past my room. I am challenged and broken by the truth this song speaks of... The past few months have been hard for me, spiritually... When the Lord calls you to do something that's hard to do and something that you don't want to do, and when you try to find excuses for not doing it and try to justify your grounds and when you are being stubborn as I was during the past few months, sometimes you can end up feeling dry....

A few months ago I wrote a post about loving people who don't love you back, people who are being judgmental about you and make you feel worthless. People whom you don't WANT to love. 

Writing a blog post does not make it easy for you to do something. The past few months have been full of struggles of trying to love these people and giving up and trying to find excuses for not loving them and trying to convince my self that I know better about having a heart full of joy and peace more than the Lord does. 

We all are trying to find peace that calms our souls and joy that makes our hearts sing, but something that most of us don't realize in this journey is that true peace and joy can ONLY be found in Jesus, and he can make our hearts overflow with this peace and joy if we allow him to, but we need to have hearts that are ready to be broken and cups that are willing to be dry and souls that are ready to be hungry so that they can be filled till they overflow. 

But somewhere along the way I hardened my heart and decided that I will not try so hard to love people who would not love me back... and this decision did not make me joyous despite the popular notion we are constantly bombarded with today that 'letting go' and 'ignoring' things that you find hard to deal with or things that you do not want to deal with will make you feel free. In fact it did the exact opposite - I felt like my heart was turning into stone - it did not free me, it bounded me and took me deeper into my misery where I allowed myself to be drowned in self pity and self righteousness. 

Looking back this phase I was in reminds me a lot about the Israelites living under the rule of king Pharaoh in bondage. When Moses goes and tells King Pharaoh to let God's people go and Pharaoh refuses and increases their workload instead, they were very quick to blame Moses, without realizing what the Lord had in store for them, because they were comfortable in their comfort zones, (although it would have not being so comfortable due to all the hard work they had to face) and did not see beyond that. They thought that the best thing was to put up with the 'normal' they were used to and to live with it, just like we feel like doing when we have to face hardships. They were afraid to be hungry and thirsty, afraid to sow seeds of toil and hardship - in order to gain what was beyond their sight, in order to reap beauty. But what comes next is truth we have to understand. 

Moses tells his people this, 

"... the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh King of Egypt..." 

Deuteronomy 7:8

When they were too blind to see what the Lord was offering them and were not hungry for it, the Lord redeemed them and gave them the hunger and the thirst they lacked and when they were thirsty and then when they were hungry and thirsty for Him, He satisfied the and made their cups overflow. 

So when you feel as if your heart is turning into stone or like 'letting it all go' or 'giving people what they deserve' instead of loving them unconditionally, pray to the Lord to reach out with his mighty hand and to redeem you out of the house of bondmen and ask Him to give you a hunger and a thirst for more of Him, because then He can fill your cup till it overflows and fill your heart with the peace and joy you have been looking for that will enable you to love others like He has loved us - even when we did not deserve it. 

For Blessed are the Hungry Ones!

Loving the Unlikable

All of us have that person we know, the person whom you try so hard to love, but it just seems impossible. And then we come up with excuses as to why we can’t love them. We say, but Father they don’t like me, they don’t accept me, they don’t think the way I do, they have got it all wrong, I want to help them see what is correct but they are not willing to listen to me… and this is why it’s so hard to love them.

I have felt this way many times and I have given excuses like this many times. But God has been showing me that we are called to love others without any conditions, even if they don’t like you, even if they don’t accept you, even if they don’t think like you do, even if they have got it all wrong, even if they don’t want to listen to what you have to say, and even if they don’t care about you at all, Christ still calls you to love them.

And I know, it is hard, many times I have cried my heart out to the Lord, because sometimes it hurts to love someone who does not love you back and sometimes it’s hard to do good to those who don’t like you, and sometimes you feel like running away from them and never look back sometimes it breaks your heart to love the unlikable and sometimes you pray, “Lord, anything else, I’ll go to the ends of the earth for you, but not stay with this person” but sometimes He tells you “my child, you are exactly where I want you to be, I don’t want you to go to the ends of the earth, I want you to love her, Love her the way I love you, because she needs that… because YOU need that”

Loving someone who does not love you back is exactly what Jesus did when He died on the cross for us, loving someone who rejects you and who does not want to listen to what you have to say is what Jesus did when he bore our sins and suffered on the cross. And he did that because He knew the power of love. And He calls us to love the people He has brought into our lives with the same love He showered us with.

“Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” The revelation come home to me that God has loved me to the end of all my meanness and my sin, my self-seeking and my wrong motives; and now this is the corresponding revelation – that I have to love others as God has loved me. God will bring around us any number of people we cannot respect, and we have to exhibit the love of God to them as He has exhibited it to us.”
 |Oswald Chambers – Our Brilliant Heritage|

Falling in love with His Words

".....and who through the spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the son of God....."

repeating.... again and again..... memorizing.... the words.... the words that bring life.....

All the heart really knows is what it knows by heart.....
"I have laid up Thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee."
(Psalms 119:11)

"I know no other single practice in the Christian life more rewarding..... than memorizing Scripture..... No other single exercise pays greater spiritual dividends"
-Charles Swindell-

"How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to the WORD. With my whole heart I seek Thee; let me not wonder from Thy commandments! "
(Psalms. 119: 9-10)

"Bible memorization is absolutely fundamental to spiritual formation. If I had to choose between all the disciplines of the spiritual life, I would choose Bible memorization, because it is a fundamental way of filling our minds with what it needs. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. That’s where you need it!
How does it get in your mouth?
Memorization"
-Dallas Willard-

"This book of law shall not depart from thy mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night...."
(Joshua 1:8)

Memorizing Scripture is obeying the Lord,
"Let the word of Christ rarely in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom"
(Colossians 3:16)

Let us lay in our hearts what is a light to our feet and hold fast to what is lamp into our paths....

Romance...

“You still don’t have a boyfriend?! Rajinie whatever happened in the past is now over, it’s time to move on, find romance, don’t give up on it just because some guy left your heart broken…

I heard this from a friend with whom I made contact after sometime, and what she said made me think.

Romance is beautiful and precious, but only when it flows from a relationship with the author of romance – Jesus. One could end up with a good love story by working according to the formula that the world has made up for romance; flirting, dating, dressing seductively to attract men and manipulating them with your words and actions….. But it always ends with dissatisfaction, pain and heartbreak- for how can love survive without the God Of love being the centre piece?

But on the other hand, you will get His best for you, if you surrender all your dreams to Him and reside in Him with a heart content and full of adoration and love for Him.

His kind of romance is breathtakingly beautiful and has no heartbreak – for how can it be when He is the God of love?
The shallow, trivial worldly wisdom will only hinder and mar the beauty of a God scripted love story. You don’t have to go around searching for romance (like my friend suggested), it’s already given to you – it was given to you on the day when He stretched His arms on the cross and died for you…

So, I don’t have a boyfriend, not because my heart is broken or sore, but because the lover of my soul has already claimed it and has healed the scars and made it new – so that I can be His bride, pure and set apart for Him!

Isn’t that romance? In fact isn’t that the best love story ever?

So it's Official...

So I'm now officially blogging!! This is something that I've been thinking about for sometime now but never had the time to start. 

Finally thanks to two boys I teach in school who gave me lots and lots of advice about blogging - I finally started. (despite the fact that I'm not that good in writing ;) ) 

First let me tell you something about myself, I am Rajinie, daughter to amazing parents, Sujith and Renuka and eldest sister to a beautiful sister and two 'oh so adorable' brothers ( one might say I'm a bit too bias on that one :) )

Oh and yes, I am a teacher - who enjoys going to school and teaching so much that I think that it is one of the best things you can do in life!!

So this blog is about (as the title says) my Beloved; Jesus... Two years ago I decided to 'say yes' to Him and gave Him my life, and let me tell you, I NEVER regret that decision I made... so I thought it's time that I start sharing about the things that He has been teaching me so that you also will be strengthened  in your walk with Him - and if you haven't caught even a glimpse of Him yet, my humble prayer is that this blog will serve as a sign leading you to Him...