Deepest strength

 From Dr. K N Jacob

Your partner will fail you.

You'll fail them.

That's marriage.

What matters is the grace to begin again.

Hold your partner, not the pain.

Forgiveness is not weakness.

It's love's deepest strength.

Restore

 "I will restore to you the

years that the swarming

locust has eaten."

~Joel 2:25

When God promises restoration,

trust Him even when you can't yet

see how He will redeem what you've

lost.

What was lost is not beyond His

reach. What was broken is not

beyond His restoration.

Keep believing. God can turn years

of loss into a testimony of His

faithfulness.

~Mav Coronado

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Joel 2:25: I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten --

the great locust and the young locust,

the other locusts and the locust swarm --

my great army that I sent among you.

Unchosen

 Maybe you're in a 

Leah season.

(Genesis 29:31-35)

Leah knew the ache of being near

someone, yet never feeling chosen. She

was overlooked, unwanted, and unloved.

Yet God saw her.

Maybe you've spent years trying to earn

someone's love or approval, hoping they

would finally choose you.

But you don't have to beg to be valued.

The right love won't make you beg to be

chosen.

Sometimes, being unchosen leads you to

the peace of being fully seen by God.

~Mav Coronado

You may have been overlooked by people, bit you were never overlooked by God.

You don't have to chase love, beg to be chosen, or prove your worth.

God sees the parts of you others failed to notice -- and sometimes, what feels like rejection is simply God leading you toward a love that won't make you question your worth.

You are already seen. 

You are already loved.

You are already chosen by Him.

------------------------------------

Genesis 29:31-35: When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, "It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now."

She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "Because the Lord has heard that I am  not loved, He have me this one too." So she named him Simeon.

Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons." So he was named Levi.

She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "This time I will praise the Lord." So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.

You too

Knowing your worth isn't about thinking

that you're better than anyone else; it's about

knowing that you're a good person to others

and that you too are worthy of being treated

with kindness, decency, and respect.

~Mark Smith

Both sides

 God has never asked you

to carry both sides of the covenant.

He simply asks you

to be faithful with your side.

 From Hope After Betrayal

One of the heaviest burdens betrayed partners

carry is the belief that if they had just been more...

More patient.

More forgiving.

More prayerful.

More faithful.

...their marriage would have been different.

Without realizing it, they quietly assume

responsibility for two hearts.

But covenant has never worked that way.

When God established covenant throughout

Scripture, He always held each person

accountable for their own faithfulness.

He never asked one person's obedience to

compensate for another person's rebellion.

Think about that for a moment.

God Himself has remained perfectly faithful to

humanity from the beginning.

Yet countless people still reject Him.

His faithfulness does not guarantee another

person's response.

Neither does yours.

When you carry both sides of the covenant, you

will eventually collapse under its weight God never

intended you to bear.

But when you release that the other person's 

obedience back into God's hands...

Something remarkable happens. 

Your faithfulness becomes an act of worship.

You stop striving to control an outcome.

And you begin resting in the truth that God sees

your obedience, even when another person

refuses theirs.

One day, every one of us will stand before the

Lord.

Not to give an account for another person's

choices...

But for our own.

There is tremendous freedom in that.

God has never asked you to carry both sides of

the covenant.

He simply asks you to be faithful with your side.

Full

 your life will be

full of love because

you are full of love.

Ending

 Happy Ending

So, the jeans no longer fit, there are

far worse things that could happen.

Like lingering.

Like never feeling so full that you get

to complain about the extra bulge.

So, you were her in your twenties.

You were also wanting, you were also lost.

A stray on the street listening for a whistle.

A shallow, little pool on a crowded shore,

waiting for a wave to fill you up.

Oh, to be named, or claimed, or taken.

Please.

Of course, the dress is now too tight,

you've become the whole damn ocean.

Of course, you aren't being called inside,

you own the house.

~L.E. Bowman