Middle School Love Language

Before grad school,

Before college,

Before high school,

There was middle school.


And before there were wedding bands,

Before there were engagement rings,

Before there were letterman jackets,

Before there were facebook status',

Before there were instagram accounts,

There was only one way that a person could show who their heart belonged to, only one way in which a person could express their deepest passions and loyalties to another person.

Gel pens.

 And if you were really fancy, they were glitter gel pens.

And with those gel (possibly glitter) pens, you didn't do homework, or take tests or write book reports.

You wrote on your hand.

You wrote on your hand and shared secrets with the world that you only told your diary or "closest friends".

Some were brave and just went with the classic "I Heart _________" approach.

Some played hard to get, branding themselves with only " I Heart" and finishing the declaration of love on the inside of their palm.

And some went with the secretive, but still playful " I Heart SOS"- Someone Special.

And sometimes, in my case, you just wrote something on your hand so that you fit in, even if the only thing you had a crush on at the moment was the donut you had hidden in your lunchbox.

Either way, no matter what you chose to write, people could very easily look at your hand and see who was most important to you.

Who you belonged to.

Who you desired.

Tonight, I was reading Isaiah 44, and the Lord was speaking about the different ways His chosen people were going to claim their loyalty to Him.

Some will say, ‘I belong to the Lord’;
    others will call themselves by the name of Jacob;
still others will write on their hand, ‘The Lord’s,’
    and will take the name Israel.

We are called to brand ourselves with the name of the Lord.

We are called to claim  that we don't belong to this world but to the One who made it.

We are not called to whisper it.

Or write it where no one can see it.

We are called to write the Lord's name on our hand.

People should know who we belong to, even when they look at something as small as our hand.

Or when they look at how we treat the woman working at the gas station.

Or how we react when things don't go our way.

We are meant to stand out.

We are meant to proclaim loudly and boldly that we are the Lord's.

Our heart, our body, our actions, our attitudes, our desires, our dreams, all belong to the Lord.

And even when all of the gel (possibly glitter) pens in the world run out, we are called to still be making that same proclamation, writing His name on our hand.

Labels and Love

As a woman, people are always trying to give you a label. And most of those labels tend to revolve around your love life.

Are you single?

Are you married?

Are you dating?

Are you looking for a boyfriend?

And somehow, we allow ourselves to get wrapped up in those labels. To see ourselves as only how we can answer those questions.

I'm single.

I'm married.

I'm dating.

I'm looking for a boyfriend.

I'm not looking for a boyfriend.

Basically allowing others, and ourselves to say-

I am what my relationship status says I am.

That's something I've been struggling with recently.

How do I see past the haze of being single, and get down to the core of who I am as a woman?

How do I get people to see that I'm more then how I date?

How do I get myself to believe that the label doesn't define me, and that the season of life  I am in right now is fine.

And even if I can get past all of these things, the bigger questions remain.

What I am really?

 How am I defined?

What are my labels?

Tonight, I was reading Isaiah 43. And I was amazed at all of the labels that God has given us.

I stand amazed at the beautiful depiction of how He sees me-whether I have a man or not.

Because in the Lord's eyes I am

Created.

Formed.

Chosen.

Honored.

Precious.

Redeemed.

Spoken for.

Safe.

Loved.

All of these labels are ones I choose to wear. These are the labels I classify myself as.  These are what are so much more important then if anyone is buying me chocolates and taking me on dates.

The Lord of the Universe doesn't see me as single.

He looks at me and sees so much more.