A Season of Growth and Expectation

 Who else keeps a journal and periodically goes back and reads through it just to see where you were  one year ago to date? Yesterday looking back over my journal from one year ago, January 18th, was crazy. So many emotions flooded over me, everything that I was feeling as my pen graced the pages. In an email response that I received from Jordan on January 14th, 2019 he suggested that we stop talking as much in order to protect both of our hearts, especially since we had never met one another. I remember that my heart sank as I read that email but I was also proud of him and thankful that his heart was to guard both of ours. Today my only feeling is pure gratitude. One year ago I had so many uncertainties yet so much peace in the season God had me in. I had become content with the idea that I wouldn't be in any relationship much less be getting married anytime soon... I also had no idea if I would ever actually meet this Jordan Miles fellow, but what I did know and what a short 3 and a half months had taught me at that point was that there was something about him that I could not shake....the connection was real, yet without any emotional attachments; I was just fully drawn to this person, his love for God and Israel, his mind and all of his ideas (all 3,000 a day;)  and his opinions of life and future and his visions and dreams. I connected yet I was at that place where I would have been totally okay if that email was the end of it, if we never talked again, and if we never actually met in person. Besides, I had become accustom to short seasons...nothing but the closeness of family truly lasts forever and extends across the universe. But God. God had other plans. We would in fact meet and today I would be typing this with deep love and emotion for the man that I will marry one day soon. God knew that I would look back and read my journal entry from one year ago yesterday and would be filled with joy that this time, instead of the unknowing, I would be filled with a sense of joy in the knowing and in the anticipation of Jordan's imminent move to Jasper, AL. to be near to me. You know this whole season has been so different than I ever imagined it would be; so hard and yet so beautiful. Real, true, raw... the essence of life and truly living it and living it for God. How many people know that when you signed up, I mean, truly entered into a relationship with your bridegroom Yeshua (Jesus) you were saying, "I am choosing to love you because you are everything to me and you loved me first, despite my human frailty, despite my past mistakes and my flaws, despite the criticism you have warned me I will face for choosing you over the world and all that it has to offer....I am choosing you and choosing to lay down the old me and put aside all that I once was and the identity that I once held to take on your identity and name....through everything and no matter what seasons I will walk through with you. You told me this would not be easy but you promised to never leave me and I am clinging to you and connecting myself to you because through coming to me you showed me that you loved, forgave, and truly cherish me and look on my frailty...and I trust You and that You are who You say You are." Yeshua actually left His dwelling place in heaven to come to earth and take on our fleshly identity and became a man, which God is not, and became vulnerable to reveal Himself and His perfect love for His bride and to die to himself (Literally) for her so that she might be shown compassion and forgiveness and what it means to truly be loved. Yeshua died to Himself knowing that His bride did not deserve it in her current state and that there were many that would not choose Him, but love is not conditional....it's not just a feeling,  but rather love is an action and showing of consistency. It is not contingent, it gives free will and because of this free will coupled with love put into action it causes us to desire intimacy and to give respect, honor, and reverence. And now we are a lovesick bride who fully gave her heart to her pursuer; one that  proved His love for an imperfect bride, washed the dirt from her face and left her with something of value, in the form of His Spirit, as he went away to prepare a place for her promising that He would return to bring His spotless and cleansed bride into His home.
 It's been so interesting for me to receive this revelation these last few days as I anticipate Jordan's official move closer to me. The people of Israel anticipated a redeemer and were told for generations that one day he would come to redeem and restore Jerusalem, the people of Israel, and the Kingdom back to Israel. The literal definition of redemption is:
"The action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt."
  This is the betrothal message. Yeshua pursued His bride and gave up something of immense value (His life) as payment to redeem his bride and clear her debt and the penalty which was death. He walked among His bride and observed her for years on the earth before revealing Himself to her. He said at the beginning of his ministry and season to pursue that, "My time has not yet come." Yeshua's mother was the one that recognized what was going on (at a wedding) and realized that this was her sons moment to show himself and for her to push him and release him to begin showing himself to His bride and to pursue her.
 After dying on the cross and redeeming (Becoming Betrothed/Married to) Israel, the Bride of Messiah, Yeshua walked with her for 40 days.
 In Acts before Yeshua returns to prepare a place for his bride, his disciples asked Him,

"Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. ⁸ But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”"
 Yeshua spent 40 days after His betrothal to Israel sharing His heart about restoring the kingdom back to Israel, His desire for His bride to share in this excitement by sharing with the world about what was coming and what her beloved would do, and basically going over the ketubah (marriage contract) with his bride stating, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." ~John 14:15 
 And now as a people we are in this period of becoming, of representing our bridegroom well, of keeping His commandments or put simply; honoring Him, doing what pleases Him, and abstaining from doing anything that doesn't please Him or represent His name well simply because of love. Representing the name that you have been given well. Both in a physical sense as a wife and a bride, and in a spiritual sense as a bride and a daughter of the King.
 This season is teaching me so much about learning to truly savor a season and to take in every single lesson that your current season has for you and to rejoice in the growing period.
 

  I am blessed and beyond thankful that just 11 days from today is the difference between 667 Miles between us and being close to Jordan again. I am in some ways savoring the last of this season of separation and pondering the growth from it while also looking excitedly forward with expectation and anticipation of all that the Father will do in each of our lives in this coming season. He is good, faithful, and perfect in all of His ways.

 What is God showing you in this season? What ways is He growing and stretching you? What is one word that you feel God has given to you for 2020?

Shevua Tov! Have a blessed week!

Blessings in Yeshua,
~Victoria Grace