Journal Entry, Age 16 (when I began having casual relationships)
I know this stuff doesn't make me happy. Why do I pretend it does and lie to myself like this. God can fill this hole in me - I know He can. I just don't know how to let go of everything else.

In the midst of my captivity, I had said in my heart over and over, nothing on earth can satisfy like sex and relationships. Not even God.

Fast forward to the present: I realized the question, “Can You really satisfy me?” had not yet been fully settled in my heart. I was no longer turning to sexual things for satisfaction, but I was turning to every ‘good thing’ except the Giver of good things Himself. I had become secure in His love but not yet fulfilled. I had been waiting to be fulfilled (through the love and intimacy from my future husband) and in the meantime, settling for a pretense of satisfaction from Netflix and junkfood on the weekends.

Journal Entry, Age 35
I can be fulfilled now? Singles can be fulfilled? Filled, complete, wanting for nothing?
This must be true, because You are a loving and just God, and if some will remain single, You must be able to fulfill them (and all marrieds too). Show me...

One day (age 35), I was heading into my weekend and looking forward to my usual Friday unwind routine. I said to my friend, “I know God can satisfy more than movies and chocolate (fill in the blank with the thing you look forward to most during the week)! I need more satisfaction than this... I’m going to ask Him to show me.” I expected He would highlight a life-changing bible verse. But no, the next day I unmistakably heard His invitation for me to fast from all the ways I have sought rest, refreshment, joy, pleasure and satisfaction apart from Him. That by fasting, I would discover this thing I have longed to know since I was 16. I realized how much I had depended on these benign things, because especially during the first few days after I laid them down, I was miserable! I began the process of walking out of a 20 year-old lie that the things of this world would satisfy me more than God.

I realized His Goodness in this invitation. He hears our prayers! I had prayed to know how God could fill me completely when I was 16. And He was so good to answer this in my singleness, so that I wouldn't project this onto my future husband.

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