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Choose a picture of something that or someone who has been a significant influence in your life. Explain that significance.
The attached photograph is of my girlfriend, Nikki. Please excuse the poor quality, I�m completely helpless when it comes to taking pictures. Regardless, she�s a very significant part of my life. A while back, my mother inquired of me as to what I found attractive about my girlfriend. My initial response was that she brings me closer to God. I had held as a very firm belief for the majority of my high school career and possibly starting before then, I�m not quite sure, that I, and most people my age, shouldn�t date because they wouldn�t be able to deal with all of the demands that would be put on their life as a result of it, while still keeping up with the demands of being a good child of God. I held that belief about myself up until somewhere between the beginning and middle of December of my senior year, when I realized two things. The first of those things was that I had somehow found myself in the midst of dating this wonderful girl, and the second being that it had come to be right as I was in a place with my relationship with God that the new relationship wasn�t a hindrance, but an amazing boost of my main relationship with my heavenly Father. As I was finding myself loving God more than I ever had, in a continual state of prayer and communication with Him, and filled with a desire to fill my mind with the words of His Holy Word, I came to find myself also side-by-side with someone else experiencing the same things.
She is a blessing to my life. In addition to having someone to have fun with, hang out with, talk with, we pray together, we talk about what we�re each reading in the Bible, and hold each other accountable, push each other on in the race towards our Father. All this is very unexpected, not at all like I had envisioned being in a relationship, and so very wonderful. One of the more unexpected blessings that she has been to me is allowing me to be a blessing to her, and letting myself see God working directly through me, answering my prayers and bringing her comfort and healing and letting Him fill me, so that, through me, she has a more concrete picture of God�s unfailing love for her. And everything that I am to her, she is to me. When she prays for me, whether just that I have a good day, or that my frustrations are relieved, or that I encounter God and His beauty in my life, my heart has no choice but to just stop and thank God for all He has provided me. Just the sight of her makes me want to draw closer to God so that I can be a better person to her. Her own passion for God causes me to want God all that much more.
I can talk to her. And, not just to her, but around her and near her. I have a reputation among most of the people that know me of being quiet and shy. You have to really get to know me before I�ll open up and converse with you. But, from the first when we started talking, and ever increasingly, when I talk to Nikki it just flows naturally, and it almost feels like I�m a normal person, just talking like normal people do. It�s amazing to me how well we understand each other. Conversations based in half-said statements, unlikely allusions, and sound and gesture combinations in place of words are the norm. And conversations can range from ridiculous, silly dissertations on things grounded in impossibility, to the somehow-exciting mundane details of our days, to deep spiritual truths and connections and applications. Contrarily, we�re also quite content, when the time is right, to just sit together in silence, communicating through nothing more than the beating of our hearts.
As well as opening up to her, she�s changed my whole world view, such that I�m now much freer to talk to others, and, ultimately, her influence has given me a great deal more freedom in talking to God. I�ve always held a� fear, or� maybe a distrust of corporate prayer, of praying audibly in the presence of others. It�s previously been a struggle for me to keep concentrated on talking to God while having to worry about how other people are going to react to what I say to God. Slowly but surely, I�m being brought out of my shell and being taught how to focus on God in the midst of others, and how to focus on both at the same time. Through her influence, I am becoming a better son to God, and I am becoming a better man.
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