This summer I was able to take a week off work and travel the NE coast.
In every way possible, it was something I needed.
While there were many points of relaxation, meditation, and reflection; there was one time in particular I wanted to speak of.
A moment where God brought about closure to a wound I had counted healed.

The entire trip the Lord was convicting my heart to listen, to learn, to be still, but more importantly to just be with Him....

The Lotus.

...The setting lies among the Appalachian mountains - along the White Mountain ridge....
I was at the Mountain's Peak, surveying the work of God's hands.
The landscape; a rolling panoramic ocean.
The mountains challenging the crystal blue skyline.
I was awestruck, I was in love -- I was still.
The feeling of being enveloped in the majestic,
yet personal love of God and Christ was so serene;
so tranquil...
...
...It was about this time that I realized how bad I had to pee

So I ran down a wooded path until I came to a small pond that had collected just off the summit of the mountain.
Once I had relieved myself and no longer felt the urgency of needing to pee, I was able to look upon the water.
It was quite lovely, clear water collected from rain water and melted snow;
but something in particular caught my eye -- floating atop of the liquid mirror
-- A white lotus flower.
The simplicity of its beauty with the water;
it was a humbling and simple symbol that God used to remind me of so many things…

He was allowing me to reflect and to learn…

The Bride

You see, through the past year or so I had learned a lot about God’s beauty, about His love;
His love for us as His people, His love for me, and the love for those around me.
I had been in a relationship for quite sometime, and even after its end I knew that we had both learned so much from God.
I had learned so much about myself and others,
about loving selflessly and unconditionally, about how we love only because He loved us first. [1 John 4:19]

The beauty of this flower reminded me of that beauty;
the beauty of how wonderful a relationship is in its truest form –
- with each partner’s heart connecting with God,
and through that, to each other.
God reopened this part of my life, to make sure I fully understood what God had planned for me,
and how that might differ from my own plan.

After I was no longer in a relationship, I was back to being a single-man of God.
- and God was reminding how to be a humble single-man of God.

God had put in my heart an idea a while ago, a precept if you will.
’Before one is able to be in a relationship, they must first be able to be single’
I have always believed this, and held it to be based biblically – Christ has reminded us many times in the Gospels to ‘love others as yourself’,
and to do that you must be able to love and respect yourself in order to realize that until you are prepared to be without someone,
you shouldn’t be with someone.
Because desperation, irrationality, or boredom don’t make for a very strong basis of a relationship.

So now I am here, as a single man of God - confident in His plan for my life.
And how glorious it is; His plan.
For you see, though I believed I had less to learn of beauty and love being outside a relationship,
God was revealing something to me...

The Bride and the Lotus

This Lotus, this rare flower held in God's palm to me,
was used by God once more to remind me...
A conversation I had this past year with my cousin Eric.
We talked of our roles as men in Christ to the women in our lives.

For all the women in my life - Women who are beautifully and humbly pursuing God's own heart
I hope I have, in at least the smallest way, encouraged these women in their spiritual journey.
As a fellow follower of Christ, I try to point all things towards Christ,
and in this way, have had some responsibility in their spiritual well-being.
And in that, am part of a greater passing on of that responsibility...

...In the old tradition; the father of the bride presents her to the husband.
Handing over the responsibility for the care and protection over to the husband.
This presenting of responsibility includes her brothers that have been with her through her upbringing;
handing over the trust of her well-being,
but it isn't just her blood brothers giving their trust...
It is all her brothers in Christ, any man who has helped her someway to continue towards Christ.

So when my sisters are finding themselves drawn to another brother in Christ and it is seen to be good,
Their father, their family, all her brothers in Christ [including myself] will joyfully hand over that responsibility.
[While not everyone will be standing at the altar for that moment,
in even the smallest ways, our actions have somehow effected our sister in Christ,
and as God as our witness we have hopefully made a positive influence and encouraged her towards Christ]

-- And here's the truly glorious part.
This handing over of responsibility from the father and her brothers to the husband.. it isn't the last step.
A lifetime after these married two serving Christ, the relationship will be leading to a final climax;
The handing over of this responsibility back to Christ!
All of these relationships are in effect pointing towards the day we meet Christ in heaven;
when our sister will meet with Christ, and He will be the archetype -
'the perfect husband, the perfect father, the perfect brother, the perfect king; the perfect everything!' -- [as eric put]

And how humbling and glorious is it to know that I have a part in all of this.
I see the joy in being a single-man of God, and all I can do to bring Him glory.
Perhaps one day I'll be able to be blessed enough to have the privilege to be a husband -- and father.
But for now, I am able to recognize the beauty in my current state of relationships.
For though facebook has identified me as so, I am never single, I have my King.
And under his lordship I can see beauty.

The beauty of my sisters who continue to call upon the Lord out of a pure heart [2 Tim. 2:22]
The beauty of Christ's plan for me in all stages of my life.
The beauty of being part of the greater union.
The beauty of the Bride
The beauty of this Lotus...