The other day I was talking with a friend about progress she was making in her healing pilgrimage regarding womanliness.  It was a pleasure to hear her joy and I could celebrate with her from a place of experience.  Her account brought to mind someone else I know who has invested deeply in developing her bedroom and turning it into a place of beauty and femininity.  She has never done this before so it is a whole new area of healing and growth as the things God placed inside her are beginning to show.

But what struck me about both of these stories is that neither of these ladies is married.  Nor are they even dating, to my knowledge.  There are no men on the scene.  There are no husbands to make them feel more like women, no man to draw out the fragrance of their bloom.  It is happening all by itself, in the secrecy of their relationship with God.

I think that is a beautiful thing.

There is a time and a place for a man or a woman to draw out the best of us, to make us more alive then we were before we met them.  That’s part of the immensity of relationship as God designed it.  But there is something precious about those flowers that bloom without anyone to see them but God.  And if and when a man should arrive on the scene for either of these ladies, he will receive a gift in their having reached this place of fullness before he arrived.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate and encourage you to celebrate the times in your life when God drew you out, bringing forth the beauty of your design in the secrecy of your relationship with Him.  Those moments are just as precious, if not more, than the ones that happen in the context of God and community.