What's your relationship Philosophy

Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about two things in particular; one being how impatience I am, and the other is about some of my struggles.  My trip home and the days that followed were all key indicators of my immense lack of patience.

Have you ever done or said something and think, “wow really?”, only to catch yourself exhibiting the same embarrassing and often childish behavior at a later date.  That about sums up how frustrated I was in regard to my own impatience; however that is not the topic I want to focus on in this post. 

I want to share some of my personal struggles and my hope is that you don’t just relate to me but that you would allow truth to infect every avenue of insecurity, fear and perhaps even hopelessness in your own life.  

There is a saying I have been claiming and praying over my life and even the lives of those around me in the past 2 years, “I am not fearful because I serve one who is faithful”, there are days when this cuts deep and exposes my own lack of trust in God.  It is easy to be happy, to be joyful when things are good but how testing it is when things do not go how we wanted them too or they have turned out differently than we thought they should have.  There have been times when I have had to say to my soul, “You will praise God, whether you feel like it or not!!!”  Let me make it clear to you that I have had ample amounts of pity parties, so sadly I have shown my lack of trust in God more often than incredible measures of faith in him.  I find that if I am not careful I can get caught up in things that do not have any eternal value and lack to matter even in the short scheme of things.  If and when I take my eyes off of God I end up creating more frustration, pain and work then if I had of taken what seemed like the harder route to begin with (sigh). 

So I am going to be ridiculously honest here with my thoughts.  If you can’t handle that too bad as it is my blog.  Okay, so whoever said it is a wonderful thing watching people around you get into relationships?  Hmmm, I don’t recall anyone saying that.  Like yes please sign me up for that, the analogy that comes to my mind is being picked last for that stupid sport you didn’t want to play in the first place.  As if that thoughts not the breeding grounds for comparison and a whole whack of other things. 

Please, please don’t hear me wrong on this one as I love seeing other people (especially my friends) get to experience a new season in their lives when they enter a relationship or are getting married.  It is not that I am jealous (although there is probably the slightest amount in there) it is more the thoughts that I find myself battling with at times.  Satan loves to try and have a hay day here with me.  He tries to first tell me that I am too much and then goes onto try and mess with me more by explaining that there is something wrong with me; therefore making me not enough, absurd yes. 

I keep reminding myself, “You learned the hard way last time, it is so not worth doing that again.”  I want Mr. Right not Mr. Right Now.  The guys out there should heed my advice to Mrs. Right in that same context.  Waiting on God for who he has for you will be far better than rushing into a marriage just for the sake of being able to have sex.    

So too much, not enough.  Sometimes I think maybe if I was quieter, maybe if I was less opinioned, maybe if I was more simple or plain then I would catch the attention of a guy.  Seriously?! I need to remember to smack myself when this happens, sadly that is not the case.  The Devil comes in a moment of weakness and brings something that looks like it could be almost true and if I am not careful I can almost believe it.  We need not present other opportunities for struggles by running through the maybe scenarios in our brains. 

What we do in our thought life determines who we will become in our real life.  If I allow my thoughts to rule me then they will reign where the truth of God’s word should stand against what is false.  Resulting in a bunch of wishie washie philosophies that will control me.  So what can I do when I feel out of sorts with my thoughts? For one I can go to Gods word and speak truth.   Love casts out fear so that helps to take care of what I fear.  Fears like maybe I missed my chance at marriage, or maybe a guy will look at my past and not want anything to do with me.  These are only a few of the fears I have had to face and speak against.  If I choose to sit idly with what I fear I will only end up settling for less than what God intends for my life.  We need to do more then just recognize our struggle(s) but activate our faith and speak life over the desires of our hearts, and all that God has promised us. 

In the area of waiting and relationships there is something that really gets under my skin.  You may be this person or you may have observed it from time to time with people you know, either way you have seen it at some point.  Since being redeemed it has been a process of trusting men, what it looks like to have healthy male friendships, and how to act in a Godly manner around men.  As a woman I don’t want to use my beauty, my sexuality to manipulate and control the men around me as I once used to.  It drives me nuts to see Christian women doing just this or even worse throwing themselves at every guy in their path, it is not only nauseating to witness but painfully embarrassing to watch.  It is like watching a train wreck that you know is about to happen, someone is going to get hurt and it is not going to be pretty.  Again if I am brutally honest there are a few reasons why I don’t like this, the first half I have already mentioned.  The other part of why I don’t like it is because it is nice to be noticed.  It is nice when someone notices you, and who doesn’t want to be noticed by someone at some point.  It took me awhile to figure this out.  At first it was a righteous anger and an agitation in my spirit that sparked something in me but later on God revealed to me that there was more to my dislike of the behavior then I had thought.  When I think of women (or even men for that matter) who are like this I am reminded of the story in proverbs 7, 7:23, “till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.”  So am I really willing to exchange momentary notification for my life?  I think I will have to pass on that offer as tempting as it may be if I allow myself to get caught up in such thoughts.

So there you have it, some of my thoughts on the fears and insecurities that try to creep their way into my life.  Hopefully what I have written has given you some form of insight and in the very least got you thinking about some things in your own life.  For now I shall leave you with this short poem.  Be blessed as you continue on your journeys.

The window of my heart was once frozen shut,

Once unable to open up

No light let in, no light let out

Nothing to fight through my darkest night

I stood locked up in the shadows

A fearful heart,

Trapped in a timeless frame

A life reflecting my misery, my pain

But love melted my heart,

It shattered the lie and there a new life stood before me

A window in time, a glimpse of a now past memory

The window of my heart was once frozen shut

But now it has awakened,

Alive, and willing to open up

Moments

There are those moments that take your breath away and there are those moments that leave you swept away….

I have decided to let these moments in my life mold me; some have come with a high cost, but I wouldn’t change my story.  It is simple, it is complex, it is mine and that in itself is beautiful and unique.

I have been walking through a new season in my life in the last year, and as always it is a never ending cycle of learning.  Learning where I fit and what things should look like in my life as I go through the refiner’s fire.  There is a lot I have to learn but there is also I lot I have to offer.  I don’t want to float along living for all the wrong reasons and missing the point of why we were put here on earth.  I want to make sure that I offer to share the hard lessons I have learnt along the way.  When you choose to learn things the hard way you can be sure that you remember those life lessons.  At least for myself I can say that I will remember them well.

Sometimes when we walk through hard circumstances and endure painful heart break we try to run, we attempt to rush the journey.  It is fair to say that no one enjoys heart ache, but it is also fair to say that we go through what we go through, and almost miss what it is that we went through.   

There have been moments in my life where all I could pray, or even ask for was to die.  My automatic response used to be to lay down and wish that this were true, or to try and escape with painful relief.  It seems totally irrational to even fathom it now, but this is now and that was then.  God’s grace on my life has been just that, unearned and undeserved mercy from where I was to where I am now. 

So where was I? 

I was that girl who couldn’t look you in the eye.  You might know her well, you might even be who I used to be.  Fearful, insecure, unable to trust, unable to out run the darkness in my heart, unable to overcome and certainly unable to forget.  What was I trying to forget?  the painful whisper of unresolved memories of my heart break.  You know that time he left, that time he lied, that time that thing happened that left you standing speechless and feeling so alone?  Think about what you might be trying to forget and then you will know exactly what it is that I am suggesting to relay.

Shattered is how I felt when I stood and realized I was making a façade of my own life.  I hadn’t been living in reality and thus denial had become such a cold and familiar friend.  It seemed impossible to even try and look at my lukewarm life.  However when I finally lifted my head to the heavens the fog began to clear enough for me to start to see what it was that I was missing for so long.  I was missing the fact that I just could not see!   I couldn’t see that I couldn’t see.  Sounds ridiculous, yes I know. 

My life had become an attempt of a perpetual and generational cycle of divorce.  It is said that history will repeat itself.  The story of my greatest heart break would be an example of my family’s history surfacing in my life.  I was a lonely, broken person looking for something to fill the deep void in my heart.  What did I find?  I sought out someone else who was on a quest for the same thing I was looking for: love.  You can’t take two broken pieces of something, make it whole and have it function how God intended it to.  With that in mind I married for all the wrong reasons and so did he.  Add in betrayal, drug addiction and my own many imperfections and we created a ticking time bomb of explosive hurt.  Someone wise has told me, “Hurt people; hurt people.  Healed people; heal people.  I used to be one of these hurt people.  I for sure have hurt a lot of people and have been on the receiving side as well.  I said I used to be because my heart has been healed.  I have not arrived, I am not perfect but I know without a doubt that my heart is free.  I am free from the pain of my yesterday, labels and memories no longer define me.  I choose to allow a loving God to define me.  I chose to allow my Father in heaven to separate my heart from my history.