Tangible love pt. 1

There are five times in my life that people have shown me the power of tangible love.  First, when I was interning in Egypt, my mother made it a point to call me every week to make sure I was okay.  She let me talk about myself and all my adventures with no thought of her own.  She racked up an 800$ phone bill just to let me know that she was supporting me from far away.  I never felt homesick because her presence gave me the strength to live overseas without feeling like I was there alone.  She changed my definition of tangible love despite distance that summer.

In the midst of a really tragic breakup for me, a friend of mine took numerous hours of her life to spend time with me, walking, eating, trying coffee, going to seattle and just plain being around more often because I was alone and lonely.  She listened to me whine about my sadness, she was happy with me when I was - she was supportive when I didn't know what to do.  She offered herself in a way so very consistently that it wasn't just ONE time - it was like the whole semester.  She taught me how to treat people who live in a state of sorrow.  She showed me Jesus by getting me outside myself and keeping me distracted. 

In 2012, My husband and I suffered probably the worst thing in each of our lives and lost the child we hoped and planned for.  It was such a dark time in our lives.  The night we found out, I drank a half a bottle of vodka and wept huge crocodile tears over the broken, desolate feeling in my heart.  My friend came over without any hesitation and held me for what seemed like forever and allowed me to cry on her without any word.  She held me up when I couldn’t stand.  She gave me her strength when I had nothing but the loss of my baby.  She changed my definition of a friend in that moment.

More recently, I was at a wedding that everyone I knew was at except my husband.  For reasons of his own, he was unable to attend.  While I was surrounded by my family, I wanted him there with me as my partner. I felt horribly alone and my sister in law spent probably 75% of the wedding with me.  Talking to me, encouraging me, bonding with me, and loving me.  She changed my definition of what it means to love a sister and friend that day. 

My husband has shown me a fifth time in my life where I have experienced tangible love and has changed my definition of a lover in a marriage.  I was having a horrible time reconciling my views of humanity and the reality of those around me.  I was feeling very hopeless towards people and my hopelessness turned into an ugly monologue of hate.  I spewed this hate for the evening and he stood by and listened.  He comforted me and tried to reassure me in my sorrow.  The next morning, I woke feeling pretty silly at how my thoughts had turned and I worried that the things I said would break something in our marriage.  While he acknowledged that I was indeed spewing venom, nothing changed.  He loved me anyways.  He has changed my definition of genuine love and acceptance.

I want to talk about love.  I want to talk about people.  I want to talk about Jesus.

I have struggled and struggled to find Jesus in this world.  I spend a lot of time thinking about him and how he works and what he is all about.  I have struggled for my entire life to see love – REAL tangible love which is the kind of love I believe Jesus was all about.  I find humanity to be mostly broken and I desire to love tangibly like Jesus, I just didn’t really know how. The things my examples have in common however all carry a theme.  I was open to accepting love and they were selfless enough to give how I needed, not how they needed.   

Love, although abundant in my life, usually seemed to carry a price.  I’m not talking about birthday cards from my grandparents, or calls from my siblings -  I mean – LOVE that is given despite not being worthy of having.  I would also counter with the idea that a lot of the time I did not feel worthy of having love.  There are countless scars and many dusty bags in my life that I have yet to heal around and unpack.  I do not generally open myself to the love people would give.  I have known love to come at a price and I simply do not have time to pay.  However, as I have been thinking about love and how to treat other people with love, I have learned that true love does always come with a price, just not the one I thought.  True and tangible love comes with sacrifice, patience, consistency and sometimes is unpleasant to the person giving the love.  A lot of the time, loving someone means to put yourself aside and do for them instead of you.  It is a selfless move of sacrifice.  True love is the epitome of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.  Now, if you do not know the story – essentially, Jesus, who is God, became a man and came with a message of love.  He then died for this message.  And even if you are not religious and do not believe the Christian bible, what Jesus did for the sake of love is inspiring and amazing.  He literally died for the people who cursed him and hated him.  He gave something up for the ultimate act of love. 

People, are broken and messy.  More often than not, they will hurt you or let you down in some form and I have learned from the people I have opened up to that I can love people tangibly.   This is my life goal.  I want to spend the rest of my life learning how to love my friends genuinely and honestly in a way that my love can impact them in a way others have impacted me.  I want to learn how to love my husband the way he loves me.  I want to learn to accept people where they are in love instead of making them change before I find them worthy of my “love.”  I want something real and I want to give this to other people.  Love changes people for the better and it might mean that I will be hurt from time to time in my crusade for love but the bible tells us to guard our hearts (the next blog I’ll be writing) and teaches how to keep that heart safe.  It is such a strong and fragile thing. The next time someone offends, or hurts, reach out and offer a hand.  Choose to react in love instead of understandable response and I promise you will be surprised. The next time you begin to fight with your loved one, ask yourself if it will matter tomorrow if they died.  I am trying to make this thought process a habit for myself. I encourage you to try this as well.

I am at peace with the universe

A couple of years ago I found myself sitting in the office of a mentor of mine trying to explain the sorrow I felt in my heart.  I was having a hard time with a resident that had been admitted to the long term care facility that I worked at.  I related to this resident in a way I couldn't understand. Maybe it was their their story, how they reminded me of certain things, the fact that I didn't believe the world would deal such a hand to them.  I write cryptically because I still operate under HIPPA laws but this particular residents story made my heart break.  I didn't think that such a story should happen.  Happy endings should belong to good people.  This was no such story. 

As I sat in my mentor's office, she empathically looked in my eyes and told me a personal story about a tragedy that struck her in her late twenties.  She told me how she didn't know how to deal with the fact that it happened.  Good things should happen to good people and by every right, she was a good person.  However, something bad did happen to her and she explained how it took her awhile before she finally made sense of it.  She explained to me that she finally got to a place where she was okay with the fact that she had no control over the universe and what was would be.  I balked at the idea.  No. I could control what happened in my life.  I had control.  Bad things should never happen to good people. They just shouldn't. It was far too illogical to me.  The unbalance did not make sense to me. 

"You have to find some way to be at peace with the fact that you cannot control the universe" she told me. My eyes threatened to spill the tears I struggled to hold back as I left her office trying to understand.  

This desire to control the destiny of my life has driven me.  I have pushed faster, stressed longer and planned harder as I tried to direct the way I would go.  I think sometimes I drove my life in circles just trying to go forward.  I have lost many nights of sleep worrying about the future, desiring relationships that would never be the way I wanted and bullying myself to squish into a mold I imagined for myself.  And then one day, I exploded. 

I have spent a long time reaching out to people that I wanted to reach back to me. Friends and family being the biggest but also God. My family has always been wonderful but we live so far from each other that I missed them terribly.  I grew lonely missing them while I spent my Christmas apart, family dinners apart, everything - always apart.  I felt out of sight, out of mind.  I worked too hard, we didn't take the time to call like we could and I found myself hungering for their attention and love.  

I chased after friendships that were fun and exciting but ended up in dead end streets, unfulfilling and never a two way street.  I chased the excitement, the emotion, the fun.  I wanted to be in the middle of it all.  A lot of those friendships were dust waiting to blow away but I held tight, just knowing I could try harder at being the friend they wanted and then inevitably what I wanted.  

I chased the idea of a God who gave me everything I wanted.  I threw temper tantrums when things wouldn't go my way. I blamed him and denounced my love for him. I grew angry when God wouldn't "hear" me. I wanted control. 

All these hungers and disappointments added and built until

I found myself feeling extremely alone. I didn't even realize I had all these expectations for myself and the people in my life.  I remember thinking how hollow it was, how shallow my idea of control and how futile it was. Finally, in the split of a second, I understood.  I am literally a dust speck in this world. Lost to the billions of people cohabiting with me. God didn't owe me anything.  My life was blessed, I didn't deserve any of it.  Finally, out of my disappointment grew my understanding.  

Yeah, I wish I had both my parents around the way I envisioned.  Of course I wish I wasn't working so much and could focus more on the friendships I had.  Yes, I wish I understood who God was better.  But I couldn't control if my family called or not.  I couldn't and wouldn't beg to build relationships with people I wanted to be good friends with and I also could never control God or the universe or even what other people did to create tragedies in our lives.  I had come to the understanding that I have very little control if at all.  

I cannot control who wants to be a part of my life, and how much but I can control how I feel about it.  I am worth knowing. I know that sounds conceited but I know I have value, worth and can bring a lot to the table. I know that I will work hard to be the best friend I can be and continue to work on balancing my life to be the best me possible and I have found peace in that.  I have found peace in being okay with not controlling the universe.  If I reach out to someone and they do not reach back, it's okay because I won't think it's because I am not good enough any more.  What will be will be and that includes how people interact in my life.  I have learned to just acckept people for who they are, in the good and bad.  I have readied my heart for whatever life could and most likely would throw my way knowing I cannot wait in fear to brace it but to live every day as it comes.  If happiness comes, to soak it all up- and if grief comes, to handle it when it shows up.  To live every day, every breath just alive and thankful. I am trying to live in this knowledge. I have found such joy-- I have found peace and for the first time in a long time, have found myself walking forwards instead of in circles. 

-beloved

Don't judge, im not there yet

It is really easy to judge someone’s life.  It is easy to judge someone’s actions – especially if you are not inside and cannot understand why they do specific things.  It is SO easy to assume that because you have lived, they must follow the same set of rules you do.  I have been immensely humbled over the past couple days by this realization.  

For myself, when things go wrong – I hide away.  I separate myself from other people and spend time just processing.   I didn’t always used to be like that.  Things rolled off my back fairly easily.  However, now I tend to overthink and process what I can from the situation.  This has either come from becoming older or for the sake of this post, is probably from the myriad of things I have experienced since those days of rolling off the back.  You see, I don’t actually think things rolled off my back, I think I ignored them and now I process and move on.   

The point I am trying to make is that those people who do things differently than  you, do it because they have been through their own set of circumstances.  Some, I can understand and evaluate with accurate clarity and others, I couldn’t fathom if I tried.  I responded to circumstances differently a few years ago and It would be important to note that perhaps when you see that person you are judging so veheminitly, you have met them at a time in their lives where they don’t really know what they are doing.   Like, REALLY understand what they are doing.  Perhaps, you have met someone acting illogical and silly and maybe they are still processing.  Maybe they are sorting through their baggage at the time.  Maybe, they’ve given up and don’t know it yet.  Perhaps, they just haven’t found their strength.  

Next time you come across someone who is acting outside the normal parameters of decent social custom, possibly remember that we are all at different stages in our life.  The best self we can be is not something that we achieve lightly.   Being the person we desire comes from a burning process if I may.  We walk through our experiences the best we can.  After all, there is no life manual.  Learn to forgive.  Learn to let hurt go.   Learn to give grace even if you think it is not rightfully deserved.  Learn to see past the mistakes and see the person.  Learn to listen past the angry and hear the hurt.  Learn to be patient when that person you dislike comes around.  Learn to look past the façade.  Can we learn to appreciate baggage?  Baggage is obviously unnecessary but the reality is that we are products of our surroundings, upbringing, parental style, desires, etc etc etc.. we see the world through the lenses we established while we walked through our childhood, our fights, our sorrows.  We are forever changed by this world and it is a continuous process.  We are on this journey together and we meet at different times in our lives.   Lets not waste the experience and take the best we can from it.  

--his beloved.

dancing in the stars - A journey to rediscover my faith

There are moments in time that you cannot get back.  Moments you didn’t even know you were making.  These moments that open up your soul for one brief moment and climb inside and change you.  These moments are what make up the very best of who we are.

I recently watched the movie wild where Reese witherspoon plays a woman who made a bunch of bad choices after her mom passed away and she literally had no where else to turn.  She decided to hike almost the entire pacific crest trail – because why the hell not.  She was a beginning hiker and she was either really brave or gloriously stupid.  I like to go with strong.  Anyways, she ends up making it and helping herself get out of her hurts and the pain she was struggling with. 

As I was watching this movie, I just kept thinking “ I totally understand why you did this” I really understood her.  I make silly choices that seem asinine to everyone else around me but I do them for me.  I get myself.  I understand why I need to do whatever I have chosen to do. She is a freaking rock star in my mind. 

I struggle with baggage – and a lot of it.  I have spent many years of my life sorting through and labeling it, moving it around to better places in my soul and occasionally, I let some of it go but mostly, I hold it in a tightly locked room where no one can come in and mess with all my hard work.  My work to understand my life: To understand why my mom wasn’t around when I needed her. To understand why I got to be the recipient of a man taking his pleasure out on a child.  Why I am still a child in some form in my head.  Why I never took enough pills, messed around with enough people, never cut deep enough, drank black enough to forget or get the feeling of filth off me.  Why I couldn’t ever be just enough. Why I can’t ever just be enough in my head.   I am chased by my demons. Childhood memories that I sit close to and acknowledge – knowing that we are old acquaintances and begrudgingly holding hands with each other. I am constantly processing.  Constantly re-evaluating.  These moments have made me.  I am the beautiful person I am because of them and even though a lot of those memories were dark and sad, I am bright and vibrant now and I wouldn’t change it. 

I understand why it took a 1,000 mile hike to clear her head.  I 100% get it.

As I watched this movie, something inside me split open.  I have been desiring something.  Something to re aline my soul with creation.  Get into nature.  I was planning on hiking some hiking trails around here but it wasn’t big enough.  I want to hike that damn trail now.  Not because I am crazy, foolish or “need a mental check” but because I want to do something marvelous and be marvelous and remember that I am just a small part of this huge story. It will happen but first I want to revisit a place where I was and wasn't at the same time..

Let me regroup so you understand my passion.

I hiked a mountain in college.  I hiked it with my boyfriend at the time and since our messy break up, those memories have been tucked away in a “those years” folder in my head.  But as I watched this movie, a memory came to me like a whisper and finally a raging train.  There was one of those moments that I was describing during this trip.  We had hiked all day to get to the top of this old building, super cool building.  And I remember it was cold.  Dark and cold and we didn’t have anything left to do so we hunkered down to go to bed when dammit, I had to pee.  I was a little nervous going outside by myself but I didn’t want to ask anyone to come with me so I walked to the little potty made down a ways from the hut and stopped.  I don’t know that I can describe it to do justice.  I was surrounded by the biggest mountains, stars and valleys I had ever seen.  The wind was cold and bit into my face and skin as I took in my surroundings.  The mountains were all around us. So incredibly big that It felt like we could keep walking them with ease. The stars were so bright that I felt like I was standing in the midst of them just dancing in them.  They surrounded me like fireflies – I was more than myself in that moment.  I was one with creation and creator.  It was magical. 

That feeling is what I am after.  The feeling of being so small and so big at the same time.  Of being in such a place that the beauty can ONLY be a memory that cant quite be shared because there are no words.  I do not want words.  I want to go and throw myself to the creation and find a key to my room I guard so closely and let it loose.  I want to discover what living life would be like just me and the world.  I want to be brave and face myself (in a new kind of way)  I kind of feel like that’s all you can do on a trail so long.  I want to be dancing in the stars again. Awestruck by wonder and sure of my being. 

So I will.  I have decided.  I will find this mountain from college and conquer it again by myself.  I want to rejuvenate my soul and duke it out with my creator.  I wanna go head to head with God and either come down changed or come down disappointed but I always find God on top of the hills. In the stars. In nature.  I need to go find God. And I will. 

--his beloved

He didn't find him in the storm.. he found him in the whispers

I have been away from God for a very very long time.  I went to church this Sunday, and the pastor talked about Jesus leaving the 99 sheep behind to go recover the one lost sheep.  His message meant to talk to those who do no understand that they are WORTH being recovered.  However, I focused on one tiny little detail he said.  Maybe the sheep didn't know how to get back. 

You know, if I was being honest, I would tell you that I haven't exactly made up my mind about how I feel towards the whole God thing.  But I do know that somewhere deep in my heart, my soul is screaming to run to Jesus.  See, the thing is - I really DONT know how I feel about things.  Like, why God lets the good man die and the bad man live.  Why God allows Dementia, hurt and disease - i mean I kind of understand - sort of. But I dont.  I do not understand God. 

However, I do know this.  If you read about Jesus, you can know that he was pretty kick ass. All he wanted was to love and bring people to God.  He wasn't the one condemning, hurting, stealing -- he came to give life and not just "being alive" but life to the full (john 10:10) Jesus was the OG - the original gansta, the real shiz, Jesus was legit.  He believed what he said and he said what he meant.  Jesus, is someone to admire, follow and emulate.  Now for this girl, I believe the bible is the real word of God and I happen to believe that Jesus is God so my heart screams to know her creator.

My heart screams to get back to an equilibrium state. My heart cries to know something.  At the risk of sounding so hokey and hippyish and super modern age - I must say that my heart longs to get back to the basics, be one with the universe, see the sky without the dilluted light pollution.  I am trying to find words for the feeling of wanting to fine tune my soul.  I want to get the shit out of it and cleanse myself.  I want to find Jesus in the stars, I need to get into nature.  I need to strip the crap from my soul and just get back to the basics.  I desire this.  I crave this.  I need this.  Just like I am craving Jesus.

I have spent a long time self actualizing.   I feel really good about myself.  I know the depths of my weaknesses, the hurts, the pains. I know the joys and smiles and quirks of myself.  But I have this feeling like I've gotten as far as I can and now I need to simplify.  Get out of my head.  I need to get back to the basics and I think when I do that, I will find my hearts cry.  I will find the essence I am craving. 

1 kings 19 11 - 13
 So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?

Something is tugging my heart.  The only logical response is to follow it. Unwrapping your heart is one of the funnest, scariest, dirtiest, exciting and emotional expriences anyone can do - I recommend you do it.  Find yourself. Discover yourself. 

When you have discovered what may seem everything, your heart will lead you down to another pathway and you may discover that you didn't know anything at all. All I know, is that I MUST follow my heart and follow its leading.  I know something is gonna be good at the end.

-his beloved.

Cookie cutter Christianity

You know what I like about my life?  I have made choices for myself for the past 6 years and they were choices made of my own design and my own liking.  I know that I need to die in order to live  but right now what I like about my life is that it is mine.  I love waking up and hearing the birds and watching my dogs run outside.  I love holding a hot cup of coffee to my chest while I watch the snow fall.  I love being able to decide what I will do in the day.  I love that I still do it even if my decisions aren’t the best.  I love that I get to make that call.

I was in a relationship once that never allowed me those simple freedoms.  Yeah, yeah, I was able to wake up and drink my coffee all picturesque and stuff but I do not think I felt the contentment and peace that goes with that picture.  I always felt like I was trying to fit inside a mold of who I thought I wanted to be.  I tried so hard to be that girl he wanted.  It wasn’t until our relationship dissolved that I realized I was a completely different person and I was trying to squish into a mold that was never meant for me.  

That relationship taught me a lot about who I am, who I was and who I will never be.  I am not a cookie cutter Christian wife.  My home is messy and sometimes my hair is just as so.  Okay, A lot of times my hair is messy too.   I work too hard, I can be moody as hell, I forget to focus on the “right” things that this world has to offer and I am more silly than sexy to my husband.  I am sarcastic, cynical and I don’t believe in fairy tales even though I love watching a love story unfold.   I am just me.  Shit, I am one of the coolest fucking people I have ever met.  

I wish I had words to describe the feeling of complete peace with yourself.   To be so okay with your strengths and so okay with your weaknesses and to still be okay with yourself.  The confidence that makes you awesome, that makes you wantable.  People are attracted to great confidence, you know.   You know, I don’t say all this to talk about how awesome and conceited I am.  I say this, because I want to inspire life into those people who may feel like they are cookie cutter.  I want to shake the ideology that we have to grow up, fall in love, get married and yada yada yada…  

You can be anything.  Travel instead of fall in love.  Fall in love instead of be scared.  Take that chance and be risky instead of staying safe.  ANYTHING. 

You know why I think Christian’s walk away from Christ?  Like, the biggest root?  I think Christian’s aren’t encouraged to challenge God.  To find their faith and identity through his faithfulness instead of church all the time.  You know how many angry, jaded people the church contains?  Well, a freakin lot of them.  A lot of them are judgmental to their own and that sucks.  I mean, good for them because if that’s who they are, church is a good place to start but with people like that around, when do you feel safe to question God?

** I have to include that the time it took me to reclaim my faith was not just smiles and beer.  A lot of the time, I was left to my devices.  I struggled with insecurity, the temptation of the blade, and too many arguments that didn’t make sense.  It was fun sometimes, but alone, at night, I missed my buddy.  I was sad a lot.  Being away from god’s love is a darker place than you’d think.  But I needed the process. **

Forgive me if I am about to sound heretical and unbiblical because there is a good chance I may be but I think God can handle it.  If God is big enough to create this world, wouldn’t he be big enough to answer some questions from his children?  Isn’t God big enough to watch his children grow and learn and get smarter towards him instead of away from him?  I dare say he is. 

You know why I have come back to the faith?  Because God was big enough for me to challenge him.  God came through when most of his church didn’t.  God revealed himself to me, no one knocked on my door and convinced me.  I am nowhere near being called a “Christian” and to be honest, I cringe at the title.  So at the risk of being cliché, I would revise my previous statement to include: I am no where near being called a Christ follower, but I know that my faith is solid and I am at peace in my soul.  The freedom isn’t just from doing whatever the hell you want.  The freedom comes from a deeper place in your soul.  Self-actualization, understanding, wisdom and peace are the things that accompany that feeling of freedom.  I am 100% me.  Messy hair, crazy mood swings and a mustard seeds worth of faith that Christ is big enough to bring healing from cookie cutter stigmas and faith through challenging.  

The Gritty Truth - but I am alive and this is why.

I have been working hard on trying to be a nicer person.  Not that I am a mean person but I think that I possess some qualities that I would find “not nice.”  I personally feel like I used to be a nicer person.  I think I used to be selfless, patient, trusting and more relaxed than I am now.   What changed?  Great question. I think I used to dedicate myself to something bigger than myself.  I used to dedicate myself to a cause, an entity so to speak, God.  I used to be a follower of Jesus.  I used to be a lot of things.  

Before all this “nicer person” business, I used to be even more things.  I was depressed, suicidal, and struggling.  I had no self-esteem, no faith in myself, no light to turn to.  In my heart that was so full of unmet expectations, my light was dim.  Sure, I had fun on the outside.  I found solace in friends I still have today.  I also found solace at the end of a blade.  I found solace in the end of a bottle, the bitter taste of pills, I found solace but not peace.   These things did not fix my demons.  I believe I became entangled in a web of hopelessness.  Let’s fast forward a bit –

February 25^th 2004.

(a bit of background first.  I was dating this boy. This boy has an encounter with God.  Boy and Girl do a lot of things that would not be considered holy.  Girl feels kind of awkward.  Girl feels like something is changing.  Girl is sad. Girl thinks to pray to the God whom her boy has an encounter with.  Girl doesn’t believe boy is in his right mind.  However, girl grew up knowing about God so she knows at least how to pray.)

I have a conversation with God.  It goes kinda like this:

Me: Okay, God, uh – things are kind of weird.. but I don’t really know what to say to you but *Boy* said I should try talking to you but um, I don’t really know what I’m doing…

God:

Me:  So, uh, anyways, I don’t know what to do about our relationship, it’s a little weird and I just don’t know..

God: break up with him.

Me: …

God: …

Me: okay, what?

God: break up with him.

Me: okay, so, Im crazy and talking to myself.. Gods do not tell people to break up with their boyfriends.

God: break up with him.

Me: okay, you mean to tell me that you, God, are talking to me. 

God:

Me: Prove it.  Prove Im not crazy.  Because I think I’m fucking crazy.

God: Ezekiel 14:2

Me: really? That’s it?  A stupid memory verse?

God:

Me: so you mean to tell me that if I go look this up, you’ll prove that you are talking to me.

God:

Me: … huffs.

Okay,  Holy cow. 

So I go find the only bible my family had – this OLD huge weird “family tree” thing and I flip to the bible verse – literally have never read this book let alone verse in the bible and it reads “And the word of the LORD came to me.”  I freaked out a little bit.  See the reality of this situation would argue that it would have been something I’d heard before – true but I doubt it because I hadn’t.  Reality would also argue that it was coincidence. Sure. But what a damn good coincidence.

Anyways, I personally believe that I would never have accepted God if this did not happen.  I believe I lack trust and I doubt and this is what I needed to believe in God.  I FELT God. I got goosebumps like someone was staring at the back of my neck and I only had one thing to do.  I had to break up with boy.  The conviction was so strong.  So I call, and he doesn’t answer so I think, ah! A test! God does those. But boy calls back and tells girl that he just got finished with prayer and he was feeling like God was telling HIM to break up with ME!  Which sounds surreal. It was.

So I cry.  Now remember, I spent a lot of time wanting to end the pain in my heart and consoling myself with distractions that didn’t really console.  Boy was the biggest distraction, and now with Boy gone, I had no one to shield me from my demons.  I was alone, felt worthless, felt hopeless, and not to mention I was now filled with my 17 year old angst of losing the boy she loved.  And I do the only thing I can think of.  I plan my death.

I go into my bathroom and wallow on the floor, the pain too unbearable to endure.  I lay there wanting my life to end thinking and rethinking all the horrible things I hated about myself, my childhood, my disgust at being alone.  I hated myself. I had nothing but my solaces and I was determined to destroy myself. 

I lay on my bathroom floor, bottle of pills in my hand, razor in the other.  I was going to take the pills, cut the wrists and lay in the tub and die. It sounded peaceful to me.  To end my hurting.  And im crying and Im crying and I cant take it anymore.  Then the phone rings.

Different boy is on phone.  Different boy pleads with me.  Tells me how much God loves me and how he desires my life.  Tells me how much better things could be if I would give god my life.  I cry. I go back to my bathroom floor and I feel the worlds of choice tugging at my soul.  Give my life to God, Give my life away?  Trust me, when I was 17, I was in a bad place.  I wasn’t able to process a lot of the things that had/were happening in my life.  I was not able to understand that things could be different.  I was caught in my storm.  Anyways.  I feel my soul torn and fought for. To kill myself or try God’s way.  Boy on phone coaxes me to give into God.  I wanna say it but I fight for the words. I end up making a deal.  I tell God that I will try things his way and if it doesn’t pan out, I was going through with my plan to kill myself.  However, I do tell God that I needed him and wanted him in my life..   I am pretty okay with this so I go to bed.

The next morning, I woke up feeling something strange in my soul.  Love.  Like – not any kind of love you have ever felt before.  Love.  Like- pure unadulterated love.  Like I was oozing this feeling of fullness.  The birds chirped outside my window and I took a breath of air and I knew, I just knew that God was real.  I felt him in everything.  I felt him in my soul. 

I dived into this God life head first and didn’t stop until after some big events in my life.  Every year in February, I am reminded of the day my life was saved.  I am a person I never thought I would be, I am a new creation.  I am.. So loved. I believe if you surround yourself with things, you become like them.  When you surround yourself with God, you are changed.  I was changed. I am changed.

My finance and I split up when I was in Bible College.  My mom died shortly after.  My whole identity was shaken and tried.  I didn’t really know who I was or who I wanted to be so I gave into myself and did whatever the heck I wanted.  The changes were slight – almost so slight you didn’t notice but eventually I did.  I was less patient, I was less selfless, I looked out for myself instead of others.   I made promises I never kept, I destroyed friendships.  Slowly, I found myself with these characteristics that were horrible.  I honestly believe that you cannot live a selfish life without it coming back to change you.  I think that is what happened in the 4 years I stepped away from Christianity. 

I’m turning 28 today.  I know how to process hurt and pain.  I have delved into the folds of my insecurities and have risen above them.  I have sifted through my baggage and processed a lot of childhood pain.  I am functioning and alive.  I am at a place where I would like to be more kind.  I would like to be more patient, loving and selfless. I would like to be more like the Jesus I read about.  I would like to rebuild my relationship with God. I am at a place where I want this.  So on the day I turn 28, I am thankful for this journey.  I would not be who I am without who I was and who God was to me while I traveled my paths.  11 years ago this month, I could have just died.  But I embarked on a journey that all began with a prayer, a bible and an unorthodox answer from God.  This is why I struggle.  This is why I believe. This is why I press on.

Happy Birthday to me

--his beloved