Almost went through the entire month of October without a post.
Dear Lord, please continue to teach me, mold me, tear me up and make me the way you want me to be. I don't want to get complacent and I don't want to get lazy. I can feel it...settling back into the comfort zone of complacency. Please! Be with me and push me out of my comfort zone. Teach me to be patient, kind, and faithful.
The good part is that I'm not having those freak out moments of desperation where all I want to do is run backwards to the familiarity of things that I know. I still have sad moments where I think back to the broken relationships. But somehow I think the two are blended in a little bit better now. peter and jim. both very much ex-boyfriends. that i can talk about without wanting to burst into tears. think very holistically and realistically about. I like that.
Just a few days ago, I thought back to junior year spring break. Emerald Isle beach house with about 8-10 people I think. It was warm, we were by the beach, plenty of food, drinks, lots of rooms to play in. And yet I was incredibly unhappy that entire trip. I was miserable. All I wanted to do was mope in a room. I wanted peter to hangout with me. To spend all his time with me in our room and neglect his friends. That was the problem. His friends. I didn't see them as mine. And I didn't feel the same obligation or desire to invest my time in their lives. It all made sense. It was like a light bulb that went on. He was hosting, he wanted to show them a good time, he'd be willing to stay up all night with them just to make sure they were happy. Because he loved them. I'd do the same thing if it were my friends and my beach house and I was the host. I was incredibly needy and clingy. mistakes. I never understood what happened there until a few days ago.
funny how memories like that sort itself out though. i have faith that God has a plan, and in time I will learn all the things that I need to in order to be a good girlfriend and eventually a good wife and then a good mother. it just takes time. I need to be patient and have faith. I also need to be able step back and sometimes it is incredibly painful to grow and learn.
take this weekend for example. i had invited a friend to fly down to Atlanta. I flew her down instead of flying back to baltimore for the weekend. somehow I thought she owed me something for flying her down, and when she didn't seem grateful about it, I was annoyed. I was annoyed with how dependent and sourly she was the entire weekend. I guess its ugly when you see someone in a certain light that you had never noticed before. It sucks because I was so willing to see past all of her imperfections before. But then all of the sudden, I just couldn't get past it. Was it because I had better now?
Did I somehow think that I had better friends? Maybe. That's an unfair comparison. But I felt slighted. and i felt like she took me for granted. all the effort that I put in didn't amount to much and she blamed me for not doing enough. I wanted to scream back and say that she wasn't half the friend that I was to her! What is wrong with me? How could I think that? I just kept picking up all the little annoyances. Every small thing that she didn't do, didn't pick up after herself, or ate without saying thank you, cooked her own apples without offering any to anyone else. Small small things, I picked up on all of it. It made me ugly. It made me feel disgusting. I wanted to stop, I couldn't.
I prayed so hard on the last night to just let go. For God's grace and forgiveness. For me to be forgiven for my sins. And for me to stop being so judgemental and mean.
I honestly felt like I couldn't handle it. I wanted to give up. essentially break up with my friend. haha, who does that? it's not like a romantic relationship where you say, i'm sorry this isn't working out, let's stop dating. you don't typically say that to friends. but i honestly wanted to. it was messed up. that's exactly how I'd feel with jim. that sense of uncontrollable anger, disappointment, hopelessness, and need to give up. unwilling to just let go. i felt slighted. but so much more intensely than a slight. major slightedness. i felt cheated out of what I deserved. i thought I deserved better because of all the investment, effort, commitment, love, prayers, etc...that I put into it. both with the friend and with the relationship with jim. i wanted retribution.
that whole process was very telling. I'm glad God put me through it. Because I realized it was me. it was me all along. i want to be able to handle those situations better in the future whether it's with a friend, boyfriend, or soulmate/lover/husband. eventually it's one of those obstacles that I will have to face over and over again, and I will master it!
I will learn to take disappointment and let downs. And i will learn to accept other people's imperfections. and I will be gentle and meek with it. I will be a simple girl who can see past those things. and still love that person.
One thing I did learn is that sometimes you don't always like the people that you love. And that has to be OK. It has to be something that I need to accept. I might not always like the things they do, say, or think. It doesn't mean I can just break up with them and say sorry this isn't going to work out. And give up on them. I need to work through it with faith! and patience. and not let go. in that moment, it's so easy to throw in the towel. and I sure as heck throw in the towel a lot. I throw it and then try to pick it up immediately and then act as though I didn't throw it in the first place. but it's too late by then. once you throw it, it's really hard to erase the memory of it.
thank you Lord for teaching me that lesson. it is a valuable one. Amen
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