"I will crush him"

I have taken pride for several years in the fact that I am a strong independent woman who can and will steamroll any man that stands in my way.

I often use the phrase "I will crush him" in regards to why I won't date someone.  

I am a strong personality and I know it. I take pride in it. 

I am strong and I am woman and I roar, if you want me to or not. 

But something happened recently, something that has shaken me. 

I work in a retail pharmacy and recently a couple was in and even though they were there to pick up prescriptions for the husband, the wife did all of the talking. 

"Do you want this filled automatically?" She answered. 

"Any questions for the pharmacist?" She answered.

"Verify address." She answered. 

Now before you say, well maybe he has a speech impediment, or maybe his mouth was wired shut, know that he was talking to her when they walked up and he has been in and picked up his own prescriptions before. So I know he is fully capable of speaking for himself. 

I stared at this couple and thought, I don't want this to be me. I don't want to speak for my husband when he can easily speak for himself. 

There is another couple that comes in on a regular basis that because she dominates every interaction he literally has no clue what debt card to use, or how to use it. Today he stared at me like a lost puppy waiting for me to explain to him how to use the chip reader. 

I don't want to be that. I don't want to steam roll my husband to the point that he is incapable of speaking for himself, incapable of functioning on his own. 

I don't want to dominate every conversation because I have steamrolled him and crushed him into a little mold of a man. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am going to need a man with a pretty big backbone. Someone to push back against me, mostly to call me out on my own stuff, but also to challenge and grow me.

But I also need to take a step back. 

Step back and not look at every man as someone who I can potentially crush and destroy, but a man with potential and power and his own strength. 

I'm not going to step off my female empowerment soap box, but I need to work on not being the crusher and instead being the encourager. 

I want to find a balance between being a strong independent woman, encouraging men and not trying to dominate them. 

Work in progress for sure. 

Silence and mourning

This year I have been really struck by the idea that on Friday night Jesus' disciples, his friends, his family watched him die.  They didn't know what was happening, they didn't know that their Lord was coming back. Unlike modern Christians Saturday wasn't a day of waiting. It was a day of silence, a day of grief and of mourning. 

For many modern Christians Saturday is the day of preparation. A day of preparation for a celebration. We spend the day grocery shopping, coloring eggs and preparing a banquet. 

But Jesus' followers, his friends spent Saturday in hiding. They spent Saturday in mourning. They did not know. They were not able to say that tonight we mourn and tomorrow we rejoice.

We get the privilege and honor to know that on Sunday we rejoice. On Sunday we proclaim the good news. They got the privilege and honor of knowing Jesus in the flesh. 

Today I will mourn.

Tomorrow I will celebrate, but today I grieve.  

Social Media

I use Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. 

I check each of them multiple times daily. I check to see what my friends (both real and online) are up to. 

I look at the highlight reel of their days. The funny tidbits, the recipes, the videos that they share. 

I post things too. And I am sure I do what everyone else does and thinks about their audience before they post. 

They think about how their grandma follows them on Facebook, so they post the dirty joke on Twitter. They think about what others will think, how others will react to the snipbit that they decide to share online.

I do the same thing. A Lot. Things I normally would post only to Twitter (the place I put my brain vomit) I put on Facebook because the boy I like is on Facebook and might see it (if he bothers to read Facebook and Facebook decides I am worthy of his news feed).

Stuff I don't want my mom or family to see goes on Twitter because it is not ok to be brutally honest. 

It's all so dumb. It's such a dumb way to hide who we are. A dumb way to only show our highlight reel. A dumb way to keep up with those around us. 

Social media has allowed me, has made it "ok" for me to go almost 3 years without talking to my college roommate because we are both getting each other's highlight reel online. 

It's not the internet's fault. 

It's my fault, it's your fault, it's our collective fault that we have allowed technology to fill this space in our lives. 

That we have taken this thing that could be used for such good. These tools for reaching out to each other havebecome blockades to each other. They create walls instead of bridges. They build up (by our doing) piece after piece of fake facade. That we are funny, that we are happy, that we travel all the time, love our jobs, know the perfect recipes and have these great families that love each other. 

They very rarely are a true door or window into our lives. Running late for work, forgetting to take out the trash, dirty dishes in the sink, dancing in the living room, crying on the bathroom floor. 

Those moments that make us wholly real, wholly human, wholly lovable.  

The Inbetween

I feel stuck in the middle, in the land of no where, the land of the unknown.

In the middle of a pretty big change at work, where my constant answer to any question asked is "I don't know yet"

In the process of leaving the house I have shared with friends for the last 3 years, into a new house with a new friend.

In between groups of friends, not quite connected in either place.

Stuck in between Gen X and Millennials. 

The land of in between, the land of the unknown, the land of not quite belonging. 

It's a horrible and scary place. One filled with loneliness and tears. One where the uncertainty of it all could sweep me away at a moments notice. 

I feel like I could easily slip away into this land of in between. Slip into the abis of nothingness. Curl up in a ball, crawl to the inside, never leave.

It's like being in the middle of a swimming pool, not sure which side to swim to, and instead just drowning to the bottom.

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling....

34.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be celebrating my 34th birthday, single with no children, recovering from yet another failed relationship. 

It is weird the plans we set out for ourselves. 

When I was 16 I had imagined that I would be married with 4 kids by now. 

When I was 22 I figured I would be married and have 2 kids by now.

When I was 30 I hoped that I wouldn't be single forever.

And now I am turning 34 in a few hours and realizing just how silly it has been for me to imagine these things.

God has a plan and a direction for my life and my future. 

Yes it is a desire of my heart to be a wife and mother. Yes God knows the desires of my heart.  But how I think they should work out and how God says they will work out aren't always exactly the same thing.

Holding fast tonight to Jeremiah 29. Holding on to the plans of God tonight and not the dreams of mine.

Easier said than done. 

This Mother's Day

This Mother's Day I am thankful for my mom who birthed me and raised me. 

For my aunts who supported that role. 

For my friend's moms who treat me as one of their own. 

For the older woman in my life who have filled motherly roles,

 for my peers who have mothered me when adulting is to hard, 

for my friends who are raising up tiny humans of their own.

I am thankful for the women who won't give birth or haven't yet. Thank you for showing me and reminding me that I can be an amazing woman without having the label of mom.

just because you haven't given birth or you're not responsible for another human life doesn't mean you haven't filled the role of mother in someone's life and you haven't loved well and you aren't less of a woman. you are valued and loved and I am thankful and grateful for you.

Moms are amazing and brave and strong.

But this day let us take another look at what the word mom means and be grateful and thankful and mindful of those woman who desire that title.

Hosea

Two things have happened recently.

1) I have entered into the world of dating

2) I am memorizing Bible verses for the first time, with the help of a dear friend.

1) Dating is weird. I have never not thought that. 

I have also never really dated. I always just end up in relationships. So trying this out, talking to some guys, going out to dinner, not knowing where things are headed. This is all new and strange and weird and hard.

2) My friend Alison and I had a conversation about how I have never memorized Bible verses. I actually totally suck at knowing scripture. 

When she suggested we work together to memorize scripture (so I can learn it and she can feel it) I took her up on the offer. 

Being a Christian has always been hard. Doing this on my own, for myself, is insanely hard.

These two things collided full force this morning as I opted out of going to a church service to stay home and enjoy breakfast and listen to the rain and try reading some scripture on my own.

I never know where to start when I open the Bible. Today I decided to use the memory verse as a guide. 

Hosea 6:1-2 "Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but will heal us; he has injured us but will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence."

I have read Hosea maybe once or twice, neither time really taking it in.

This morning as I started at chapter one, I didn't get very far in before the tears started. 

Before the idea of starting a relationship knowing it will fail and have issues had tears swelling in my eyes.

Two chapters in and I stopped to weep and pray that I don't forget God as I pursue romantic relationships.

Three chapters in, I had to step away, stuck on the idea of returning to your wife, returning to the woman who is loved by another, who loved another, who forsook you. Return to her and love her. 

Divorce is crazy real. Divorce in the dating world is crazy real. 

The last man I was with was divorced, several of the men I am dating now (that sounds weird, I am not a player) are divorced, for different reasons but mostly cheating.

Plus add in the whole me cheating on God and Him taking me back thing. 

I wanted to walk away, to read something different, but all I kept thinking was "don't quit. Don't give up hope. There has to be a good ending to this."

Hosea 6:3 "...As surely as the sun rises He will appear..."

7:3 "I long to redeem them..."

11:8-9 "My heart is changed within me; all of my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger...For I am God and not a man..."

14:4 "I will heal their waywardness and love them freely" 

Not only is there hope but there is a promise. A promise of being freely loved. A promise that the God who has a right to be angry with us, the God who has a case against us; will heal us, bind us, revive us, restore us, LOVE us.

Dating is still going to be weird and memorizing scripture is hard but hope and love will carry my through.