"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. 

Taking off the Mask

 I took a leap.

I jumped and took off the mask that I have been hiding behind. 

I admitted to people in my life that I suck. That my relationship with God sucks.

I have mentioned before that I am awful at maintaining relationships. If you are not in my day to day it is hard for me to keep you informed.

A lot of that is because I think you are busy with your own life, doing your own thing and you won't have time for me.

My relationship with God is like that a lot. 

He has A LOT going on for Him.  How am I to expect that He has time for me? 

So I just don't call. I don't text, I don't write letters. I still love Him and know that He loves me but that is about where our relationship ends.

But no one knows that this is how my relationship with God is. I hide behind the mask of being a leader, being a "good Christian" who has it all together.
But I don't know scripture. I can quote maybe a handful of verses. I don't know stories in the Bible outside of the classics. I am good at faking it. I know all the things to say to make it sound like I have it together.

I have been hiding

Hiding from God

Hiding from others

Hiding from myself.

It's not that I don't believe anymore. Because I do. I believe in Jesus Christ. I have seen and experienced God working in my life. It's just that I don't know that I can do it.

You know the phrase faking it til you make it. What if all I have been doing is faking it all along?

I can go through the motions especially when in front of people. I look like a "good Christian" but I don't really pray or read scripture, I just show up. 

I want to start over. I want to be honest. I don't want to pretend. Not hide behind some Christian image but be honest...

Yes I believe. No I don't do anything about it. I just show up.

"Your will be done"

I have had two major life verses in my life, that I have repeated to myself over and over again when times were rough.
The first one was Jeremiah 29:11. As I drove by myself from Iowa to LA in the spring of 2009 through hills of Utah in an extreme downpour this verse came to mind.
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
I breathed easier knowing that God had a plan, that should my car die, should I die, in this barren land with 100 miles to the next gas station, that it would be a part of God's plan. That should I live, it would be a part of God's plan. God had a future for me.

This was my verse until winter 2013, when I met someone who had the same life verse. When I was in a relationship that would change my life. When I experienced my first panic attack, as I heard that verse coming out of his mouth, and knew God was clearly speaking to me.
My prayer had changed that fall. That relationship had caused me to change. The words of my lips and pray of my heart had changed to a simple phrase, "Your will be done."
Yes I had a future and yes, God still had a plan for me, but what I needed to remind myself of was that God's will needed to be done. It wasn't about me, but about God.

Today as I reflected on this, I began to think more and more about the Lord's Prayer. About how Jesus instructed us to pray.
It starts out so simple.
Our Father - Ours not just Jesus', not just mine, not just yours, but OURS. We may not agree on predestination or the end of the world, but none of that matters. We have the same God, we share the same Father. We are a community of believers. Often we forget that.
who art in heaven - God is reigning over us, He is where we want to be.
hallowed be your name - God is are holy, God is worthy to be praised.
your kingdom come - Your kingdom God, not mine, not Joe's, but Yours.
your will be done - God what You want, what You will, what You desire. Not me, not my wants, not my wills, not my desires.
on earth - On earth, in this place. God's will be done here and now, where we walk and live.
as it is in heaven - let this place on earth be a mirror of heaven.
Give us today - Today, not tomorrow, not next week, or next month or when we graduate or get married but today.
our daily bread - God will not let us starve. He will deliver the manna from heaven. He will feed us. Daily.
and forgive us our trespasses - We will screw up. We are human and we fail, but God will forgive us.
as we forgive those who have sinned against us -  we need to forgive. Holding that grudge, holding that hurt, does nothing but hurt us. If God can forgive us, we need to extend that forgiveness onto others.
And lead us not into temptation - I am prone to screw up. It is only with God that I don't fail. If God is leading us, if our eyes are on God, we will be safer from temptation.
but deliver us from evil - God can rescue us. God DOES rescue us. He is the only thing that saves.

Matthew 6:9- 13, how simple, how beautiful. How often we just repeat the words from memory, without pausing to think about what they really mean.

My head is full

Trying to lay down to sleep and my head is full.

Full of thoughts about inmates and how they are loved and that no matter their past crime they still deserve to know they are loved. (By God and by others)

Full of thoughts of how no one deserves love but God loves us all anyway.

Full of thoughts of the power of the written word. The value and meaning behind that someone took the time to write something down. 

Full of over processing and over thinking. 

Full of feeling and emotions and tears.

Full of a heart that doesn't fit in my chest.

Full of a God who holds it all easily in His hands. 

Blame Game

Exodus

Isrealites blame Moses. Moses blames God.

We blame those who hurt us, the friend, ex boyfriend/girlfriend. The parent who was never around. We blame those people and they blame others. The father who didn't teach them how to be a man, the generational differences, the disease. 

Everyone is blaming someone else. Passing off our behaviors and actions and words as results of something that happened to us. 

But what if we stopped. What if we stopped passing the blame? What if we just admitted that a crappy thing happened to us but that we can rise above. 

Yes my ex relationships have hurt me in a lot of ways but those men aren't to blame for our failed relationshipships. They screwed up and I screwed but in the end We didn't belong together and that's all that matters. 

Yes your father was never around, he never "taught" you how to be a man but aren't you still a man. And maybe he wasn't around because he realized he wasn't a good teacher. 

I am not trying to create excuses for the way or why things happen. All I am trying to say is that passing the blame onto someone else gets us nowhere.

So let's all just own up to the fact that crappy things happen and learn from it and stop pointing fingers.

Marriage won't fix everything.

I can't speak from my own experience as I have never been married but I have been surrounded by married people my whole life.

People who made marriage look like the easiest thing in the world, people who I didn't understand why they stayed married, people who tried to sugar coat it and people who were brutally honest.

This is what I know: adding someone else to your life is hard. Making time and space is hard. Making time and space for the right person is easier, but it still means sacrifice. 

When you get married life doesn't just magically change for the better.  What does change is your name, your title, your living situation and change is hard. Change can be worth it but it is hard. 

"Singles" don't do yourself a disservice and think that getting married will solve all your problems. You are adding someone else's messed up life, finances, family to your own messed up life, finances and family.  Yes there are now two people carrying that weight but it is also double the weight.

"Marrieds" don't do us single people wrong. Don't make us feel like marriage is the end goal. Some of us will never get there. Some of us will take a long time. Be honest with us. Remind us that living in community is hard. Remind us that love doesn't take out the trash or put the toilet seat down. Remind us that we have value and worth right now in our singleness. 

Heck be jealous of us, because unfortunately a lot of us our jealous of you. 

New Year's Eve

I don't get it. 

Stay up past bedtime, mess with sleeping schedule; for what? To see another day come in? That happens every day, every day is new, every morning is fresh. 

No point in losing sleep over one more day.

See you kids in 2015. 

Because you will never read this

You will never know that I first realized I loved you on Christmas Eve. 

You will never know how my heart broke in that realization. 

How my heart still breaks in knowing that the man I loved was never meant to be mine.

Love is powerful and strong and leaves a mark.

Love is dangerous and beautiful and hopeful. 

My love for you left a scar. Christ's love for me has made me whole. 

I am a bad friend

I am horrible at relationships. I must have missed that day in school.

I am not just talking about dating. But friends, family, coworkers, God. Any and all relationships, I have never been good at.

In grade school I didn't have a lot of friends. My birthday parties were always just family. I hung out with cousins and the neighbor kids, and even those relationships I couldn't make last into middle school or high school. 

High school I hung out with a few people, but once again I was bad. I rarely initiated the conversations or the hang outs. I was always on the receiving end. 

College I sat in my room until people came and talked to me. During summer breaks I rarely spoke to those people. Out of sight out of mind seemed to be the running theme.

Even now as a grown woman, with all the technology we have, if you are not a part of my day to day life I don't reach out to you; even if you are, I don't reach out. I sit and I wait. I wait for someone to speak to me.

I do the same thing with God. I don't hang out with Him daily. We see each other on the weekends and a few times during the week, but usually I just sit around waiting for Him.

I wait for Him to reach out to me. To say something big, to comfort me when I hurt, to grant me knowledge and wisdom and peace. 

I sit with my phone always on me, waiting. 

Part of my reason for not reaching out to others is that I never want to be a bother. I don't want to interrupt their life. And what if they don't want to speak to me, like I want to speak to them. 

But see the thing is when I do reach out and reconnect with those old friends, things are as if they have never changed. They love and care for me the same way they did before. 

God is the same way. When I open up and speak to him. He opens up and speaks to me. Loving me and caring for me the same way as before. But taking that first step is always the hardest and scariest, the fear of rejection hangs tight.

God I am sorry I have been a bad friend.
Friends I am sorry I have been a bad friend.

I promise I will try to do better. That is all I have. The promise to try. 

Hope

"Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told." - Habakkuk 1:5

Some day I will look back. Some day I will look back at this time and this place and be amazed and in awe of what God has brought me through and what He has brought me to. 

And so for now I will hold on to that moment in the future. I will hope for the day that I can sit in a place and time and say "For this. This is the place and space God has brought me to. What a better place than I could have imagined."

Get out

I heard something recently that really broke my heart.
A man who was a leader in a church(not the church building I currently attend), it was found out that he was having an affair. Not just a one time indiscretion but he was in a relationship with someone who was not his wife. When his wife confronted him about it he admited to the affair, he told his wife that he wanted to seperate, that he wanted a divorce, that he loved this other woman.
Obviously my heart broke for the wife.
But that is not the part that really broke my heart.
Obviously since he was a leader in the church, church leadership was going to get involved. They would ask him to step down from leadership, which I feel is appropriate, but I also was informed that they were going to ask him to leave the church, and my heart broke for him. My heart broke for him. He is a wounded individual, he is a hurt man, he is a sick man. He obviously needs the healing and love of Christ.
But my heart also broke because of the way this other church is responding to sinners. To say no you have to leave, instead of we are going to stand here with you though this and love you through it. And obviously there is the thought that this is the church the wife goes to and wanting to protect her. And that I understand, 100%. He caused her harm and we should want to protect this woman in the church. I feel like we should do everything we can to protect the victim. But when it comes to an act of sin, and granted he has not asked for repentance, he is not repenting of his behavior in any shape or form but I feel that that does not give us as a church justification to say you cant come here any more. My heart breaks for this man who is obviously troubled and stuck in sin and the devil has a hold of him. And instead of our response being hey I am going to fight for you and instead of fighting for him and saying no this isn't appropraite behavior, you can't do this, I am going to stick with you through it, we are kicking him out until he changes his behavior.
One of the things I have heard from my own church recently that makes me love my church so much, is the phrase, Belong, Believe, Behave. First we get to a place where we feel like we belong and out of that belonging can come a belief in Christ and out of the belief, comes a change a behavior. So its not that we have to do good in order to be saved, and its not that we have to do whats right in order to be saved, and in order to feel like we belong. First we have to feel like we belong and we have to feel safe, and out of that comes a sense of belief and a sense of trust in Jesus Christ and out of the trust in Jesus and relationship with Him comes a change in behavior.
So my heart breaks for this man who is stuck in sin, my heart breaks for this man who is being kicked out of the church.
My heart breaks for his wife who is heartbroken at this betrayal.
And my heart breaks for the church.
I pray that he can be loved, I pray that he can be known. I pray that there is someone out there who will say I am going to fight for you brother. I am going to walk with you through this. And I will be here, til the day that you believe and I will be here til the day that you repent, and til the day that your behavior changes. I will make you feel belonged, I will make you feel loved despite of and because of your sin.
Just the way Jesus loves us because of and in despite of our sin.

"I just miss my friend"

I miss my friend too.

I miss the guy I bonded with over sour cream and a mutual love for silly things. 

I miss being completely honest and knowing that we would always come back to "us". 

I miss my partner in adventure, my not afraid to say what's on his mind companion. 

But I also miss not crying every day and being able to go out without fear of running in to you. I miss my heart being in one piece. I miss day dreams that didn't lead to hurt. I miss saying that I am okay and really meaning it. 

I miss having crushes and being able to look at a guy without wondering if he will hurt me too. 

I miss listening to the radio and not having every song remind me of you.

I miss avoiding people because they annoy me not because they remind me of you. 

I miss peace and restfulness.

I miss my life. 

Day

I broke my own heart tonight.

 Thinking of second chances and wishing for the day when there will be peace and civilness.

Praying that some day two broken people will heal enough to be able to be in each others presence without fear of hurt or back sliding. 

That someday lives can be lead without fear. 

My heart aches for that day. My soul wishes for it to be tomorrow. 

My mind doubts that day will ever come, and so I hurt, and I cry. 

And yet again I try to move on.

Encouragement for the Singles

There was multiple times this weekend
when I was glad to be completely single.

I lounged on the couch Friday night until it was time for late night pie with friends.

Saturday I ran, then ran errands all day, only home long enough to eat and shower before going out with coworkers. 

Sunday was church, lunch, nap, hospital visit and Lord of the Rings.

As I sat on my friend's couch Sunday night I became so thankful for my singleness. Even as several of my friends got engaged this weekend, I was not sad or lonely. 

I was glad. I was glad I didn't have to drag someone awkwardly to an event with a handful of coworkers, where the conversation was mostly about work. I was glad that I didn't have to worry about fitting in hang out time with a significant other. I enjoyed spending my Saturday going at my own pace, adding and taking  away activities as I saw fit. I liked that I didn't have to have an akward conversation or feel bad for not inviting a boy along to the girls watching of Lord of the Rings.

Now I don't want you to get the wrong idea and think that I am some pillar of singleness. There are times when I am desperately lonely. There are days when I desire to keep someone up to date with my schedule. When I wish I had someone to drag along with me to silly work functions. 

But this weekend was not one of those times. This weekend I enjoyed my singleness for all of its wonderfulness. 

I believe that someday I will get married, someday I will have someone else's schedule to work around. Someday I will long for these days again. So now when those days of loneliness come I will try and think of that time, in the future, where I will no longer be young and wild and free. I will be old and tame and caged, me, my husband and our 2.5 kids, and I will long desperately for these days.