The Past

<p>Tonight I got a very unexpected friend request. The man who has the record for my longest relationship wanted to be my facebook friend. The man who I dated off and on for 3 years, cheating on me and breaking my heart multiple times, wanted back in my life after no contact for over 6 years. <br>
It took me a long time to get over him, to get over those feelings of hurt and betrayal from a man who said he wanted to marry me, who wanted to father my children. <br>
I had closed and locked the door on that part of my life. I no longer associated with people from that time, I avoided the places we would hang out. I had moved on.
And tonight, tonight I was faced with all of that all over again. Those feelings of hurt and betrayal as I saw his name and the photo of him with his wife and kids.
Five years ago I would have cried. I would have grabbed a bottle of wine, and drank until the tears contained nothing but alcohol. I would have made some phone calls and let my anger guide me down a path of poor choices.
But tonight, as my heart sank as those memories came flooding back, I was allowed a moment of reflection. I am no longer that girl that would allow a second and third chance to a boy who cheated on me. I am no longer the girl who would let her pain lead her down a path of destruction.  I am no longer the girl who would drown her tears in alcohol.
I am now the woman who moves on. The woman who recognizes her pain and lets it go. The woman who sees her past and by the grace of God does not have to relive it. There might still be tears tonight, not out of pain, but out of thankfulness to a God who has saved me from it all. A God who has blessed me more than I deserve, a God who will continue to bless me more than I can imagine.

I will not be adding to my friends list tonight or anytime in the near future, not that name anyway.

What are you waiting for?

I read a blog recently that talked about purity rings and waiting till your married. In it the girl talks about how she took off her purity ring not because she was going to go out and have sex but because of the symbolism behind it. Her life wasnt about waiting and that is something that I think we as a culture dont stress enough.
Our lives shouldnt be about waiting. We already have everything. Why should I wait till I find a husband or  wait till I have a kid? Why can't I live my life right now to the fullest? Why has society decided that I am less because I'm single?
I am no less important or valued by my Creator because I do not have a husband or children. Maybe in some ways I am more valued because I can commit to every Sunday morning hanging with middle schoolers and taking them on mission trips and showing them how awesome a Jesus centered life can be.

This is something I need to be reminded of daily, how much God loves me in the here and now. His love for me does not wait for me to get married or wait for me to have children. His love is here and now and powerful and wonderful.

This is one of the things I hope my middle schoolers (specifically the girls) learn. God did not put us on this earth to sit and wait. God put us here to do and live and love. I want them to see and hear through my actions and words that my life is about God's plan and God's love and living an amazing Jesus centered life. Lucky for me I am not an early Jew. I do not have to wait for the coming Messiah. And luckily He loves me.

My true love has already come, He saved my soul and loves me unconditionally.  And He is pretty much perfect. Now if only I could get him to do the dishes.

Failures

I had a moment of panic last week during church that when it comes to judgement day and I am standing before the cross that I will fail for the times that I have been a poor friend, for the times when I have failed to proclaim God's name, for the times I have failed to hold on to God and nothing else. For the times when I have saught the pleasures of this world instead of holding out for the prizes of heaven.

Tonight as I drove around after returning a movie that I thought was going to be a comedy but was actually pretty deep and brought up some nasty things in me, I started to feel bad and like a failure. But this time not in God's eyes but the worlds.
I am 31 years old. Single, never married, no kids. Work a job (two actually) not because either of them are something I love but because I have to pay the bills. (Frankly I dont know what I would do if I wasn't just working to not be in debt.) Dont own a home. Live in a shoebox of a studio apartment that I struggle to keep clean, because even when I have time off from work or my non booming social life, I can't seem to make myself get off the couch for more then 5 mins at a time.

Lucky for me these two feelings didn't intersect and tonight as I drove around listening to K-love (because that is the Christian thing to do [cheesey]) I didn't feel like a failure in God's eyes and I knew that even though I am a bit of a screw up (sometimes larger than others) that God still loves me and is still proud of me and doesn't care that my house is a mess or that I dont know what I am doing with my life. He knows that I love Him and that even when things suck a lot that I won't turn my back on Him. That everyday I am becoming less of the person I was before, and more of the person He wants me to be. That as long as I try to please Him I can't fail and failure in the world's eyes mean nothing.

So here's the deal

I am 31 years old. (yes I know I need to update my profile)  I am single. I haven't had a boyfriend in 6 years or gone on a date in over a year.
Being 25 and single is awesome. Heck even 30 and single was pretty great but at 31 all sorts of reality has set in.
There is not currently any men in my life who are potential life mates. So even if I met the guy of my dreams tomorrow there is still some get to know you time, meet the family and friends, get engaged, plan a wedding, etc. time. So lets say at least 6 months but probably longer because I am me and slightly crazy and would spend 3 months debating if I actually want to live with someone else.
So a year from now I am married, and I want to have kids but not right a way so we wait. But I am almost 33 at this point and who knows what my body will do. But I dont just want one kid. Only children freak me out (side affect of a big family). So I will want to have another one but I am sure it will take awhile before I want to go through that again. Just like it takes me time to get over the pain of a tattoo and the lack of sleep from a busy week, so too will it take time for me to forget the pain of childbirth and remember that even though it hurt and I didn't sleep for months, it was worth it.
So there I will be 37 and pregnant with my second child. That is if my old fragile body can handle it. There goes my ideas of having a large family just like the one I grew up in. There is always adoption but that takes time as well. So maybe by the time I am 40 I can have 3 kids.

That is if I meet the guy of my dreams tomorrow....

Hmmmmmm

I have been having major I dont know what I am doing with my life moments lately.
Been at a job for almost two years that was just supposed to be something to pay the bills while i found a full time career. I have actually been asked if I  want to do this as my career and i cant say yes but i also cant say no. I like the tech part of my job. I love that I  get to build relationships with the people I  serve. My current position with my  company provides me some options for movement should I  decide that i want to live in a different city. Really that is a huge reason I  am still there. I like the idea that should i want to move to a new city i dont have to do the whole job search thing again.  But is that a good enough reason to stay at a job, prob not. and there are all these staffing/schedule changes going on right now that remind me that it doesnt matter how much I like what i am doing if i dont like the people i work with.  
I dont want to be the person who has a job just to pay the bills. I want to enjoy what I do. I want to not throw a hissy fit every day before work. I want to get ready for the day and be excited to go to a building that houses people I enjoy and activities I enjoy and just happens to pay me. I am a realist so I understand that no matter what that happening everyday may not happen. But I would like it to happen more often than not.

The funny thing about this post (that I have working on for a month) is that I had the thought about a week ago that maybe I will never be the person who knows what she wants to be when she grows up. I'm not a doctor or a teacher or a lawyer. I am a worker and maybe I will spend the rest of my life just going wherever God takes me to whatever job God wants me to do.

31 and still trying to figure it all out.

Random Christmas Thoughts

This year I have been struggling a bit with Christmas being Jesus's birthday and how to celebrate that. I keep thinking "when I have kids I will ..." "when I get married we will..." Not sure why I can't start anything now.
For me birthdays are the big deal with lots of presents all about you. Christmas is about Jesus and family and spending time together and giving to others.
So what does that look like? Currently it looks like going through my closets and taking a sack full of goodies down to the Open Door Mission. Donating money to and buying stuff for Christmas in Village One, and just generally trying to be nicer to people and show them the love of Christ.
But tonight I sat down to make my Christmas lists. My list of things I need to buy for the ones I love. I am 100% behind the idea of buying things because I see something you would love, not because I need to buy you something. And that is the standard rule I follow when it comes to my friends. Which can get a little akward at times due to them giving me gifts and me not getting them anything in return, but Christmas isnt and shouldnt be about buying things just for the sake of buying them.
But family, that is a different story. In my family we draw names between my siblings and inlaws. Then we either do a group gift or individual for my parents and now there are 3 grandkids.
We also send out lists, so people have something to go off of. I started making out lists and ideas of what I want to buy one of my sisils (who I have this year) and already had some stuff in mind prior to recieving her actual list. I know one thing for sure and will go to the mall tomorrow (maybe if I ever go to bed) to look at some other stuff on her list. My parents are done thanks to a group gift this year, which I just need to wrap before they come to town on Thursday (even though they prob wont come into my apartment).
As I starting thinking about what to buy my niece and nephews I got a little overwhelmed. Not so much about what to buy a 3 yr old and two 1 yr olds, cuz I have their lists and like I said before birthdays are a bigger deal to me so Christmas is going to be an outfit and toy or book or movie. But I got overwhelmed at the thought that one child will have 6 people buying for them. And if I know my family there will a bit of over buying. It also stresses me out thinking about the possiblity of duplicate gifts. When we draw names I can just call my mom and confirm with her what she is buying, and then all I have to think about is the outlaws of married siblings if I have their name. But with the kids there are 5 other houses I need to contact. For some reason at their birthdays this did not worry me but now I am stressing.
Definetly going to call my mom tomorrow and talk about it to her and probably my little sister as well. So I will know 2 of the 5, hopefully.
Also a got a little stressed when I realized that Christmas is a little over 10 days away and I have to shop, wrap and ship all my presents this week to guarentee that they will get there before Christmas. And now that I thought about that I just got more stressed.

I went from fun night of Christmas planning watching Polar Express and drinking hot cocoa to stressing out. Hopefully I can turn off my brain and get some sleep so I can go in early to do shopping instead of waiting til 6pm when everyone is off work and the stores get crazy.

Good Enough

I walked into church this morning not feeling good enough.

Feeling like there was no way the man sitting a few rows in front of me would ever be interested in me.

That I wasn't:
tall enough
skinny enough
blonde enough
stylish enough

I lacked any self confidence that would make up for some of my physical lackings.

As I sat in church and felt bad about myself my pastor started speaking about Col 2:13-23.
Usually I pay attention and take detailed notes as if I am in a class and will someday have a test over everything I have learned. But today I spaced out. I let the lack of sleep and coffee and self worth take over.
I laughed at Pastor Mark's comedy not because I thought it was funny but because I felt I had to.
And then he said, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you." and I started paying attention.
He talked about legalism and the measuring stick we use to see how we are doing.
He talked about how we do things for the benefit of others, not for the benefit of God.
Then, THEN he talked about how we should use the measuring stick to measure against God's perfection. And how that leads not to trying harder to fix it ourselves but to a deeper dependence on God.

He summed it up by saying that we don't have to live up to the human standard.

And I smiled. A big dorky inside joke smile.

God knows me, He KNOWS me. He knows what I need to hear and when I need to hear it. He knows that if He tries and tells me something early or later, that it will go in one ear and out the other.

He knows that if I would have walked out of service feeling the way I walked in, that the rest of the day would have been lost. I would have pouted in the corner at our leaders meeting, and backed out of leading this year. I would have come home and bawled about my brother and sisil selling their house and moving in less than a month. I would have drunk myself silly that my parents left shortly after I showed up.

But none of that happened. Because someone who loves me more than I can imagine made sure that I heard the exact words that I needed to hear at the exact moment I needed to hear it.

I am beyond blessed.