and i don't want to be frozen anymore. (incubus)
i used to scoff at people who had blogs and promised to update them daily, because i had a desk job that made it easy for me to facebook, tweet, and blog frequently throughout my 8 hour work day. now that i'm teaching 18 four-year-olds every day and making home visits in the afternoons and doing accountability and small group and supper club and serving on the special events committee for the greenville humane society and going to the dog park, there is really no time for my dear blog. i've made it my goal, though, to work really hard at updating more regularly, if for no one else but myself. i don't pretend to think i have some huge following, but writing is so therapeutic for me. i'm good with the written word. if i think about it long enough, i can form a sentence that comes pretty close to describing what i want to convey. that's a good thing when you find yourself in the midst of some pretty confusing life situations. so. here we go. this is what i've learned over the past little while:
junior year: heartbreak beyond all heartbreak. senior year through october 2009: avoid all emotional involvement, stay guarded, keep heart in safe mode. october 2009: meet someone and dare i say fall in love? april 2010: end relationship. april - july: beg for second chance. last weekend of july: realize that it's time for this to end for good. august: moving forward. that's the timeline of my life over the past several years. i tell you that to reveal something about myself: i am needy.
i hate to admit that about myself. i mean, i really, REALLY hate to admit that. and for the past few months i've done a really great job of convincing myself that that's not really the problem. however, jesus is persistent, and i've finally come to accept it. i have never had what i'd call a "good" relationship. i've always been hurt. i don't blame anybody for that, it's just the way it is, and i'm in no way saying i've never hurt anybody. the past year of my life makes it pretty clear that i do my fair share of hurting. what has happened to me, though, is that instead of finding my value and worth in jesus, i've been searching to find it in another person. i'm a pretty self-confident woman, but i so desire affirmation in the form of a romantic relationship. i'm 100% social 100% of the time, and loneliness is a really raw place in my heart right now. in the last relationship i was in, i was having my selfish desires met: attention, company, intimacy (don't take that the wrong way, i simply mean closeness), feeling wanted and needed, feeling beautiful. don't get me wrong. i wasn't in the relationship soley for myself: i had (and continue to have) very strong feelings for the person i was in the relationship with. however, instead of facing the fact that i was trying to have someone else meet needs that only christ can meet (and then becoming frustrated and disappointed when he failed to meet them all the time), i poured more and more of myself out. i lost myself in this unhealthy relationship - not unhealthy because of him, unhealthy because it wasn't healing me; in fact, it was making me more "sick."
i absolutely hate having to admit these hard truths to myself. i don't like seeing areas of weakness, and i don't like confessing that there are places in my life that i struggle with and wounds in my heart that are very fresh and very open. i miss this relationship, because it was fulfilling desires, meeting needs. but it wasn't really. it was leaving me even more drained and empty. i want to run back to it. in fact, i'd be lying if i said i didn't pray for it to be reconciled. but i know, i KNOW, that right now, i need to work on me. well, i need to let jesus work on me. i need to let him continue to expose these places in my heart and life that need more of him. i need to rejoice in the fact that he's showing me these raw places so that i can experience true and lasting healing. i need to remember that i can drink from the fountain of life and be thirsty no more. i don't need to seek out another person to try to meet my needs. i need to have my deepest longings satisfied by the one who put those longings in my heart.
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