Shew, relationships are hard guys.
Yeah, I thought as a single person I knew that well. Scratch that, as a single introvert, I knew that well. It was hard enough to go parties alone to try and be social, but now I have this person next to me that wants to know how I feel. I’m sorry, excuse me?
I hate feelings, although I am a reformed non-feeler, (shout out to counseling) but I am still trying to muddle my way through how all of this works. I guess that’s probably the point, but I have found that the more I try to work on it the worse I feel like I get.
I realize that past hurts come up a lot more than I anticipated. Things I thought were over decide they are indeed NOT over, once I get the same similar feeling in my chest. I get flashbacks to a situation, and BAM! There I am 19 or 25 years old all over again.
What is it about other human beings that make us realize our own brokenness?
I’m grateful for it, I am, but I just never thought it would be this… emotional? I think I have honestly gotten better at my other relationships because of my primary relationship. I realize how isolated I really make my feelings and how closed off I really do make my intimate feelings that I really should let out.
I am very thankful that the Lord is patient with me. VERY patient. He allows me the time I need to process and he has allowed me to me angry.
Yeah, I know, that sounds weird to some of you out there. But yes, I needed to be angry. I needed to see my life in this raw way that led me here to this point.
For two years, I was in this awful place. I just didn’t know what to do or where to go and I was just mad about everything, and also tired, so there’s that… But Jesus told me it was okay. That it was okay to have these emotions that I didn’t know what to do with. Because friends, I wasn’t really angry. I was a whole lot of other things, that I can’t even put a name to.
I was sad, rejected, anxious, afraid, crushed, and fed-up all at the same time. I felt like I was watching everything I had ever wanted in life slip through my fingers. I was seeing everyone else in life getting what they were hopelessly praying for, but I was left in silence. And this isn’t the first time, so I was over it.
I remember thinking that I just don’t care. Not in a suicidal way, but in a way that just made me passionless. Hence, no blog. No writing. Why write when I had nothing to say? I didn’t want to be this voice in a sea of everyone wanting to be heard. I didn’t care about being heard, because that’s not what writing is to me. Writing is life, and I didn’t have any inside me.
I pretended. I put myself on airplanes and adventures, but I didn’t get my hope back until Paris.
A town I have had in my heart and all over my room since before I can remember. I thought it wouldn’t live up to my expectations, but it exceeded them ten fold. Mostly because Jesus met me there, through people who didn’t know me and didn’t speak my language. Through this history that had a hurt like mine, deep and buried so far down that it took a fire to bring it to the surface.
Paris and I were the same. We were meant to be, and I needed it. The next month my heart would be redeemed in a Starbucks off some exit in Gwinnett County Georgia, and someone decided they wanted my heart to beat again.
I’m not sure what the point of this blog is really supposed to be. I think it’s part confession part reminder to myself that darkness can’t stay dark very long. The light of Jesus will shine through at the point you let it. But also, brokenness is okay. It’s okay to feel let down and at the end of yourself. I’m not meant to be anyone’s savior, only one person’s shoulders are strong enough for that, and I need them to hold me up too.
So wherever you are, be all there as Jim Elliot would say. Don’t move too fast. Don’t try to be ready when you aren’t. Be present in the emotion and feel it. Be you. Press into the realness that is life.
Be brave and in doing so you will become strong.
Learning as I go Along... 