Work of Heart (II)

So rather than diving headfirst into all the feels that centered around needing attention, I needed to take a step back and ask whether the thing I thought would solve my problem might only end up making it worse. Was I ready to give someone else the things that I thought I wanted in a relationship? Was I whole enough not to just leave both of us more broken? Was I expecting some else to love me and care for me in ways that I couldn’t love and care for myself? Or, better yet, was I expecting someone else to love me in ways that I hadn’t allowed God to love and care for me. I think that in many ways it is a blessing to be asking myself these questions at a time that there are no potential suitors on the horizon. I’m 22 and I have quite a while to figure myself out. I have so many more stages of my life to live. Why was I in such a rush for a relationship? Part of it was that idea of wanting attention but another part was feeling left out, wanting to experience this thing that seemed so beautiful. Deep down I was a hopeful  romantic (not hopeless, I have hope in Jesus name lmao). I’d fully drank the Disney Kool-Aid and I wanted that true love.       

It's hard to be such a romantic and a realist at the same time though because although I had this desire for love, I also had this secret painful fear that I’d never find true love. (it took me a long time to look that fear in the face. (There's a lot there...we shall unpack later) I just thought that the chance of me realistically getting my fairytale was slim, I knew reality was very different from any Disney movies but I’m not sure what to tell you, I wanted to be in love ha! I think we’re taught to be a bit ashamed of this desire as women. We’re taught to think of it as silly and trivial but, just because these desires have been warped and perverted in the wrong context, doesn’t mean that they are wrong in and of themselves. I personally think that they are from God and when they are filtered through the context of his love they become beautiful. But how often do we let those desires be shaped by culture instead of the counter cultural God who created them?

So I guess, in a way, anticipation of real romantic love requires faith as well. It requires me to trust that God isn’t going to put us in each other's lives before we’re ready for each other. It takes faith to allow yourself to be excited for something that isn’t guaranteed, something that you aren’t ready for right now, but something that has the potential to be beautiful. I’m excited to eventually get to know all the parts of someone. To love and be loved, to serve and be served, to do life everyday with some who gets me. But at the end of the day, I can wait for it. I don't want to ruin it by chasing it down before I am ready for it. I can objectively appreciate how good it is to be my own main concern. At the end of the day I’m not willing to sacrifice my process for the chance at escaping loneliness. I’m going to allow God to take his time in developing me to the point where I am not just ready to receive love, but I’m ready to give it as well. To keep it 100, I think God wanted me to realize that it wasn’t actually love that I wanted, it was attention and affirmation. really deep down, I wanted intimacy, to know and be known. He wanted me to ask why I couldn’t pay attention to myself, for myself, why I wasn’t good enough for me. He wanted me to consider what it would be like to truly seek intimacy with my savior. (new post about that process coming soon) It was so much bigger than feeling lonely because I wanted a man. That was simply the expression of a bigger issue. 

 I wanted my family to understand me better. I wanted my friends to show up for me better.  I’d given a bit of thought to how I could show up for them. But if I’m being completely honest, it was more about “showing them how to treat me” or “or being a good friend so I’d have a good friend”. If I REALLY thought about it, I loved the people in my life for who they were, but on some level, because I so badly needed them to love me in a specific way, I was unable to love them genuinely and without condition. If I’m constantly seeing my relationship with you in terms of what you will do for me, or how you will view me, or the ways in which you will respond to me and how that will make me feel, then I’ll have a very “me-centered” approach to you. I become unable to love you fully when I need you too much for my own self centered purposes.This is because when it is time to speak the truth to you in love, or trust you enough to let you in on my pain, or care about you enough to tell you how you’ve really hurt me, I begin to put my need for you above my love for you. I begin to need you so much that I shy away from anything that I think might cause you to leave or deprive me of your love. Let that just marinate for a second. Okay now does that sound like the kind of person that needs to just be out here in casual relationships. No! Like I will break you fool! And because God is helping me to see people as people and not just solutions to some desire in me, I am able to readjust what I think I need. There’s still this hopeful twinge to experience what I might be missing out on but now I’m focused more on loving God, myself, and others more. In. That. Order. I think then, God willing, when I am able to love people more than I need them, God will really be able to trust me with the relationships he has destined for me.

I know that I am a social and relational being. I want to understand and honor that. I know that there’s no way I can do ALL the necessary work on myself before I enter into relationship but, best believe I’ll be learning how to love the people that God has placed in my life so that I am able to be more than a leaky cup who needs others so much that I am incapable of loving them well.  When it comes to romantic relationships, I want to  be in a place where I’m able to give love the way I want to receive love-  as a whole, complete person, enhanced in partnership with another whole, complete person seeking God and walking in purpose together. I’ll be able to do this because, although a boyfriend or a husband plays a fundamentally different role in a lot of ways, at the end of the day he’s still a person and a friend first. A romantic title doesn’t make him “belong to me” any more than a best friend title. I’m working on understanding how to become a whole person because that's who God has called me to be. I’m learning to walk in love with other people because that’s how God has called me to walk. I need to learn how to treat myself and my friends well first. I know that when a man comes it is going to be well worth the wait but, I am not waiting around. I’m just trying to live in my purpose. I know if I do that then my goodness, I’ll  be a woman worth waiting for...

In the past few months God has been working on me with a swiftness. I’m not sure what exactly he’s preparing me for.  But, I know that when it comes I better be ready because much more than a relationship thing, it's going to be a purpose thing. Maybe God is simply introducing me to the person he’s always known me to be. In a sense, I feel like the veil has been lifted. Perhaps because I’m walking in a new level of authenticity with myself, but more likely because I’m operating in a new level of grace, God is illuminating a lot of places that have been dark in my life. I think that the process may look different for everyone but for me, I went from the girl who was crying over a hypothetical  man in her room in March to the woman who was able to write this post feeling truly content by living fully in the light of Christ. I’m not perfect by any means, but I am so much better. When I went to God with my brokenness, he helped me to see Him better. The more I saw Him, the better I was at receiving his love and loving him back. As God is teaching me to see him better and love him better, he’s allowing me to see myself through his light and love myself in that light. As I am learning to walk in self-love, I am learning how to better love the people that God has placed in my life. Everything happened in that specific  order over the past 4-5 months. (there was a lot of mess He needed to deal with lol) However, now that I’ve experienced all these stages of insight, he’s helping see that the refining process is continuous. I’m continuously asking how I can see God and love him better, I continually want to know myself and love myself better, and I’m continuously called to serve others and love them better. I don’t have all the answers yet but do know the order. I do see that it all needs to start with a proper view of God that places him in an authoritative position in my life. It is a position  that  is primarily centered on his glory rather than  my fear of loneliness and therefore it is a position in which I am never alone.