So I figured out something totally awesome this week. Or rather, God has taught me something awesome this week. However you want to say it. Something awesome happened this week.
To back up, I've been learning a lot in my devotions lately about how to rest in God and to rely on Him rather than anything else. Through doing this I have found an amazing peace that is indescribable, save for the fact that it makes me want to giggle and do a little happy dance. I've learned that sometimes life sucks and when it does, God can use it for something good.
The other day I found out that Aaron was in a relationship and stupid me starting crying. I do not miss him, I do not pine for him and I do not want him back, however it made me upset. How lame is that? Anyway, for the rest of the day I was distracted by a snow day and a few people who invaded my apartment (it's ok, they're lovely and crazy) so I kept my mind off of it, but then I went to Time Out, which is a chapel possibility in the evening on Wednesdays.
Dr. Peterson was there talking about Communion and it was really interesting. He was talking about the purpose of Communion, origins and etc etc. At one point someone asked "Who shouldn't take Communion?" and he said that basically anyone who truly wanted to experience God could take Communion. He said that Communion was a way of worship and healing. He asked us "What does God need to heal you of?" And I immediately thought of the hurt I was feeling. He then asked "And what is God challenging you with?" The answer was not hard to figure out.
Let's face it. I am a hopeless romantic. I cannot tell you how many boys I have bossed around, instructing them how to romance their girlfriends. I want to get married someday, I really do. And as I thought I was able to admit to myself that I think about this whole concept too much. It felt like God was challenging me to give up my dream of romance and marriage to Him. At first I was like, "Cool! I'll let God take care of it and when I've done well not pining over this wish of mine He'll reward me with an awesome guy!" And God was like "Umm, no. That's not how this is going to work. Maybe I will and maybe I won't. You need to be ok with the idea of never getting married if you're going to do this. You are going to only be romantically involved with me. This is how it has to work." After a little bit, I was able to consent to this. The thoughts of romance and marriage still pop into my mind, but hey, I am so much more content knowing that my true love is God and no matter what He will always be there for me.
Oh! And so another really cool thing happened, if I may.
I figured out what my problem has been for the past two years. I figured out why I've been so unhappy and why so many people have been telling me that I've changed and it's not for the best.
I gave Aaron and my friends at NNU my mirror.
When I went to college I was nervous as allgetout, I didn't want to be in Idaho, I hardly knew anybody, I didn't want to go to NNU, I was away from everyone I loved and there were strange things going on with my body that I didn't understand. After a while I drifted away from God as well. All of these things made me very self-conscious and when I started to make friends and then get a boyfriend, somehow I ended up judging myself according to how they reacted to me. For a while it was just fine, but then I got depressed (FM depletes your serotonin levels, which of course is another thing that leads to my OCD kicking back into gear, oh yeah, and my temper gets shorter and shorter). This all mixed together, I started to get more difficult to deal with, so they started to get more annoyed with me. When problems would arise with Aaron I would freak out because it would hurt more than it should have because I was getting my feelings of self-worth from him, rather than from God and it would stress him out and make him more irritable with me. Basically it was this whole loop of craziness. I'm not saying that everything was Aaron's fault or my fault. This is just the basis for our demise as far as I can tell.
BTW. When I focus on God, take proper care of myself (which included taking my medicine which balances out my serotonin levels) I am more patient, less neurotic and very rarely depressed. Now that I have God, that I know my tendency to hand my mirror over to other people, I am able to be more conscious of when I am doing it and when I am not. I can't tell you how happy I am now that I have God again and that He holds my mirror. I don't hate myself, I don't freak out over everything, I laugh so much more and I have my personality back.
So I've learned that God and God alone needs to have control over my feelings of self-worth. He will never make me feel worthless or stupid and He sees into my heart when everyone else just sees my OCD. Dad says that the best gift I can give the man I end up marrying (pending God's decisions, of course) is to be completely content with myself, strong and independent. If you choose to let someone besides God hold your mirror, you will turn into something you won't like. That is completely what I did. God will only ask you to improve on your imperfections, He will never ask you to compromise what is right or make you feel bad for being who you truly are, which is who He made you to be.
