Realization

This past weekend I partook in leadership summit with my school. This experience first off taught me so much about taking charge and claiming my role. Along with that I learned how to work with others and how to determine strengths. We worked together with members from other leaderships on campus and we learned to work with one another. One activity the point of it was to simply ask for help, our team took 15-20 minutes to figure this out. We kept going in a circle and never asked for someone to help us. I learned that it is okay to ask for help when I am in a tough or sticky situation. Throughout this next year I am going to run into bump and curves and I am going to have to ask for help and in doing so I will learn so much. The summit was incredible and so much more could be said but this was a segway into my next point.

Tonight Dan Moranville, Stuckey, Katie Lawson, Heather Bryant, and I all had a time of fellowship, if you would call it that. We talked for 2 hours about almost anything under the sun. We covered topics on what a relationship is, a committed friendship, brokenness, the flood, the radio station, the campus, and so much more. During part of this discussion I was becoming to have a sense of peace over the whole Ben and me thing. Then afterwards Dan and I talked for about 45 minutes about just him and Lauren, Ben and me, then counseling. The whole discussion just helped me realize so much. Sure one thing that scares me is that Ben and I may never be friends again but it is something I have to accept, but I have to wait and see what happens. Ben was honest with me throughout the relationship and I did not want to listen to him. He told me he couldn't live up to the expectations I had created for him and I didn't listen. Even after the break up he told me his honest thoughts and I didn't want to accept them. Now looking back on it and after talking with Dan, I realize that Ben was doing his part and I was not being mature and accepting it but now the time has come to realize that. Bashing him to people around me isn't going to help the situation nor is it going to help him or I. In the summit we learned to be positive, people feed off of the negative and that is what I have done in this break up. There is no need to sit here and wonder what if because Ben and I were headed for the road of break up no matter the way we looked at it. We were finally forming the friendship needed and during that time we realized our values were different and would affect us in the long run and we didn't need that, for either of our lives, but Ben was the one who realized it first and it just took me time to get there. I can't expect so much from someone, because they are just a human. They are not meant to be an idol or someone I focus so much attention upon, but they are just a person, like me. Growing up is a hard thing to do and I am beginning to get there. I am now a leader, in a top position here at school and I need to lead by example and realizing so much of Ben and me right now is only going to help me lead people better. Thanks be to God for helping me come to realizations and for bringing people into my life to help me understand. There is so much more to realize and accept and that will take time but in the mean time God needs to become the center of my life and other events in my life will fall into action.

The boy.

As time goes by without talking to him I get a little better and a little worse. I wonder if he is even thinking of me at all or if he ever thinks about contacting me, but I guess if he wanted to contact me he would have by now, right? As much as I don't want to love him anymore I can't seem to get over him. As much as I want to hate him I can't because he meant and still means so much to me. As much as I want to let him go, I can't seem to let him go completely. My heart aches every day because I wonder about his life and what is happening in it. I look at his page trying to get a glimpse of what is happening and all i see is girls posting on his wall that he replies back to, when he never did that for me, and the pictures of how he currently looks, clean shaved and cut hair, another thing I longed for him to do. I miss him so much and I miss our friendship that we had gained but it scares me that if I contact him and just work on the friendship then I will only hurt myself more right now. I don't know what is better for me still to not talk to him or to have him in my life in some aspect. I don't know what he is thinking but that he asks other's how I am doing or if I hate him. Why can't he just come to me? That's all I am longing for.

Is there Someone for Everyone

My home church is doing a series called, "Got ?'s" where the congregation can ask any questions they have and then answers are given in one of three ways. Modeled after Life church in Oklahoma, The Bible is our standard of truth, When the Bible doesn't speak clearly they will add biblical principles, or the pastors opinion (you can give or take his answer)

So one of the questions asked was "Is there really someone for everybody?" When I first heard this my answer is yes, of course there is. How many times have I had that discussion with friends about there being someone out there to make us happy and fulfill our needs of life. Well Keith blew my mind with his answer. So is there somebody for everyone? He says, "Yes, and His name is Jesus." Hearing that answer I sat up in bed and paused the video of him talking. I thought about what was just said, Jesus. Why had I never thought of that before was one of my first thoughts and then I realized because I am so focused on the wants and needs for a physical human being rather the Almighty God. Finally I unpaused the video sermon and listened to the rest of what Keith had to say.

"I keep trying to find that special person... In the Bible it does not seem that God says everyone is going to be married..."

"You need to find your identity in Jesus and not in the relationship with someone else. You need to find your identity in Jesus and not in the lonely you are feeling, find it in Jesus. It is okay to have the want of finding somebody and wanting to be married but once that focus becomes your main goal things have been thrown out of wack. You're the one who has disrupted the flow you're supposed to be in and you have to turn your boat around and get back to the identity with Jesus." He then read Philippines 4:6-7. He proceeded to say, "The fact that Christ is within you help you guard your heart and mind. Having Christ as your identity will protect your heart and mind. Stop looking for the right person but be the right person. Stop looking for Mr and Mrs right instead be Mr/Mrs right. Trust in God. Stop looking for the right person and don't settle. If you're going to find your identity in jesus then the person you're in a relationship with needs to have found their identity in Jesus. If we want to find someone then Jesus has to be the core thought."

What he says almost seems like it should have been right in front of my face. The answer to the question is so simple that maybe it is so simple that I didn't see. And that part of his sermon was exactly what I needed to hear. I realized that I have been looking and searching for the perfect person and trying to make someone into the perfect person but that shouldn't be my job. I just need to make Jesus my focus and my identity and with that everything will come into focus. My goal now is to make jesus my identity and to become the perfect Mrs. and that will all fall into place when Jesus is my core.

L-O-V-E

Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.” ~Louis de Bernieres

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

Love is such an incredible part of life and makes us who we become. Love can be the best thing to experience but can bring along the worst pain imaginable. It can make you believe anything is possible. Love is supporting a person through everything life throws at them. Love can entangle two souls together forever no matter the distance. Love is confusing and not easily understood. Love makes a person become someone. ILOVEYOU.