Sunday, October 8, 2017

Sometimes the fight is hard...

Yesterday I had such a great time, after a pretty crappy week.  So when I woke up went to church on little sleep and started my day I wasn't really expecting to feel the way I do today.  What happened?  Why do I feel so alone, and unable to cope with just common events?  It usually happens when I go to something that  I feel like I should have plenty of people surrounding me and I don't.  Tonight was one of those times.  Sometimes the most alone I feel is at a family event at church.  I had volunteered for two shifts so that I wouldn't have to go through that.  But then things got changed, and so I found myself walking around by myself.  Something that I can handle at pretty much any other time, except for some reason it hit me super hard today. 

I just left, and as soon as I got in my car tears just started streaming down my face.  It isn't that I feel sorry for myself, it is just that I have this deep ache inside of me that feels like something is missing.  I don't belong at family events, because I don't have a family.  I'm not a single mom, I don't have relatives or super close friends with kids.  So, I end up just wandering around aimlessly. 

So, I had to come home and think through why these feelings are hitting me all of a sudden.  It seems like every time I get close to thinking that singleness might cease to exist for me...I realize that I'm wrong.  And that is where this aloneness stems from.  The past month or so I have allowed myself to start to have hope again that there's hope of someone.  That I am not this awful person, that I am not unlovable. 

I know I am not the only one who goes through cycles like this, and I know that it is a cycle.  It will pass, and I will once again know that I am loved and valued, but for tonight I just let myself cry and pray, and feel lost in this despair of never being good enough. 

So, how do I get through this cycle.  How do I understand what God wants from me, and how to make the most of the life he has given me?  How do I get rid of feelings of doubt that I shouldn't have such high standards when it comes to relationships? 

Why does it seem like I always get things wrong?  Read too much into a text, or friendship?  Why is it that the ones I want are the ones that don't want me?  Why is it that I am single?  Oh sure we like to say that it is better to be single.  I have heard that from so many people, even this week.  I know and get why it is being said, but you know what?  Sometimes the fight doesn't seem worth it.  I mean the fight to not just give in to the urge to just go out and date like the world says you can.  The urge to just try on a bunch of losers to find the right one?  The urge to go out with someone that isn't spiritually where I need someone to be in order to not feel so alone.  Or the urge to not wait for God's timing.  Because right now I am tired of waiting.  I am tired of not having a best friend. 

How do I break this cycle?  How do I stop myself from allowing the lies that I am not worthy to keep creeping into my heart and soul? 

It starts with Jesus.  It starts with spending time praying, reading and journaling.  It starts with putting those things first instead of FB, any kind of social media, and second guessing every decision I've ever made.  But it also starts with realizing that no one's life  is perfect.  That we all have desires, and that one day I will be blogging about an event like today in a different context.  My desire for being with someone is another's desire to get one second alone.  My desire to have a family and kids is another's  desire to be able to see the world. 

I know God has me.  I know that His promises are true and real.  But I know that I have made a billion mistakes and I make more everyday.  I try too hard, or not hard enough.  I long for a best friend.  I long for the void of that best friend, that family to be filled. 

Somedays no matter what we say it isn't enough to just depend on Jesus to fill those voids.  It should be, but it isn't.  I want it to be.  Maybe this week that can be my focus.  Cut down on social media, and just look up everytime my heart and mind drifts.  Look up when I try to fill that void with things I shouldn't.  Look up when I am reading into something that doesn't mean what I think or hope it does. 

I won't give up the fight, because I can't.  I don't want to.  But maybe for today I take a deep breathe, step out of the ring, and let Jesus take the fight back.  That's the best that I can do, that's the best that he asks me to.

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