It’s almost been a year since my last post on here. How crazy is that? I find it even crazier that the last post I wrote about was being single, when that was the farthest thing from what I was this past year.As I had said in that post, I was quite content with being single. I didn’t have anyone I really liked or was attached to, so it was easy to be without a significant other.
What’s funny is how God always drops someone on your lap when you aren’t looking. Literally not even a week after that last blog post, I started talking to a boy I never thought I would date. We worked together two years earlier and hadn’t kept in very good touch since then. I had him on Facebook, and one night, I saw he was online and decided to message him. I never really messaged anybody, so it was really random for me to just decide to see how he was.
After talking for a good amount of time, we decided to hang out. That hanging out ended up in a relationship- a relationship we both made mistakes in, a relationship that meant a lot to me.
It got very serious very fast and ended just short of seven months. I was absolutely devastated and didn’t understand why God could let that happen to me… again. You see, this isn’t the first time I’ve been told I was loved, needed, and taken care of when, in reality, the person wasn’t sure exactly what they felt. After years of those relationships, I stopped trying to be in relationships and pushed more people away because of it. I only had “flings” that didn’t last more than a month or two, and sometimes I hurt the people I liked at those times. I never wanted to be hurt the way I was in the past, so I felt like a total idiot for making the same mistakes but worse this time.
I just kept thinking how I should’ve seen this one coming. I’m going to be twenty years old this summer, yet I’m not ever going to reach an age where I’m invincible. Thinking, “oh, that wouldn’t happen to me”, or “no, that wouldn’t happen again” was quite naïve, and I think I even knew that the whole time. Despite any sense of warning or conscious, I let myself make those mistakes, and I’m really paying for them now.
During hard times like these, people will tell us or we will tell ourselves that God is using all this hard stuff for a reason. He’s doing something. He’s making us grow. He’s making us stronger. He’s got a plan for our lives, and we only see such a small piece of that big puzzle.
After all, Romans 8:28 says, “Everything works together for the good of those who love Him.”
And yes, I’ve seen some of that good. Through all of this, I have, in fact, learned. I have grown. I have learned more about myself and about relationships. I’ve gained perspective, and I’ve definitely gotten stronger. My relationship with God suffered, but is healing. I am healing.
But I just wish God would use some other way sometimes. Still, I guess no matter the circumstance, it would always hurt. Even if he used any other circumstance in my life, it would probably hurt just as much.
I want to tell you that I’m not at all bitter, but I’m shooting for honesty here. It’s hard not to be. I really wanted to fix the mistakes that I made, and I always thought that I could do that by keeping the relationship. I guess that wasn’t necessarily true because the way that I am truly loving him right now is by letting him go. It hurts a lot still, and I miss him so much, but I know that this is what he and God want. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about him, but God has already brought a lot of healing.
When a relationship ends, it really is like someone has died in your life. The person you used to spend so much time with, used to know so well, and used to love so much, is no longer that same person. That person you loved has died and left you with just “memories”. That’s the bad part about memories… they’re just memories. You can’t bring them back.
Who I really want to read this blog post are the people who are going through this or have recently gone through this same thing. I want the people who are broken-hearted and lost to find some encouragement in my story.
Since February I’ve collected songs to put into what I guess can be considered a “broken heart album”. There are more, but recently these are the top 10 songs with lyrics that have really pierced my heart:
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I don't know your face no more
Or feel the touch that I adore...
I don't know your face no more;
It's just the place I'm looking for....
I don't know your thoughts these days.
We're strangers in an empty space...
I don't understand your heart-
It's easier to be apart??
We might as well be strangers in another town
We might as well be living in a different world...
We might as well be strangers in another town
We might as well be living in another time...
We might as well be strangers
For all I know of you now....
[Keane- “Strangers”]
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And I watched your footprints making patterns
Away from me into the snow…
Now I don't believe in nothing anymore.
So lately I've been going crazy
Trying to get you off my mind
Cause thoughts of you hang just like pictures
And gather dust over the time..
We hung them up just like real lovers
And drove our nails into the wall
Cause we thought they'd be there forever...
But we weren't permanent at all.
And it's getting much too hard to see it now...
Cause love is permanent, not temporary,
It's driven straight into our chest
And buried much too deep
to just pull out like weeds in a garden...
It's permanent...
[Colbie Cailiat & Jason Reeves- “Permanent”]
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How we play fight as we dance slow,
The smile you make saying ‘yes’ meaning ‘no’
Is so grey, so faint...
The words stray in your mouth with an ache.
I’m standing in water with the light on my shoulder,
The weight of doubt turned me to glass.
I’m through living in question, dreaming the answers...
No more paving the present with pain from my past.
I will let you go…
[Daniel Ahearn- “I Will Let You Go”]
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He grabs my wrists
as my fingers turn into angry fists,
and I whisper "why can't you love me? I'll change for you;
I'll play the part..."
And I say baby, so I feel stupid to call you, but I'm lonely,
And I don't think you meant it when you said you couldn't love me,
And I thought maybe if I kissed the way you do, you'd feel it too...
He said I'm sorry, so sorry,
I am sorry...
[Maria Mena- “Sorry”]
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Let's talk this over; it's not like we're dead.
Was it something I did; was it something you said?
Don't leave me hanging in a city so dead...
It's nice to know that you were there
Thanks for acting like you cared,
And making me feel like I was the only one.
It's nice to know we had it all;
Thanks for watching as I fall,
And letting me know we were done..
You were everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it...
All of the memories, so close to me, just fade away-
All this time you were pretending,
So much for my happy ending..
[Avril Lavigne- “Happy Ending”]
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I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited,
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it...
I had hoped you'd see my face
And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over...
Please don't forget me, I beg.
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead...."
[Adele- “Someone Like You”]
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I still remember the look on your face-
Lit through the darkness at 1:58...
The words that you whispered for just us to know
You told me you loved me so why did you go away?
That July 9th, the beat of your heart-
it jumps through your shirt;
I can still feel your arms....
But now I’ll go sit on the floor wearing your clothes
All that I know is I don’t know
How to be something you miss
Never thought we’d have a last kiss..
So I'll watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep
And I'll feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe...
And I hope the sun shines and it's a beautiful day,
And something reminds you, you wish you had stayed.
We can plan for a change in weather and time,
But I never planned on you changing your mind....
[Taylor Swift- “Last Kiss”]
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I go about my business, I'm doing fine....
Besides what would I say if I had you on the line?
Same old story, not much to say...
Hearts are broken everyday...
I brush my teeth and put the cap back on;
I know you hate it when I leave the light on.
I pick a book up, turn the sheets down,
And then I take a deep breath and a good look around...
Put on my pjs and hop into bed..
I'm half alive but I feel mostly dead
Cause you were meant for me,
and I was meant for you...
[Jewel- “Meant For You”]
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I've run out of complicated theories, so now I'm taking back my words,
and I'm preparing for the breakdown...
Your t-shirt's lost its smell of you, and the bathroom's still a mess...
Remind me why we decided this was for the best.
Because I miss you love,
I miss you love...
Don't act like you don't know me.
It's still me, I never changed...
I'll be here when you come back...
Because I miss you, love...
[Maria Mena- “I Miss You, Love”]
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Last night I heard my own heart beating
Sounded like footsteps on my stairs
Six months gone and I'm still reaching
Even though I know you're not there
I know people change and these things happen
But I remember how it was back then…
If you're out there, if you're somewhere, if you're moving on ,
I've be waiting for you ever since you've been gone
I just want it back the way it was before
And I just want to see you back at my front door
[Taylor Swift- “If This Was a Movie”]
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Last night my best friend, Sherry, caught me crying in the middle of the night. “Do you do this every night?” she asked me.
“Sometimes,” I told her.
The truth is, sometimes I just need to cry and remember and hurt.
Sometimes we have to grieve. I don’t dwell on it like I used to when it first happened, but there will be times when I just feel it in my chest. There will be times when a smile in a picture or a line in a song or words in a letter really make my heart hurt.
It really sucks to feel that kind of pain, and all of us have to wonder why we have to go through it. Sometimes I’d really like to know why God’s letting this stuff happen, but I do just have to trust that it’s part of a plan that I don’t quite understand. Through all of it, I am stronger, and I am learning, but I really hate God’s choice of process on this one.
There’s a song called “Blessings” by Laura Story [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSVqHcdhXQ] that basically talks about how God uses the storms and tears and difficult times as blessings in disguise. It’s a wonderful song, but it’s really hard to believe when you are going through that difficult time. If you are going through a hard time, though, just remember one thing: God’s holding you together. You may feel like a mess, you may feel like everything is falling apart, and you may feel like you aren’t going to make it through all of this, but I can tell you from this experience that God’s got it under control.
A specific day a few weeks ago, I realized that I had to let my ex-boyfriend go. I had so much I wanted to say to him (not bad stuff), but I knew it was best to just let him move on. I was absolutely hysterical. I mean, this past semester, I have gotten sick from this whole thing. I have cried so much that I’ve thrown up. I’ve had purple and green hands from the stress. I’ve had so many problems eating and sleeping. Yet I can tell you right now I never felt as sick as that day. I had never had to do anything so hard in my entire life. It was the worst feeling in the world.
I went to get into my car with tears streaming down my face. I drove not even twenty feet when I stepped on my brakes to see a gigantic rainbow in front of me, a sign of God’s promises. [picture: http://i52.tinypic.com/281gdah.jpg] In fact, there was a double rainbow in perfect view. I got back into the car, asking what God wanted from me. I turned on my car and a song called “Hold Me Together” by Royal Tailor [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEzas-F_aKA] started playing. The song talked about how God can hold us together when we’re falling apart. That simple song absolutely broke me down, and I realized that this whole time, I had made other things my foundation.
When a storm comes and everything is swept away with the waves, what remains? What foundation remains? When building my foundation on things made out of sand, it all has gotten swept away. Yet when I put my hope and my trust in God, I have a rock, a firm foundation that won’t be swept away.
It felt like everything in my life had been swept away. The most important person in my life, a person I loved and wanted to marry, was taken away from me, and I couldn’t understand it. I don’t think I’ll ever really understand it. But I don’t need to.
What I need to remember is that I’m being held together by an incredible and powerful God whose love will never fail. I may have people come and go into my life that pretend, lie, or hurt me, whether intentionally or not. I may have people whose love fails or is lacking, but God’s never does.
Recently I’ve been asking people who have gone through a break up what happened to end their relationship. I ask this, not only out of curiosity and concern, but also to know that I’m not alone, as well as how the other person has handled their break up. It helps me to cope, too.
I’ve heard this excuse about “not being in love anymore”, and it’s really a frustrating excuse because simply of 1 Corinthians 13:8. I guess I’ve realized that God really is consistent in this one. HIS love doesn’t fail, even when we say ours does. He has a true, genuine, self sacrificial love that goes on forever. He wouldn’t leave or “divorce” us or end a friendship with us.
It’s hard because we want a person that we can cuddle and talk on the phone with and take care of. We want that physical person in our lives. But remember that we don’t NEED to have a significant other to be happy.
A lot of my friends (at least 15 of them) have gotten engaged these past few months. It’s been hard because this has happened right after I got broken up with. Yet I am happy for them. They are sooo blessed to have found that physical being they can spend their lives with.
It isn’t bad to have a significant other in your life, but as I said almost one year ago in my last post, it isn’t bad not to! We often make relationships a foundation, and they often fail us.
Whether you are in a relationship or not, make God your foundation. If you do, you won’t be disappointed. If you don’t, you’ll find that whatever else you made your happiness wasn’t really worth it in the end.
Allow God’s love to be enough for you, and allow Him to hold you together in the midst of storms, trials, and heart breaks.
One last thing I want you all to know is that the person I dated is a very wonderful man. He may not have done everything the right way, but he has a very big heart, and I was really blessed to call him my best friend for as long as I did. (I would hope that it’s okay that I’m writing all of this, as well.) I love him, and I still care so much about him.
This past year I started my second counseling session. My first counselor left my school after about four months or so of counseling me, so I just didn’t go back until this past September to a new counselor, who helped me so incredibly much. At our last counseling session she said to me, “during our time together, you didn’t get everything right… but you had the heart to want to.”
I didn’t get everything right, but I’ve learned, and I’ve grown. I’m still learning and healing through everything. God is still writing my story.
He writes more everyday.
“The Lord is close to the broken-hearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
-Psalm 34:18
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