Chemical Confusion

I am a stupid woman.

"For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."  Romans 7:19

I totally get this sentiment.  It's an amazing part of the human condition that we can both desperately want to not be in love with someone and still not be able to make it happen, while at the same time marriages end often because the couple 'doesn't love eachother anymore.'  I have made a study of love throughout my life, and I'm the kind of person that can love freely, deeply, and easily.  It's actually kind of a problem because once I love someone its so hard to ever let them go.  That's why my closest girlfriends are all the same girls that were my best friends in high school.  That's why I do not have commitment issues.  I also don't think I'm unwise in loving.  I was single for seven years for a reason.  My heart was so damaged by one relationship that I was terribly cautious about any others (perhaps too much so - I've learned a lot recently about how I am so scared of getting hurt that I build big walls around my heart, but once I start to let them come down...). 

"Chemistry wanes. Covenants don't."

I heard a sociologist say this once in a lecture in Austin, and it's become the basis of my beliefs about love and marriage.  Chemistry comes and goes.  Oddly, I can't kill the chemistry that I feel EVERY SINGLE WEEKDAY.  But covenants don't end, and I do not want a marriage that will end.

I am so conflicted and confused.  I constantly am trying to pray away my feelings, but they just keep bubbling back.  I've done better this week since some things I saw over the weekend let me to make certain conclusions.  That's vague, I know, I'm sorry, and what I 'figured out' may not be true at all, but I'm working on the assumption that it is because I really need to move on, and the pain of what I am assuming hurt at least as bad as the break up did. (It's been a rough week, and was a pretty terrible weekend, except Friday night which was awesome)  It hurts to not be chosen, and it really hurts like hell when someone else gets chosen after you.  But that's the way of life, and I can't blame the guy, it's totally within his rights, but it still hurts.  And I was able to finally get angry.  Of course, past hurts make me wonder and be suspicious that things are not as they seem, and it did feel like a punch to the gut, but relationships are messy and I'd rather feel this way than never have felt anything at all.  I just wish there was clarity now, and that my heart wasn't a jumbled mess!

But, I'm stupid. 
I let myself hope; I shouldn't have.
I wasn't myself around him; I'm trying to be now.
I have been heart broken; I'm trying to just keep living my life because its awesome, with or without him.
I compromised because of my attraction; I'm trying to turn that over to the Lord and desire Him.
I keep having the same thoughts; I'm trying to go to war with my own mind and heart and train it for better things.

I don't want to hope anymore.  I want to be angry enough to stand up for myself and protect my heart.  I want to stop feeling for him.  I'm praying more than I have in a long time over all of this, and here's the thing... through everything, I'm learning so much, and remembering things that are worth working for.

And you know, there may never be another guy. And that's ok too. I will be ok because of someone else's steadfast love.

"She lost him, but she found herself, and somehow that was everything."

She lost him but she found herself, and somehow that was everything.

'The guy who was meant to love you will never make you feel like a “second-choice” girl.'

I have great experience at being the second choice girl.  Story of my life, right there, it seems. So, I find myself reading this article and getting all teary eyed because it plucks at the heartstrings real close to all those long wrought scars and insecurities. It ALWAYS goes back to - 'will anyone ever just pick me?'

I think that's what makes predestination so easy for me to accept, if we take this thought in a crazy new direction (I have a pin ball machine mind, remember?), because if God is really as powerful as he says he is then of course his choices are already made. He has chosen,  and unlike all the other male figures in my life, he actually chose me. Now, I'm not saying this doctrine is easy for me to accept either. It's not, because that same insecurity exists - obviously no one really wants to choose me.

What's weird is that the article that has me thinking describes this guy who treats a girl really badly. Now, I've definitely been there, but what's actually harder, I think, is when he treats you pretty darn well from beginning to end, so when it's over you still miss him and can't stop thinking about him. I almost wish he had done something horrible, then I could hate him and all this would be easier. But, I'm learning a lot about myself. I really am.

I am also dreading New Years Eve. I was so looking forward to the simple pleasure of having someone to kiss at midnight for the first time since 2007/2008. Yep. That long. I know that's probably petty, but I have lived through so many Valentines Days and New Years and weddings that I thought I might just catch a break, but it wasn't to be. And that's ok. I mean, it will suck, and it will hurt, but it's better this way. I just have to keep repeating that. I hate how pathetic I can get!

But, really, what I'm learning is who I really have become. A man choosing me does not make me valuable. I am a daughter of God; I am valuable. I try to be kind. I try to make peace. I try to be forgiving and loving. I try to make people smile or laugh. I like giving gifts and baking to make people's days better. I read and study. I take my profession seriously. I try to live out the gospel. I try to think and consider. I can hold an intelligent conversation about most things. I am not quick to anger, and I try not to nag and manipulate. I try to give good advice. I care about people deeply. I love and feel things deeply. I try to not drop my problems on others. I'm a nerd. I love to travel. I'm not that crazy. I try to be well read. I try to love people as God loves me. I am very blessed in so many ways by who God has put in my life. All of these things make my life great.

I may still be missing that guy, a good guy, and I am still very damaged because of all the guys - one in particular - but none of that makes me valuable or not, and none of any of this means I am a perfect princess who deserves prince charming. Instead, at the end of the day, it means I'm working through the life that God has given me, and as much as all the feel good articles and Christian sayings try to gloss things over and be positive, I get tired of all those memes because I'm not promised a husband and family one day, but that's ok, because my life is valuable no matter what, and I am finding that value in who God has made me become.

Beginning and the End

This week.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at what life throws at you. I'm going to be honest - this week has been pretty hellish. I was wrong about something pretty important. I was more and more sure, but I was wrong, and the Lord showed me that. And I've learned what that joy that passes all understanding means. I have had some dark moments this week, but also ones of remarkable clarity. I've hurt so badly, but had a lot of realizations too. Life is so weird.

Last Tuesday, I got dumped. But he did it well, and he is still a good man. He's not the right man, as much as I desperately truly want him to be, but tonight I realized that I need someone who would be able to stand with me in what I had to stand up for, and that good man cannot do that. He could. He could be a great man; he has so much in him that I can see, but he's wasting it. I don't say that cruelly. I may be hurt still at times, but I'm not bitter. I think I see through him more than he realizes, or maybe that was the problem, I don't fully understand, but I do know there's things he won't touch that haunt him, and there are drives in his life that are not fulfilling like life can be, but that he won't give up. I realized I wasn't being myself with him, either. I was so scared of losing him or of getting hurt again that I was so closed up that he wasn't able to see the real me.  When he was breaking up with me, I was able to speak to him in a way I should have been doing for months. He was right to so it. I was all in. He wasn't. I still love him. If I'm honest, I want him back, but in order to be the husband I really want he'd have to change in only one real significant way, but you can't make people change. I love him. Not in a platonic way, I fell in love with the man, and I still love him, and that's hard when I see him and talk to him every day at work and it feels good to see him. But, I know who I am, and what I deserve, and I wish he was it. I want him bad, but it seems he's not it. And I'm so scared he's wasting his life. He could be a great dad and husband, he could do anything. But all I can do is try to love him in a different way, and show him how I am not wasting my life.

So I've had the moments of yelling at God, and crying my eyes put, and of little things like a Lawrence of Arabia reference or a Christmas tree feeling like a knife in the heart.  But I've also been able to smile, and defend him when it was deserved, and to worship like I haven't in half a year.

Tonight we had a budget discussion at church that lasted 2 1/2 hours. Yep. Not kidding. I won't bore you with the details, but I saw a rift forming that needs to form. Wolves need to be separated from the sheep, and people need to wake up to the fact that our church is dying, and we must act like Christians if we're going to keep the privilege of being a church.

I made a pretty good disposition on why church members shouldn't have to pay to have their wedding at their church, if I do say so myself. And the issue of having a female music director may or may not have been brought up by yours truly. But here's the thing, my church is dying.  I have spent nearly a decade dealing with archaic and selfish mentalities, and I am done. I have no more patience. I have a lot of love for the people there, and that's why I'm done.  It is time to fight. It is time to decide what kind of church we will be.  Will we live looking backwards until we're dead? Or will we turn around and step towards the dawn?

Cardiology

There's a T Swift line that goes, "you understand now why they lost their minds and fought the wars, and why I've spent my whole life trying to put it into words"   I feel like ever since I read my first fairy tale I've been making a study of love, trying to be able to put it into words.

When you're little it's love at first sight like Cinderella that you expect.  Then you become a teenager and you have such low self esteem and an awkward developing body that the first guy who comes along and likes you is the one you pick, even if that guy is a loser.  (that first love of mine did turn into a 2 1/2 year long relationship that lasted from when I was 13 to when I was 16, however.)  Then you grow up a little bit and your hormones are fueling some insanity in your brain and you expect love to be like the passionate intensity of a romanitc movie, and it doesn't matter if he's your best friend's boyfriend - you're in love and he's the one and you steal him away and that lasts just long enough that you think you'll marry him, but college happens and you find out that the relationship you thought you had was really a lie because of his self-destructive nature.  But you learn.  Maybe you spend seven years abnormally single because God makes you wait what feels like forever because He knows just how damaged you are so you need a good seven years of surgery before your heart is any where near safe enough to be given away again.  Then you're getting closer to thirty and you think it's never going to happen, but someone from literally next door proves to be different, and you're careful, and its fun, and you're grown up now - you're a different person, and you know it can end at any second, but you can control your reactions a little better, but then it starts to happen, slowly, like falling asleep...

During this 7 year romantic hiatus I have thought a lot about love.  Some of it is self-pity and doubt and thinking "what's wrong with me?" that comes from being a single girl through your twenties, but you know - the person you marry really matters, and I personally feel things very very deeply, so I'm glad I've had this period of singleness, and I hope the Lord chooses to bless me with marriage, but that is very much not a guarantee.

What I have learned though is that love is not what you see in the movies.  It's not feelings and hormones - it's "I'm not going anywhere" because I know you and regardless what you throw at me I'm staying and we'll work it out together.  It's I will take care of you and apologize and we will fight and we will hurt each other but we will stick it out and make it work.  So intellectually, I have developed this love thesis - what I didn't know is how bloody terrifying it would be to feel that way about someone.

I had an epiphany the other day that I needed to just let go and trust.  Trust him and trust God.  I'm too much of a control freak, it's hard for me to just let things happen, so this is a difficult one fore me.  But ever since I have just decided to trust, things have taken off at quite the rapid pace in my heart.

Early on, I was terrified that he would abandon me like all the others because I wasn't good enough.  Then I realized that he is not all those other guys, and so I trusted him.  That ended up being the trip down the rabbit hole.  That fear, of being left, is its own special brand or terror, and I don't think it will ever go away really, but what I'm discovering is that there are scarier things - things that are good and right, but that are terribly dangerous.  It is dangerous to give your heart away.  The only safe place to give it is to the Lord, and I think that's what had me denying this man from the minute I met him when a friend (or three) thought we'd be good together.  I think that up until November 5, 2015 I have been giving into the fear of not wanting to give my heart away again because people are sinful and relationships hurt, and I didn't trust that God knew what he was doing when He brought this man into my life, and I know that God can still take him out of my life.  But what's crazy is that now, there are even scarier things...

The scary thing is how much I care.  The scary thing is that we're coming to a precipice.  Dating is easy up until the point at which you dig in, and we are starting to dig in.  The scary thing is that he feels like coming home.  The scary thing is that I know at this stage of my life what love is and what it is not.  I know its not fairy tales and romantic comedies.  I know its hard; its painful; its easy to give up on; its exposing; its terrifying; its work.  I know that I have doubts, but again, the scary thing is actually how sure I am.  The scary thing is how simply right it feels when he kisses me; how easy it was to kiss him on the cheek today at work (when I really shouldn't have!).  The scary thing is realizing that I'm more concerned for his heart than mine.  The scary thing? ...is that he's male and his love language is not the same as mine and he's going to take more time than I am to get to this place.  The really scary thing is that I don't care; I'm used to waiting.  The scary thing is choosing him.  The scariest thing is that every day, even today which wasn't a great day, I'm more and more sure that I'm done.  

It's a messy business digging around in people's hearts, but it's what makes life worth it because it's deep, long relationships that make life all the more beautiful, and to get those relationships we have to do the messy work of opening and digging around in hearts.  There's nothing scarier than opening your heart to loving people, because people hurt each other.  You willing give someone the power to destroy you.  I was reminded that I had that power today, and just a taste of using it the wrong way sent me running because I realized how much he meant to me and how much I hurt when he hurts.  There's a verse made a cliche by weddings that really is about any kind of love...

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends."

True love is the love of Christ.  True love is self sacrificing.  True love is a committment, not an emotion.  True love is a rare and beautiful gift from God that shows us that we truly are made in his image.  True love takes the work of the heart.  True love never ends.   And you know what, true love - giving or receiving it...regardless of how much thought I've put into it - is just bloody scary.

Shieldmaiden

"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Eowyn said, "to stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."


I have always loved fairytales.  One of my favorite CS Lewis quotes is...

"Someday you'll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

I think that time has come.  Princesses and elves and all that teaches us, as women, not that we are damsels in distress that are helpless and whiny and powerless, but that we are valued, that we literally bear inside of us the imago dei (image of God), and that we deserve to be protected and honored.  Our power doesn't come from physical strength, but from our unique participation in God's creation and love.

I always really thought I identified more with Arwen and Galadriel in Lord of the Rings than the other female characters.  The elven princess and queen, who are more super-natural than they are earthly.  I've always felt... different.  It was always hard for me to fit in and I wanted those powers and that grace - it still is in some ways hard for me to fit in, but I realized today that I actually feel more connected to Eowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan.

In Eowyn, Tolkien creates the epitome of the Celtic woman.  She can lead a nation through the greatest peril.  She longs to do great deeds be they simple acts of kindness or incredible triumphs.  She can fight and slay the king of demons and dragons.  She can care for the dying, and bear the grief of the loss of those closest to her. She falls in love with a good man, the greatest of kings, but bears losing him.  She never is cruel or hateful towards men; she respects herself and them too much for that.  She finds a man who is as broken as she is, and though they come together late in the epic story, they love each other until the end of their days.

At the end of it all, in her greatest moment, Eowyn does not deny who she is -

"No living man my hinder me!" [said the witchking]
"No living man am I!  You look upon a woman.  Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter.  You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless!  For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him."

She doesn't try to be a man.  She doesn't harshen herself or androgynize herself.  She rips the helmet that was disguising her off and lets her long hair fall, and she proclaims who she is.  She doesn't deny herself or where she comes from, but she still has the biggest kill on Pelenor Fields that day.  She is a great lady, that when the war is over makes a home.

We live in strange times.  The best of times and the worst.  We are invited to forget our heritage and who God made us to be, and to become something all together other.  We are invited into loose morals and told its the better way.  We are pitted race against race, and taught to feel guilty regardless.  We are taught to be illogical, and to deny the reasonableness of faith and God.  We are told to be liberal, free, all the while the chains tighten more and more around us blinding us to the truth that what is offered is not freedom, but slavery.  We are taught to ignore the signs that something far greater is going on, and to pay attention to the petty squabbles of materialism and fake politics.  We are convinced to deny what we were created to be while we embrace our sin nature.  We forget how honorable it should be to be a woman.

Overture to a Better Day

I am over feminism.
I am over statism.
I am over ignorant anti-religion rants.
I am over supporting Christ deniers and their war criminal state.
I am over longings for the Bush Era.
I am over the Obama hate and blame.
I am over the rolled eyes and 'conspiracy theorist' bashing.
I am over Wendy Davis.
I am over hateful speech being ok because it's election season.
I am over it being ok to slaughter innocents, yet whining about protecting wants as rights.
I am over ignoring that people in desert countries might just be innocents too.
I am over voting because you think it matters.
I am over hoping for the best in a broken system.
I am over climate change.
I am over military worship.
I am over Monsanto.
I am over misunderstandings of sexuality.
I am over sex as the most important part of life.
I am over consumerism.
I am over manipulated androgyny.
I am over waiting for a version of Benedict Cumberbatch or Brad Pitt to complete me.

I am confused and grieved.
I am deflated and burdened.
I feel almost completely alone is seeing the world as it truly is.
I'm afraid of what else I will be able to see in the future.

But,  I'm reminded there is hope because it was never meant to be this way. There is hope because reason, faith,  and promise say that there will come a better day.

Then they came for me...

I've had an interesting train of thought tonight (im in one of those moods). I was thinking about the City of Houston getting subpoenas for pastors sermons and it fit perfectly with something I heard on a podcast the other day:

http://kfor.com/2014/10/17/houston-files-subpoenas-for-documents-from-pastors/
http:// www.noagendashow.com
and on The Porch podcast as well.

We have this idea that government's job is to do what's best for society. Duh, right? I mean the president is constantly saying his number 1 priority is the security/safety of America, which is sort of the same thing. But we have forgotten something.  That's not the point of government at all.

The point and purpose of government is to protect the natural rights of the people.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, 

Yet, we allow government to overstep. 

This whole Houston thing reminded me of a quote from Martin Niemoller, a Protestant pastor living in Nazi Germany.  He said:

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

The Nazis took power and stripped rights through taxes, good arguments, legally, faking disasters and threats, and most importantly incrementally. Jews weren't really being rounded up and sent to the infamous camps until the early 1940s, and Hitler came to power in 1933. He brought change and made life better and gave the people what they had been dreaming of! History rhymes, and we ought to know better.

This Houston case is targeting one opposing group through questioning their tax exempt status and their political activities.  Calling for sermons is being changed and is a detail in a greater problem. You see, they shouldn't even think they have any legal cause or a bit of a right to be restricting public speech or activity about political expression.  Every one is suddenly up in arms, and for good reason, but this is really all everyone has been asking for, how are you so shocked that such a thing could happen?

We can't have a double standard.  Rule of law is for all.  Because it's about gay marriage, it must be restricted.  But when government officials want a say or their hands on what we say in church, how dare they restrict!  Either they can regulate society, or they can protect basic liberties. The more you let those with power have unrestricted power, the more you want them to use that power (birth control, healthcare, hate speech), the more you invite them into your church or work or bedroom, the more they will corrupt and abuse.  This happened because we have been asking for it to happen.

We must ask ourselves, if we do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, is that not insanity?  So Bush/Clinton/Obama/Perry/Davis whatever.  When will you see that it doesn't matter?  When will you realize that they will eventually come for you, and there will be no one there to speak up for you. 

Blue Pill

I've often struggled with verses like Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:17. They're hsrd for me to smallow. I've seen too much injustice and untrustworthy behavior to encourage liyalty, yet scripture says to obey these institutions because they are put in place by God and because we want to have good reputations so that people will trust what we say.  But on the other hand, Rome (where Christianity arises) was a pit of sin and debauchery, even worse than what people scream about today. Yet that is the emperor that is referenced in the gospel?! That's also the government that Paul and the rest of the apostles stood up to and got thrown in jail by. It was a Roman official who committed the greatest injustice of all time, crucifying Jesus. So how do these things reconcile?

John Piper actually has a really good sermon on this:
http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/subjection-to-god-and-subjection-to-the-state-part-1

But one line from this article struck me:
"civil disobedience is justified only when government compels us to sin, or when there is no legal recourse for fighting injustice "

http://m.gty.org/resources/articles/A120/can-christians-participate-in-civil-disobedience

No legal recourse for fighting injustice.

When officials commit crimes and keep their jobs, when they poison and lie and remain in office, when the rule of law only applies to me and you, not them, when they steal in even cleverer ways and are barely (if at all) investigated, when they kill without trial, when they twist and reduce and presume to decide what is a natural right, when they murder and get rich, there is no legal recourse for fighting injustice.

Your vote for preselected choice A or preselected choice B is amusing because you're foolish enough to think that it matters, or that they didn't choose for you.
[See YouTube clip about sweaters and apply circa Meryl Streep - "Pile Of Stuff": http://youtu.be/kzu-RgorcSo ]

So, when will it be enough? When will we really see the lies? I'm tired of the gubernatorial elections by far, and I'm dreading 2016 (Hillary 2016 y'all!  gonna be on the winning side for once! #sarcasm), and as long as we remain blind, the question is are we really just getting what we deserve?  Red pill or blue pill?

#endstoicrant #sorryabouttherandomculturalreferences

Anything but Harmonious

So, I joined eHarmony this weekend.  Today, I cancelled it.  In two short days.  I didn't necessarily have a bad experience with the site itself; it was actually kind of fun setting up my profile (I always loved personality quizzes and defining yourself, oddly).  What made me cancel it today is what it did to my heart.  I signed up on a whim, really, but in reality for the last couple of weeks I'm been becoming more and more discontent, and this brought the discontentment out in full bloom.

This is in no way a reflection on why others would go about dating this way (seriously, no judgement!), but what it did in me was crazy destructive!  I felt shame.  I felt like a kid waiting to get picked last for kickball.  I felt like I wasn't trusting God.  I could feel the pull towards it being an obsession.  I was afraid of actually having to meet someone I didn't know.  It felt unnatural.  It made me fixate on guys and the possibility of a guy when that (in that particular way) hasn't been a problem of mine in years.  I felt afraid that I couldn't even trust myself to make wise decisions.  I even felt afraid of things changing, despite how much I long for that next stage.  I felt stupid for feeling so many different, conflicting things.  I could just completely feel my soul twisting, and I felt dirty because of it.  I worried.  And worry simply means that you don't really believe that what God has planned for you is best for you, or that he won't get it right.  And that is the most absurd thing in the world.

It ended in a frantic, almost in tears morning text message to Allie who graciously and perfectly reassured me.  I am valuable regardless of marital status (despite how well-meaning old ladies make me feel).  Getting married and having kids (though I want it desperately) will not fulfill me.  I have a great life, and with or without a man I will still have a great life, and I have kids in my life that I love terribly.  I am not lacking in love no matter what my sin nature tries to convince me.

It's ironic how our post-feminist-revolution and free love world really does nothing to free you from these desires.  Often, it seems our world makes it worse by fueling the idea that someone else can complete you or you can even fulfill yourself or that open legs and drunken nights is the best of life.  But take it back to first principles, take it back to the roots and we can see that those things fade and our desires wane, only God doesn't change.

Grainy brain

So, I've never read a diet book in my life.  Diet books are stupid as fads are stupid. And I'm not reading a diet book now, but I came upon a Dr. Perlmutter whose book  "Grain Brain" has come in my radar and I cannot put it down.

My number one fear in old age is getting Alzheimers, and I worry because I don't have the best memory or general health.  It struck me the other day when i posted on Facebook about being sick (because school just started up) and a friend said "girl, ur always sick".  Several years ago one of the best friends made the same observation with concern.  And I am. I always have been.

I've always felt lousy and had headaches and I get colds all the time. Ive had bad headaches my entire life.  And now I'm reading this book and he has a trustworthy, uncomplicated answer for all of this.  The book is very well researched and explanatory and perfectly contradicts the years of failed low-fat high-carb propaganda that continues as diabetes and heart disease and Alzheimers continues to skyrocket.  The author is not only a neurologist but a nutritionist as well.  Not to mention, it's actually a good read -  I read it instead of my novel in the BATH and I can't put it down!

So, I'm going to finish this book. I'm going to try the few changes he outlines (yes few, this isn't some crazy complicated or intensely restrictive grapefruit thing) and if this works, I will begin to annoy you because I love you.