Relationships….

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about relationships…and the good the bad the ugly the beautiful. [side note: by the way I’m totally eating this spinach mac & cheese I made from scratch the other night and it is the bomb] Its been on my heart/head for a while lately but I think my brain actually started to work when I was watching this CHEESY (but sooo cute) young teen chick flick (made by Disney) called “Star Stuck”. The plot line is basically this: A boy age 17 is a huge star and has tons of fan girls. There are two sisters and one is a total fan girl and the other could care less. They go to LA to visit their gma and the fan girl has to see the star so they go to a club and lo-and-behold the sister who could care less ends up running into the star. They start their journey with sarcasm etc and it ends up (through a crazy turn of events) that they really like each other and they want to spend their lives loving each other….at 16. yeah.

=)
It just gets me thinking.

I believe, as we get older we like to chastise “young love” because they don’t know what they are talking about or they don’t really know what love is. Which is true, they do not fully understand the depths of love, but neither do we. You learn more about love each day and you learn how to love through experience. [I believe the best way we learn what love is and how to love is through an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.] I was talking to someone the other day how I when I went to Centrifuge (a Christian camp) I met a boy (the summer before my junior year of high school) and when I came home and family asked me about my trip I responded, “It was wonderful! I met my future husband!!!” Josh and myself dated, long distance, for about a year and then he cheated on me, I was devastated. When I remember who I was in that relationship and the emotions I truly believe I loved Josh. He was the world to me. I confided in him and trusted him and honestly put him before God. I was 16, I didn’t know better, I didn’t know how to guard my heart and I was deeply in love with him. Looking back on it, now that I’m almost 23, I can say that I loved Josh as much as I was capable of loving someone at that age. I loved him to my fullest at that age. However I know a lot more about love now, I’ve learned and experienced a deeper love since Josh, I’ve learned how important it is to put God first always, not just in a relationship. Love to me is no longer just a word or a strong emotion it is the practice of Gods Word, it is the depths of our souls trying to be heard and seen. Love is not only words but it is actions and memories and connections and absolutely from and given by God.

Yet when we are teenagers everything is so intense. Take a minute and think about it, really think about it. Think of all the drama we went through, all the fights and the arguments with friends; the nastiness towards our parents, the disrespect. Think about how much you “LOVED” that pop group, song, place to hang out, friend, item, cd, tv show…so much of it was surface level. If you had a relationship in middle/high school then you know what I’m talking about when I say “its intense”. You just stare at each other, or make out, whichever. You get all caught up in holding hands and having the title “girlfriend” or “boyfriend”. Everything means so much more than it is and every word spoken could either be fire or ice. Do you know what I’m saying?

I do wish that teenagers would take a step back and see that dating in middle/high school really, honestly is pointless. I know that there is an exception to the rule but the vast majority of relationships end in disappointment. I believe that you loose a lot more than you gain when you date young. Whether that loss is emotionally, spiritually, mentally, morally, sexually, whatever. Why not just be friends with someone, learn about who you are as an individual, work on your grades, sports, and your relationship with God and then worry about the serious stuff later? You’re a child. I know they don’t see it that way (I sure as heck didn’t want anyone calling me a child) but it’s the truth. The world has made children want to grow up and become adults so quickly without letting them fully understand the hardships of being an adult. When you make adult decisions you have the adult repercussions that follow. I watch shows like Teen Mom, 16 and pregnant, etc and see the hope in these girls; eyes. The hope that everything is going to be fine, that they are going to be able to provide for their baby, that their relationship with the father is going to be perfect and he’s going to step up and take care of them and the baby. The truth is that these are 16 year old little boys and girls trying to play house. They want to be able to give the child everything they have. They don’t take a step back and realize it took their parents 16 years to get to a place to be able to provide the way that they do for their own child. I could go on for hours but I wont, it just makes me sad.

Relationships are hard, VERY hard. They take a lot of work, effort, patience, selflessness, and humility to work. I was talking to a beautiful friend of mine the other day, Christina and she helped me to see just a snip of married life. It is a continuous daily choice to put yourself and your needs aside and think of the one body that you and your husband/wife become. (thanks girl!)

I look at love and how I believe it is to be and how I love others and I see how much it has grown over the years. Who I was when I “dated” Joseph in 9th grade is nothing like who I am today. The love I expressed when I dated Josh in 11th grade is almost un

recognizable to the love I express now. Even the way I loved Stephen (sophomore and junior year of college) is different than how I love now. Love changes you; it reaches into the depths of your being and puts action to your inexpressible thoughts. God is love and taught us to love, and it is powerful.

I know I’m not there yet, I know I’m not ready for a relationship. In all honesty I was burned badly by my last one. I know there was so much that I learned from it, so much beauty and good that came from it but my heart has been damaged. There were days where I honestly never wanted to date again (even recently). Days that I cringed at the thought of pouring into another man so intimately. I had my walls up high before Stephen. I was guarded and cautious and honestly callous. But with him I saw something beautiful, something good. He was and is a Godly man whom I trusted so the walls came down. It makes me sad. The moment we ended I struggled to get the walls back up. They were in shambles. I just saw myself broken trying to stack the rubble and rocks on top of each other attempting to enclose myself back in a fortress. Steel clad walls baby. They are back up. I am guarded, I’m still girly but deep down I am guarded.

The last conversation I had with Stephen was him telling me he was with someone who he loved and was going to marry. I’m happy for him but I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt.
I don’t know why Stephen is on my heart lately, not romantically by any means, just there. I hope he’s doing ok and his relationship with the Lord is strong and his relationship with his love is strengthening.

. . .

God is preparing my heart. I feel it. He is softening it to something bigger than even I could attempt to expect. I do believe that who ever I’m with is going to teach me about grace and mercy. That they are going to balance out my flaws and love me as Christ loves the church. They will always be striving to point me to Jesus and away from themselves because they know that they will fail me, as I will fail them. I’m hopeful. I, again, would be lying if I said I was content with waiting. I’m not. But I am becoming content with waiting; it is a daily battle. God is God, and I am not and that is what I have to remind myself.

Just some things I’m learning, some things I’m being reminded of, some things that have been on my heart.

Thanks for reading <3