LITTLE DID YOU KNOW

In my last blog post I mentioned that I would speak about dropping your boundaries for someone and why we do it. Well here it is folks, the secret of the year.

Usually we do it because we are lacking something in our lives. It's funny though because we never actually look inwardly at what we are missing when we make mistakes and choose to take the wrong road. Now I am no psychologist and everyone deals differently with these kinds of things, but I encourage you to take a pause and look at why you could be doing the things you are doing.

So here is yet another story for you. Last year, on the 12th of November 2020, my 23rd birthday came about. An age of distinction and poise. A step into womanhood. I wasn't expecting to be treated like a princess or anything, but I guess I expected more. It is tradition that the birthday person is woken up with a cup of coffee, breakfast and is sung awake with the happy birthday song. I was surprised to wake up and sit for 2 hours with nothing occuring. No coffee. No song. No birthday card. I walked into the house and my mom just hugged me and said happy birthday. I was honestly taken aback. Was I not worth the effort? Had I done something wrong? Was I not worthy of love?

It had cut me so deeply. I thought that they would have been joking and maybe had something planned, but no. The events to follow were a downward spiral that, because I hadn't known how to pinpoint my hurt and work through it, I ended up hurting myself even more.

I had felt unloved, unwanted and unworthy. This void I tried to then fill on my own. The healthy way would have been to find love and comfort in Jesus, but the enemy has a way of kicking you when you're down and is able to find ways to lead us astray when we are at our weakest.

Why do we find it so much easier to let go of our boundaries and fall into temptation or sin though? Well it is a lot easier to feel like the temporary fixes will help us the quickest. It does. It only helps us for an hour or a day or even a month, but long term? No no no. Working through these things and giving it to Jesus to heal is going to take time and will not be easy.

I instead fell into the arms of men that were giving me the slight impression of affection and hope for a future. I was blinded by empty promises and empty words, and not learning from these mistakes yet again. Like I said in my last blog, I almost got to a point where I said to myself, "well I'm never going to change". God's grace reaches so far beyond that. I think what hurts me more is that I didn't see this, or that I didn't want to believe it because I was so blinded by my shame.

I think another reason that we do it is because the world has a completely different view on how to deal with things, it's usually getting drunk, getting a rebound, running away on holiday, any form of escape really. This is completely different to the godly way of dealing with the hurdles in our lives... by working through the problem we are able to heal and grow from it. We are able to take the lesson we have learnt from it and actually use it to change our lives and the lives of others.

This taught me a valuable lesson though. I am able to walk away more confidently now, able to stand my ground and say, "no thank you, that is no longer who I am." Why I used to be so embarrassed to say no, I don't understand. It feels better to lead by example and have people surprised that I am not like them, than to just fall into the crowd.

Sometimes it is so much easier to feel sorry for ourselves and play the victim card than it is to own up and rely on ourselves as well as the strength that comes from God... or so we think. I mean it actually is a lot easier to just give our troubles to God, both short term and long term... no trauma, no bad decisions, no straying, no heartbreak, no damage. I mean with Him we get closure, love, acceptance, peace, growth, and many other beautiful things.

Why do we like to victimize ourselves instead of seeing trials as an opportunity for growth? Is it not better, more attractive, more powerful to keep our heads up and battle through and come out victorious? I know that what we go through can hurt a lot, it can push us to our breaking points, but isn't it amazing that we have already overcome 100% of what we thought we would never make it through.

A question to ask yourself: How am I dealing with this? Is it healthy or is it causing more damage to me? What better ways can I deal with this and why am I trying to lean on my own strength?

Till next time!