He knit me together...

Posted on a friend's blog:

 

"I KNOW that God created me for more than this and I refuse to let fear, false identity and regret stand in my way of becoming the woman He saw when He knit me together."

When I read that
it brought out tears.

I was pretty sure

I didn't have any left

after this weekend.

Yes, I know God knit me together...

I know that.

But I never thought about what was going on

while He was doing this.

 

My creation was a deliberate act by a God who had a vision and a purpose for my life.

 

What a thought.

 

Those are the things... that vision and purpose... those are what He was thinking about when He created me. This wasn't a haphazard "let's see what happens if I put this here and change this one thing..." He didn't just smoosh some cells together and say, "Oh yeah, this one will be fun to watch..." There was nothing random about what He did in those moments of my creation...

 

He was focusing on the amazing plan He has for me...

not the mistakes

He already knew

I was going to make...

not the stupid ways

I was going to try

to derail myself...

 

He was INTENTIONALLY knitting ME together.

He did this knowing every detail of my life,

giving me everything I needed

to get through

the pain 

the heartache

the junk

so that I could get to

His intended purpose for me

so that I could do what

He wants me to do.

 

This weekend I told Him that I wanted HIS will for my life to be the only thing that mattered to me... something I have come close to saying before... but never quite this way... never meaning it quite like this. I want to be so in love with Jesus that my desires are HIS desires... not my own.

 

It's a scary thought... to give up that control... to attempt to change the way I think... but if He is for me, then chasing His desires won't hurt me the way chasing my own desires has. Even fighting my own desires when I'm trying to do what's right causes so much pain, especially when I'm unsuccessful. But if I can replace mine with His... then there won't be this internal fight... and it means that He truly will give me the desires of my heart... because they will match His own.

 

Sometimes I wonder how dumb the devil really has to be... every time he tries to capture my attention, even when he is fleetingly successful, I end up at back at the feet of Jesus with more longing and a stronger resolve.

And God knew it was going to happen all along... and He has just been waiting.


 

God's Daughter

Being a child of God is not a new concept.
We are all children of God.
I've always known that.

Being told that I am His daughter
makes me cringe a little.
Maybe not cringe...
but it isn't a feeling
that I enjoy.
He must know I can't stand hearing it
because people keep saying it to me randomly
and it is something I don't really
remember hearing before.
I've said this other times,
but it's worth repeating...
God doesn't believe in "random."

Yesterday morning
while I was volunteering
someone came up to
another volunteer and I
and started going into detail
about what it means
to be God's daughter.
I smiled and nodded
and politely said
thank you
when he went away.

As a girl who very much
wants to believe she
doesn't have those
stereotypical
daddy issues
that so many people
talk about
this is probably a concept
I need to explore
a bit more.

But as soon as I started writing
about this
my head started to throb
just enough
to make me rethink blogging
about it today.

Gathering laundry
Going for a run
Picking up kids
Going to the laundromat

Wow... exercise and laundry? I must really be wanting to avoid this... lol

Tired

Feeling really emotional today about everything... but it is all about perspective... right?

     I'm tired of being unorganized.
I'm tired of chaos in my mind
     and my life...
 I'm tired of being single.
          I'm tired of thinking like the old me
               and then having to get that thought or image out of my mind...
               all while keeping a poker face... (I'm terrible at poker!)
I'm tired of being honest all the time... but not too tired of it to say...
     I'm tired of not having sex.
I'm tired of this disgusting apartment.
     I seriously considered renting a hotel room one night this weekend
          just so I can take a bubble bath.
               I can't rent a hotel room. It would make a mistake so much easier...
               and it makes me mad that I can't even trust myself to do that...
               but why invite temptation?
I'm tired of knowing that in some areas I am not trustworthy.
I'm tired of wondering who in the world will ever be able to accept all of this... mess.
I'm tired of feeling inept and needing little victories to get me by.

But I'm not tired of the consequences of making good decisions.
I'm not tired of having so much good going on that organization is a necessity.
I'm not tired of learning new ways to function.
I'm not tired of having a little self-respect.
I'm not tired of no longer having to hope this one will treat me the way I deserve to be treated.
I'm not tired of no longer wishing that I figure out how to make that one love me.
I'm not tired of having a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in.
I'm not tired of having a working shower in my house instead of half a block away.
I'm not tired of victories... just wishing they were always bigger...
I'm not tired of Jesus. He amazes me more and more every day.
I'm not tired of knowing that I have captured His attention...
     and that in spite of His awesomeness 
          He still understands what it means to be tired and frustrated and angry
               with all of these everyday battles... and He isn't tired of loving me anyway.

I'm still fighting...

God and I have spent months picking apart pieces of my life and getting rid of them. Really, some pieces of my life God and I have been fighting over for years. This year has been the hardest... and the best so far.

So many things are different these days... changes in my friends, dealing with addictions, kicking habits, and kicking other general craziness to the curb. Obviously it's not ALL gone, but most days I feel like I can breathe... which hasn't always been the case.

I know God has so many plans for me, even though much of it seems to be just outside of my reach at the moment. If I keep pressing forward, these things will be mine in His timing. I have to keep growing... I know these things are out of my reach because He knows I'm not ready yet... even if I think I am.

Maybe it's because of this determination that the temptation to fail is stronger than it has ever been. And I say temptation because, I would have to willingly jump off this path to find the ones I used to run. I would have to call people I'd already cut out of my life. I would have to go to places that I don't hang out any more. I would have to search for stuff that I have gotten rid of.

But I still hear it... if you fail, you'll be forgiven. Nobody is perfect. Maybe you've taken this too far... and you should just live a little. It's always there in the back of my mind. Some days I feel so weak that I don't think I'll win... but I can't just walk away again.

In my heart I know better.

So I purposely fill my time with the good friends I have made, and the business God has given me, and my kids who know very little, if anything, about what my life was like... even though they were living it... as well as good habits like running... and learning... and praying... as well as writing, in faith that God will turn this mess into something beautiful that will change somebody else's life someday.

Today I am feeling strong... a few days ago... not so much. But I just have to remember Isaiah 43:2:

 

"When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you."

I just have to keep fighting through. There were moments this last week when I didn't know how I was going to do it... but here I am. Feeling fantastically hopeful on a Monday evening with a great week ahead... still headed in the right direction... because He isn't going to let me drown.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Seeing God's Protection...

One thing that amazes me about the whole plan that He has for me... is that while God let me go through things and let me make mistakes and bad choices that will ultimately work for the good... He saw the times when I was just on the very edge of something truly life-altering and stopped it from happening.

I will probably write more on these someday, but right now, every day, I go through, "What if they knew..." and then eventually I tell someone some piece of the story and their reaction isn't nearly as bad as I expected... and I'm relieved.

I know that the person who did these things has been fading away for awhile. She tries to come back, but God is just too good to let that happen... and when she does He uses it to teach me a lesson. I am too determined to find my purpose in Him to let that happen anyway. So instead of adding these things to the story of my spiral downwards, I add them to the list of times where, in hindsight, I can clearly see God's protection... and often when I go into some of the details of the story... His call to come back to Him.

There is the time I was convinced to try cocaine... and saying that doesn't even begin to do the actual picture of what happened justice... I was in a seedy bar bathroom, snorting coke through a rolled up dollar bill. I did not care one bit about what could happen... just that this guy who told me he loved me wanted me to do this. He was just "a friend," not even a relationship... The drugs turned out to be fake.

One time I pulled out of a bar parking lot, way too intoxicated to drive the three blocks I needed to go... and was followed by a state cop for those three blocks... and he just kept going after I pulled into the driveway.

What about when I decided it wouldn't be such a bad idea to start selling myself? I figured I might as well get paid for what I was doing for free since it was all anyone wanted from me anyway. I already had some contacts and I was flat broke... Nobody except the contacts I had knew about any of this... but someone I barely knew just gave me money out of nowhere... $1000... for no reason except to help me... and with nothing expected in return.

Before I moved, a good friend confessed she had feelings for me and I just had to say no. I didn't want to say no... and I probably would have caved before long. I had secretly dated women before. But very soon after that, I met the guy who I moved away for... and she and I didn't have much contact for a long time... until God did some work on both of us.

There was a guy who wanted to take me to Vegas to check out the swingers clubs... and see whatever other kinds of trouble we could get into. His timing was bad... a week earlier I would have been able to make it work. But his vacation schedule was set.

Most of these things were more recent than I'd like to admit... but some stuff happened before I met J. I remember when I told him some of the things I did before I met him... and he cried because I wasn't the person he thought I was... and I felt awful. I hated myself for the things I couldn't change. Then, when he came back and said he wanted to be with me anyway, I thought I was lucky to have found someone so forgiving. It turns out, he was just saving it all up to throw back at me later...

That is part of my fear. I don't want people to use these things in the future to hurt me. Especially considering that these are the times I was protected... but I got into these situations because I was living a life that was so far from where I should have been.

I also know I can't continue to live in fear of who I was when WHO I AM is trying so hard to break free from all of it. I read today that you can't grow as a person if you live your life in fear of failure... that is the other part of my fear. I kept so much of my life a secret for a very long time... if I fail in some way... and people know who I used to be... it's going to be a lot harder to hide it.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure if that is good or bad...

This one is going to take awhile (Part 1)

I don't know if this is a good idea or a bad one. I don't know if this serves a purpose or not. I know it took me two years to get over J and all of the sudden I can't stop thinking about him. It was just during prayer before... and I have prayed so many times for his salvation... even if I never see him again, I still want him to love Jesus. But I also know that him loving Jesus, and knowing that I am a different person now would probably fix just about every issue we had.

Last week I accidently drove past where he works... I was looking at a rental house nearby and couldn't find it. Honestly, I didn't know he still worked there. But I saw his car in the parking lot at CAT and almost wrecked.

I thought asking God what to do would help, but I don't know the right questions. Should I continue to pray for his salvation? Duh... It is God's will that everyone be saved... so praying for something that is in His will is always a good thing. Should I pray that we get back together? That would be one huge frickin' miracle... and I don't know if us getting back together is God's will or not. I could continue to ask... but asking to know the future never quite works out. I don't think He wants me to know.

So here I am, stuck... but it can't hurt to get this all out... I feel the need to write and all I can think about is this...

So anyway, here goes nothing...

----------------------

He lived just a few blocks away from me in high school.
We rode the same bus.
We had at least one class together.
He was in my car in driver's ed.
But we never spoke to each other.

Nearly ten years after graduation, January 13, 2007, when a mutual friend introduced us after dragging me out to karaoke, we hit it off right away. He added me on messenger and we would talk all night via the computer. It didn't take long for me to have a huge crush on him. I knew it wouldn't work out. There was no way he would ever like me... I even flirted with other guys online because I knew J was just a one-sided thing. He'd be bored and move on soon. But he didn't.

He volunteered to fix the radio in my van and to thank him I cooked dinner. Afterwards we sat on the couch and watched TV together with the kids running around everywhere. One child climbed up on my lap and threw her head back... and then that precious, adorable 3 year old said, "Wow, you have big boobs." I don't know who was more embarrassed.

Another day he was fixing the bathroom door that was falling off the hinges and had his tools laid out next to him. My five year old son was inspecting his work and showed J his own tools... "Look, I have a wrench too." J smiled, "Wow, do you fix things with that?" My son gave him a strange look and said, "No. It's just plastic."

Welcome to my life, J.

I wrote a song once about the night things turned from friendship into something else. It would make a fun country song... We had both been drinking and having a great time when he leaned in so nobody else could hear to ask what I wanted to do after the bar closed, "Can I take you home, or can I take you home?" I looked at him, obviously puzzled. He said, "Those are two completely different options. Think about it." There was a lot of liquid courage that night because that was not something he would normally say or do... and even when we got back to his apartment, if I hadn't kissed him first... nothing would have happened.

The next day he felt guilty. He was scared. A single mom of four... he had never dated a woman with kids before. It took a week and some prodding from friends to get him to admit that he did really like me and it wasn't a mistake. In fact, he came over one night, I am pretty sure to tell me that he just couldn't do it... there were tears on both sides... and then we kissed again and it was all over... or rather, it really began.

My youngest had already been diagnosed with a rare disease and was in need of a transplant when we first met in January. Scheduled to leave town for six months in April, He and I were pretty inseparable for the next six weeks after he decided he really did want to pursue a relationship. I couldn't believe any of it was happening. In the midst of this terrible diagnosis and scary treatment for my baby, I was finding happiness.

I had held some fundraisers to help cover expenses while the baby was in transplant. The morning I left town, J handed me an envelope with $500 in it to help. I knew he was a good guy. He had always been kind and respectful and thoughtful... but his continuing to be selfless when it came to the kids and I just told me for sure that God had put us together for a reason. This guy was the one.

 

----------------------

I had no idea about the struggles we would go through and the things we would do to hurt each other over the next four years.

I know some of the things he did were wrong... especially towards the end. There are things that, if we saw each other again I would have a hard time forgiving... He had a conversation with my oldest about which room in his house would be hers... right before he dumped me and never spoke to the kids again... not a single word, hug, goodbye, nothing... after 4 years. He told my mom all of my secrets when he was angry at me one time... all of them. Things I haven't even put in this blog yet... my mom knows. He told me the rape that happened after we broke up was my own fault... that one I am still dealing with.

But I'm no saint... I spent so much time acting out of fear that he would leave me if he knew me. I lied. A lot... It was all little stuff. "So what are you doing today?" "Cleaning the house." I was laying on the couch covered by a blanket of depression I didn't know how to pull off of myself... or playing mind-numbing games online so I didn't have to think about life.  "Who was that text from?" "Just a friend." It was an ex-boyfriend who I rationalized trying to stay friends with. "What were you going to tell me?" "I lost five pounds!" I didn't. I lost 2... and the truth was, he didn't really care... but I was afraid he did.

My mind was a mess. My priorities were a mess. My life was a mess. And I was trying to tell HIM that his life would be better if he had Jesus.

Is it any wonder that he didn't believe me?