It is hard, but I also know it will be worth it. I don't want someone to have to 'settle' for the girl I am when I have so much more potential... and while the changes are both fast and slow, I know change won't impact my life in a lasting way, if I try to do it all by myself, or all overnight.
In the past, I have had a bad habit of holding on to exes. Over the last several months I have cut the cords on a lot of those relationships and been pretty proud of myself for doing so.
There is one in particular that has alluded me though. I would declare myself "over him" and go for weeks without thinking about J, and then something would bring him to mind. I always took that as an opportunity to pray for him... but then I'd start the emotional roller-coaster of, "What if."
(I've written about J here before... we broke up the day before I thought he was going to propose... and it is what started the spiral that led me to move here.)
I recently realized I had this fantasy about him seeing the changes going on in my life and realizing I was good enough for him now. That one hit me kind of hard... "good enough"...? How good could a relationship have actually been if I spent most of it just being grateful that he let me hang around and at the same time, spent most of that time also afraid he was going to leave because I wasn't really good enough for him?
Fear is not love.
Yesterday, after I decided it was time to get out of bed and get a shower and some dinner... I grabbed a sweatshirt to put on and realized it was one of his. I took it back off and grabbed another and asked myself, "Why do I still have that thing?"
While I was out driving after that I decided that it was time to throw that stuff away. The sweatshirt, the jacket, the expensive bottle of tequila I'd bought to give him on Valentines Day, not knowing we weren't going to make it that long and held on to all this time. Time to get over it, right? Right... and then I put it out of my mind.
Late last night a mutual friend commented on one of J's pictures on Facebook, which was weird because he NEVER posts pictures publicly. I clicked on it and saw it was him and his girlfriend, happy, smiling.
That's when the weirdest thing happened...
I realized I didn't care.
When the enemy finds a way to distract you from your walk with God, he will exploit it as much as possible. In hindsight, the whole thing will likely seem ridiculous. It does to me right now.
How much time have I spent remembering and wishing for the good parts of that relationship? How many times have I gone through a break-up since then and didn't cry for the guy I had just lost... but for the "this would have never happened if..." of J? Every single time, drawing my focus from where it should have been.
Took out some trash this afternoon. Feeling pretty good about meaning it this time when I say I'm 'over it'...
God has a better plan and I happy to give up the piece of my own that I have been secretly clutching.
When I started praying that God's will for my life be the most important thing to me... I never realized how much of my own I had left to let go, and I never imagined how good it would feel to be able to do so.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2
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