Over the last couple of weeks, I've done a lot of thinking. Like, a lot of thinking. It's not that I don't do a lot of thinking normally. I mean, obviously I do, because half of what I think about gets written about here on the blog. But I've done a lot more thinking and processing in recent weeks because, well, there's been a lot to think about.
I've sort of gotten to the point where pretty much every time someone wants to talk about Office Boy, I get frustrated. And pretty snarky. Everyone has their opinions about the subject and nearly everyone seems to think they need to take sides — my side, specifically. Which, don't get me wrong, is nice. I'm glad that I have friends who stick up for me and love me and care about me the way that they do. But sometimes the caring isn't very caring at all. Telling me that he's a jerk for x, y, or z thing that he did during the break up doesn't help at this point. It just gets me frustrated. And makes me want to hit people, which is not a very Christian attitude to have.
The past couple of weeks have been hard. I'm not going to deny that. I do honestly believe that it was the right decision for Office Boy and I to break up, at least for now. At least my head believes that.
Due to the nature of my suddenly single state, I've been thinking a lot about the future.
Growing up, if you'd asked me what I'd be doing at 23, a year and a half out of college, I would've said, "I'd be married." I was 100% positive and convinced that that's what was going to happen. I thought that I would meet my husband in college, we'd get engaged at the end of junior or beginning of senior year, and within a year of graduation, I'd be walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress where the man of my dreams waited for me.
Clearly, that is not what happened.
Not So Patiently Waiting
I've heard a lot of different things when I express my desire to get married at an early age. I'm so young. I've got my whole life ahead of me. I don't need to get tied down so early. I should focus on what I want for now. I shouldn't be in such a hurry to grow up. And on and on the platitudes come that try to convince me that it's perfectly okay that I'm single and that, unless Jesus throws a major curveball from left field, I will not be getting married any time soon.
And don't get me wrong, I do believe that singleness is a period of time that the Lord uses for good. I don't think it's a curse. I don't think that if you're single you're somehow less of a person. I don't think your worth isn't as much as it would be if you were in a relationship. And I certainly don't think that there's anything wrong with staying single for your entire life, if that's what you feel the Lord has called you to.
But that doesn't change the fact that I've never felt called to singleness. Not once in my life, when people talked about the idea of being called to singleness, did I ever feel that pull. In fact, it's always been the exact opposite. The one consistent desire that has been in my life for as long as I can remember is a desire to be a wife and a mother. And because I know that I have a good and loving God and all good and perfect things come from Him, I naturally believe that He is the One who put that desire in my heart. And I also believe that because He is a good and loving God, He would not put that kind of desire, especially such a strong desire, in my heart for as long as it's been there if He didn't have a plan to fulfill it one day.
The problem is that I'm not very good at waiting. Nor am I super awesome at trusting, to be perfectly honest.
It's one of my biggest struggles in my relationship with the Lord. It always has been and though I do believe the Lord is capable of amazing and miraculous things, I truly believe that I will always struggle with a desire for control and a subsequent lack of trust this side of heaven.
Generally, it goes something like this: I like to control things. I like to know what's going to happen when and how it's going to happen. So when things are happening in my life, I see natural progressions. I can see how I think the story's going to play out. But then, inevitably, Jesus throws a curveball. Something happens that completely changes the situation and the likelihood of it playing out how I expected is drastically decreased. And I know in my head that Jesus knows exactly what He's doing. I know that He already knows the end to the story and knows how it all plays out in the end. But my heart has a really hard time trusting that, because my heart so often gets set on how I thought it would play out.
That's what I'm struggling with the most right now.
God's Best
Have you ever heard the idea of "God's best" for you? People talk about it a lot when it comes to marriage. They talk about how different people might be good for you or have been good at a certain time, but only your future spouse is God's "best" for you. He saves the best for last, as it were.
It comes along in all sorts of other secular platitudes as well. Phrases like, "One day someone will come into your life who will make you realize why it never worked with anyone else." Cliche sayings that are meant to give us hope, curb our frustrations, and yet they still leave us longing for that "one day" for that day when the "best" finally shows up. And that can be horribly frustrating.
It's particularly frustrating for me right now.
I'm going to be honest — there were moments where I legitimately considered the possibility that Office Boy and I might one day get married. Now before you freak out and say that I was jumping to conclusions, I have another confession to make. At one time or another, I legitimately considered the possibility that The Boy Who Broke My Heart and The Boy Who Smashed My Heart might be my future husband as well. (I know, I know. Calm down.) This stems from a combination of things.
One part is my hopeless romantic mentality about life combined with a lifetime of watching completely unrealistic chick flicks time and time again. Another stems from this idea that I somehow got hammered into my head growing up that if I didn't marry the first guy I dated (or "dated"), then my purity was compromised and I wasn't as good as I could've been for my future husband. The thought of that happening terrified me. And so I always considered this possibility, not always out of any foundation in reality, but partially because I was so afraid of what it would mean if the first guy (or second guy) I dated/"dated" wasn't the man that I married. That was largely the thought behind The Boy Who Broke My Heart. And with The Boy Who Smashed My Heart, it was a combination of that and never wanting to go through that kind of pain again.
And so with Office Boy, marriage was something I considered. I didn't know if that was definite. I knew there were still a lot of things that needed to be discussed and worked through. But it wasn't completely out of the question because, for all the issues that still needed to be worked through, it worked. And so, just like I always do, I started making plans in my head. Hypothesizing when he might propose, thinking about theoretical wedding dates and all sorts of stupid crap that we girls do. And then Jesus threw the curveball. And now I'm sitting here going, "God, what happened? How did I get here?"
But I still do believe in God's best for me.
I've only been romantically involved, to some degree, with three guys in my lifetime. The Boy Who Broke My Heart, the Boy Who Smashed My Heart, and Office Boy.
Kicking the Pharisee to the Curb
At the time in my life that I was semi-involved with The Boy Who Broke My Heart, he was good for me. With him it wasn't so much that he taught me things about my self-worth or what kind of man I did or did not want or anything like that. He made me realize just how broken people can be over their sin and how, once repentance is there in full measure, that sin truly doesn't matter anymore. Where repentance is, grace abounds.
My Pharisee mentality from middle school and high school was already getting a pretty good kick in the gut from various other situations I'd experienced during my first semester in college, but my experience with The Boy Who Broke My Heart was the final nail in the coffin. He confessed deep sin to me, sin that would've appalled and shocked and disgusted me six months prior, and instead of feeling any of those things, all I felt was a profound sadness that he had to deal with the ramifications of that kind of situation and the guilt and pain that came from it, but also a great joy at his beautiful brokenness over his sin. Things obviously didn't end particularly well and in now way ended like I thought they would, but The Boy Who Broke My Heart was good for me.
And despite the pain and confusion that I went through for several months following the end of our quasi-relationship, I am still thankful for what I learned. And I still believe that he was good for me.
Knocking Down the IdolsWith The Boy Who Smashed My Heart, things were a little different. We were definitively more involved. It was fast and it was furious. Things clicked insanely well insanely fast. The first time we hung out one-on-one, we spent two hours at dinner and then ended up talking until 4:30am. And he didn't walk out of the apartment when I told him I thought I was going to hell. (I know...I'm such a charmer, right?) It seemed so perfect that I felt like it had to be. Or it was "meant to be" or whatever. It was one of those situations that all the fairy tales and chick flicks tell you will happen. The stars will align and sparks fly and all that other ridiculous crap they make up to sell us fabricated stories of worldly love. And I fell for it. And I fell hard. And when it was all said and done, I was again left going, "What the heck happened?"
Following the end of our relationship, I wrestled with a lot of things. I wrestled with a lot of pain and a lot of guilt and anger, more with myself than with him. Because I felt like I should've known better. I felt like I should've been able to see through his charm and his manipulation. I felt like an idiot and I felt like a horrible for Christian for not fleeing from temptation. And I was so angry with myself for so long. Until the Lord showed me parts of my identity that had been resting in superficial things that could be taken away in the blink of an eye and how idolatrous some things had become for me. And when it was all said and done, even though I would've infinitely preferred to have not experienced that kind of pain, I am thankful for it because at the end of it all, I was finally coming to a point where my identity 100% rested in my Savior, and not in anything else.
And so despite the pain, The Boy Who Smashed My Heart was good for me. In fact, I would say he was better for me than The boy Who Broke My Heart.
That's Why They Call It Faith
Office Boy was different. For one, we actually dated. He was my first real boyfriend. The first one to take me on a date and call it a date. The first for a lot of things.
In some respects, I'm still reeling from the events of the last couple of weeks. I'm still processing. I'm still gathering my thoughts. I'm still figuring out where to go from here. But I'm having a hard time. I'm having the same hard time that I had both times before — I'm having a hard time trusting that God knows what He's doing.
I'm not the type of person who likes to read the ends of books. My mom does that. She reads the last chapter first and then starts at the beginning. I don't ever do that, because I don't want to spoil the ending. I want to be surprised. I want my brain to ask all the questions it should ask as it progresses chronologically and naturally through the story. And so you would think I'd be that way in my life, too, but that's not the case. I'm frustrated because I know I'm stuck in the middle of the story right now and I have a crap ton of questions.
Why did it have to happen this way? What was the purpose of this relationship? Was breaking up really the best decision? If we were just gonna break up, why did we date in the first place? Are we gonna get back together one day? When am I going to finally know who it is I'm going to marry?
So many questions and I wish I could skip to the end of the story. Or at least a couple of chapters ahead, just so I know what's coming. So that my heart can be at peace knowing that Office Boy and I will get back together one day. Or that we won't, but something better is coming.
I'm getting frustrated with the whole situation. I don't like to patiently sift through things and work through the pain slowly. I'd rather just deal with it and be done. But it doesn't work like that. I have days when I'm perfectly fine emotionally and others where I miss him like crazy and feel like I could cry at the drop of a hat. But for the most part I want the situation to be done because I want people to stop talking about it, because nobody can really say anything that hasn't already been said, and most of what people are saying is just pissing me off.
In Process
I don't believe he is a bad guy. I don't believe that he is a jerk. I believe that he is an absolutely wonderful man with a beautiful heart and spirit, genuine and wonderful character, and a fantastic personality that the large majority of the world hasn't seen yet and I am truly blessed to know him and have had the opportunity to date him for 7 1/2 months. He doesn't think he's a good enough man for me and a lot of people seem to agree with him, but I disagree with him and everyone else.
I know that I've seen a side of Office Boy that no one else has seen. In fact, he told me that himself -- that he acted differently when he was around me. I brought out the best in him and I'm grateful for that because I truly know what an amazing man he can be. He might not be that man all the time right now, but I know that he has the ability to be the wonderful man I came to know and love one day. And he'll be that way 100% of the time, even when I'm not around.
I'm tired of people telling me that I'm better off. I'm tired of people telling me that someone better will come along. I'm tired of people telling me that my attitude about this break up is going to change and that six months from now I'm going to realize I was better off or he really wasn't good enough for me or whatever. I'm tired of people giving me platitudes and cliches because they think taking sides or offering canned words of comfort will make any of this pain go away.
I'm frustrated with God right now and I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm so confused it's not even funny and my heart is hurting and having a really hard time trusting right now. It's having a really hard time trusting that this is all gonna work out. It's having a really hard time trusting that, if Office Boy's not my forever someone, that there legitimately is a forever someone out there for me. It's having a really hard time believing that there's a different best out there for me.
It's having a hard time trusting because it still doesn't want to let go. Part of me still believes that it's going to work out, that I'm going to get my forever ending with Office Boy. After all, it happened for my parents and it happened for my sister, so why couldn't it happen for me? I want it to work out. I want him to process what he needs to process and wrestle with what he needs to wrestle with and come out on the other side of it with a better grasp of who he is as a man and as a man of God and with the knowledge that he is "good enough" for me. I don't want to think about the possibility of caring about another man as much as I care about Office Boy. I want to skip four chapters ahead and just know.
This post turned out very differently than I expected. And a hell of a lot longer than originally planned. (Sorry 'bout that.) If you made it all the way to the end, well, good for you. And thanks for sticking with me.
But the point of all of this is to say that I'm confused. I'm frustrated. I'm scared and I don't know what God is doing. I'm having a hard time trusting. I'm doubting (more to come on that topic later) and asking a bajillion questions. And I'm also learning that it's okay to have times of questioning, to have times of confusion, to have times of doubt, because we come out of the stronger (again, more on that later).
I know that The Boy Who Broke My Heart was good for me. I know that The Boy Who Smashed My Heart was better for me. And I know that, so far, Office Boy was the best for me. I don't yet know if he is the best for me. Right now, I can honestly say, that I want that to be the case. I want the story to have the ending that I thought it might have from the beginning. But that may not be the case. And as much as I'd like to jump four chapters ahead and just know, I can't do that.
So just like I learned lessons from the good and the better, I'll continue to learn lessons from the best (so far), while I wait to see what the best really is. Even if it takes me a little bit of time to trust that the best will actually come along.
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All images by me, except the final one, taken by Kirsten Hughes.
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