In high school when I used to come home on a Saturday morning with the stench of Vodka still on my tongue and the evidence of spilled beer on my shoes clearly still hungover from the night before, my mother used to say to me, "What I don't know won't hurt me".
And when I fell in love for the very first time and I gave everything I had to the boy that I was sure I was going to marry, my father said to me, "Be careful not to give too much away, and guard that heart of yours".
I believe the biggest downfall but my biggest advantage is that I have in life is trying everything out by myself. I have to figure it out on my own without ever following the rules. Heck, I don't even read the rules. I'm that girl who puts all of her "eggs in one basket" and falls too hard for something that never caught me in the first place. For lack of a better term, I'm naive. I haven't lived long enough to be able to say that I am an adult. I know so little about life that I haven't even scratched the surface of living.
Do you ever have those "AHA!" moments when the light bulb finally turns on? Or those days when something your parents said years ago just clicks all of a sudden? And then when it clicks you want to kick yourself in the butt for not understanding or living by it sooner? Like you wish you could take back what you did to avoid the pain that you inevitably will run into down the road?
"What I don't know won't hurt me" isn't a completely true statement. Before I fell in love, I didn't know what it was like. I didn't know what love was, so it was scary. It was terrifying and nail biting all at the same time, and I remember trying to fight it with every nerve I had. I was scared to fall in love because I was scared to lose it. I remember hating myself for falling for someone so quickly. He was so genuine and real. We could talk for hours, 3, 4, 5 at a time . . . about nothing. He was tenderhearted, and compassionate; the little boy inside of him was still very much alive. There wasn't a reason in the world I could think of that hindered me from considering him as a candidate for marriage- well except maybe one. I was only 17. But that didn't matter. He was my whole world, and even more than that, he was my best friend, and my better half- the one who saw the good in me. It wasn't hard to fall for such a catch as him. Before I knew it, I was reeled in by his charm and his wit, his apparent love for the Lord.
So there I was, 17 and already married in my head. Smitten and living in a place far better than the dreams that I once had. I gave him everything. Probably not at once, but after investing about 3 years and a sixth of my little life into the man that was invincible to me, you can guess that he knew me better than I knew myself. And that's what I regret. I regret not holding on to the sacred part of me that he never deserved in the first place. I didn't belong to him. What I didn't know, did hurt me. It hurt me exactly 2 and a half years after he told me those three little words that I thought he would tell me until the day I died. How embarrassing. How terrifying it is to be haunted by your own worst nightmare and to tell yourself , "I told you so".
Until now, I never understood why keeping your heart to yourself is a crucial part of love- I'm not talking about sex either. I'm talking about something so much deeper than sex- I'm talking about emotional security.
Sometimes we're stubborn. Sometimes we insist on doing it the way "I want to do it". Sometimes, "I" am greater than Him. We never even bother to listen to the grown-ups who know so much more than we do! We are so stuck in our ways that no ones advice or input matters. Life is butterflies and rainbows, galloping on horses through green meadows, when all of a sudden the rainbow fades away and the green meadows just aren't green anymore. A thousand curve balls hit you right between the eyes and you're all alone, heartbroken and shattered. And no one understands how you feel . . . no one but your parents who were once heartbroken and once taken by surprise many years ago . . . and then they found each other.
You see my friends, when life is shocking and rudely interrupts you're fairytale, you can either choose to take it by the horns and get back on the saddle, or sit in a puddle of your own sweat, blood and tears. We can choose to trust that God has it. Or that He doesn't know what He's doing. We can choose. We can choose to hold tight to the truths that our parents diligently taught us while growing up and cling ever so tightly to the promises of God or throw away our dignity and let the enemy win.
While in our times of sadness, those broken times of grieving, of insecurity and weakness, the true Christian can sleep at night because he rests in the promises of God. The true Christian will run into the arms of Jesus with a hopeful future. And when he does this, the true Christian is held up and supported by the Lord's amazing love and power.
What is this life. It is but a vapor. The Lord is good and His mercy endures forever.
"Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds; for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test, he will receive the Crown of Life which God has promised to those who love Him."
James 1: 2-3, 12
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