Trust, the Ultimate Factor

So, I'm relationally lonely. It's been about three years since I've been in a relationship. Oddly enough, that's been my only relationship ever. I've explained in previous blogs about this relationship. It wasn't exactly the healthiest of relationships, but it served God's purpose. Before my relationship, I had been okay with dating just because I felt like it. After three months and a failed relationship, I knew that from then on I was going to be picky. I told the young man, "No offense, but I don't think I'm going to be dating for a while." When I told him that, I thought "a while" was until about a month after I got to college, but here I am in the spring semester of my junior year of college, and I still haven't gotten into a relationship with anyone.

Well, maybe I have to define relationship. I have plenty of "relationships", but they're all friendships. When I say "relationship" I mean one on one with a member of the opposite sex. In this case, the male gender.

Besides the one date I've gone on in freshman spring, nothing to entirely exciting has happened. The opportunity to enter into a relationship with a young man has happened, but I've turned them down. I simply won't be in a one sided relationship, and I don't do the pursuing. Well, I don't pursue more then the young man.

In March of last year, God knocked on the door of my heart and was like, "um, hey, you know that knight in shining armor that you've been looking for all your life? Well, here I am! I've saved you from a dragon! I love you. You are betrothed to me and I will never leave you, I love you that much." For about two weeks I felt like someone, a mortal, human someone, had told me that he loved me. I was on air, I floated around campus with a large grin on my face, and I'm sure that people wondered what had me so happy. It cut the depression I suffer from occasionally completely out of my life. From March 'till October-ish, I was completely satisfied in the fact that I was single and betrothed to the God of the Universe.

And then, in the middle of school, when I was tired and worn out and desperately in need of someone to take care of me when I couldn't ask for help myself, the fact that I wanted someone next to me, someone who actually cared about me, someone who would make me feel visible, came tumbling on my like a sack of bricks. There were a couple of particularly bad days where I cried and pled with God to change my relationship "status". Every time eventually, I would calm down and tell God that if He wished it, I would take it. For some reason, I would tell myself (and still do actually), at this moment, Adam is in the Garden alone, and it's God's will.

This semester it hasn't been much easier. I still want someone who will be here to care about me. I want someone who can make me feel visible, but then again, we've talked about this visibility thing. It's a selfishness thing. This semester I've admitted to myself several times there are several young men who I could easily like as more then just friends. It would all depend on God's ideas. One of these young men I see almost every day and he's always kinda and gentle and a gentleman.

Also recently, my sister suggested that I watch, for fun, BBC's 2009 version of Emma, by Jane Austen. Mr. Knightley has always been my favorite Jane Austen character because he's Emma's best friend, the man who is willing to wait for her, fight for her, admonish her and be there for her when she's being stupid and silly. The actor who plays this particular Mr. Knightley hits the nail on the head, and has had me swooning for the past week. I've probably redeveloped the crush I first had on him. In fact I liked this particular Mr. Knightley so much that after I saw the 2009 Emma for the first time, I almost cried. I was sorely grieved that I didn't have a Mr. Knightley. Who wouldn't want a gentleman who was everything described above and who could dance extraordinarily well?!

The problem with this was that after watching Mr. Knightley's interactions with Emma and wanting them badly myself, I began to look around me for Mr. Knightley. My sore heart automatically turned to the young man now closest to me, the one I see every day. We'll call him, for privacy's sake, Sam. I love spending time with Sam. He apparently likes spending time with me too. I have fun. I am comfortable around him, especially talking about our shared faith. He's quiet too, which is something I probably need in my life. Needless to say, because of Emma, Mr. Knightley and my loneliness, I have started looking, maybe unconsciously. I am now realizing that. I've had to ask God several times in the past week to keep me from wanting Sam just because I'm lonely. I want to want someone for them, and because I feel like God is leading me in that direction, not because I am lonely.

This is, in effect, my public declaration of my trust in God. I will stop trying to pursue any type of relationship with any young man. At least I will try. I know in my head that God will write my love story and that He will bring people in to my life just when I'm loneliest so that I won't be lonely. I just need to have that translate to my heat now. God Help. Until that time that He brings a young man into my life, and past that, He will always be all that I will ever need.

Invisiwoman!!

I have a confession to make. I'm a very selfish person.

How, you might ask, did I come to that conclusion?

Well, thank you for asking! I'll tell you.

The last four weeks (at least) of last semester, I felt completely invisible to those around me. To my friends in RUF (Reformed University Fellowship) I felt as if they were merely looking through me and then talking to me when I got in their way, or they couldn't help it. To my friends in the music building, I kinda felt the same way, though I think it was more pronounced with the RUFers because one doesn't expect them to act that way normally. As a result, I became grumpy, though I think the grump in me was fueled by lack of sleep, work load, and just over-exhaustion in general. In college one is always either mentally exhausted, physically exhausted, or both. Also, the weather didn't help. This little town isn't known for it's sunny days. Part of me wondered what was wrong with me, and another part of me wondered what was wrong with my friends.

And then I went home for Christmas Break. Christmas Break where my family is overjoyed to see me and slathers love and affection on me. And yet, a whole break goes by with no one from school saying hi to me, besides my roomie (who doesn't count), and a couple guys from RUF, one who got distracted 30 seconds into our IM by his gf (so I don't blame him), and the other who commented on my wall, and on a post shortly before break finished. There were a couple of times where I felt absolutely unseen, invisible, and more than slightly useless to my friends. I even posted about it on here. Yes, I was that upset.

And then I had to go back to college. I didn't want to because it was at college where I felt like I existed in my own mind only. When I got back, the first thing I had was an RUF meeting, because I'm on the servant team. I was extremely apprehensive about going because I wondered if things would continue the way they had ended in December. I was relieved to see that I was wrong. People were warm and friendly and I was about 99% visible.

I spoke to a couple friends about my feelings, and they agreed with me, they'd felt slightly invisible as well. I knew then that my feelings weren't unfounded. Go me! So, I talked to my campus minister (Matt) about the whole situation. He sympathized. I told him, truthfully, that I was now becoming apathetic about being invisible. I was scared that I was okay with being invisible. "If they don't want to see me, they won't." I told Matt. He said he'd pray for me.

Then, I had an amazing conversation with a friend on the servant team. He and I discussed this invisible feeling, and he kinda (without meaning to) slapped me around and set me back on my feet. Our discussion made me realize that there are other people out there who feel the same way. What am I doing sitting on my rear-end if there are people out there who are feeling invisible? Christ spent 33 years on this earth making sure people didn't feel invisible, all at His own expense.

And that's when I realized that I was incredibly selfish. I was getting tired of pursuing friendships with people because I wanted them to come after me, and sometime that's not a bad thing, but other times... well. I think I can and should put aside my own comfort and (sometimes) happiness to make other people feel 100% visible. I know how much it hurts, so I can throw myself into making sure they don't feel that way. I don't know how well I'll do, but we'll see.

As a result of all this complication, I'm suddenly starting to feel close to (if not) 100% visible.

hmm... interesting.

Stop speaking in riddles!

Honestly, I've decided today that if I die with some important message to give to whoever is there with me, I will give it and not speak in riddles. Really.

If you're wondering what brought this on, every movie that I watch where someone dies and has an important message to pass on, they speak in riddles and it takes the hero/ine the entire movie to understand! Really.