Thank you!

It's been awhile! There has been little to say, and then so much at the same time.  How to say it all, without being a snark (Admittedly, one of the things I do best), or without sounding like a crazed, ex-girlfriend?

Now, for some great news: a crazed ex-girlfriend am I no longer! Not that I think I ever was.. I mean, did I ever break the windows out your car, or take a Louisville slugger to both headlights? Slash all four tires, or carve my name into those leather seats? ( btw, Carrie Underwood still knows how to keep it country, unlike T-Swift who has officially sold out. But I'm not bitter). I know there were moments where I felt crazy, and felt like I must be the only person in the world feeling this way, and going through the patterns of being okay, then not, then being great, and then wanting to check in at the heartbreak hotel. Truthfully, the amount of times I went through that this last year are too many to count. I remember having a moment at Disney World (of all places, but still the happiest place on earth) just crying at Epcot and wondering about the why of it all.

Newsflash: The "why of it all" is not for me to know at this point. I think that's what killed me the most, was that maybe if I could see the future, I wouldn't be so pissed off about the present and how much my heart hurt right then. I thought I was owed an explanation, as if God owed me anything.

I know He loves me desperately, but there are just some things I don't get to know. As John Piper says "God is always doing 10,000 things in your life and you may be aware of three of them." Only three! The rest is not for me to know, and to be happy and content, there needs to be trust that He knows what He's doing with the "why."  That has been my struggle, even today, with knowing that God  is indeed the man with the plan, and not Amanda who although she is a daughter of the king is flawed, biased, and admittedly wants what she wants. How glad am I though, that I don't always get what I want? Which leads me to my thank you note, a' la Jimmy Fallon style (I swear it's not a satirical thank you note. I just like the music they play while he writes them).

Thank you, ex-boyfriend,
For allowing me the opportunity to run to Jesus and have Him be my everything.
Thank you, ex-boyfriend,
For a clean break, which gave me the chance to be Amanda by herself (which isn't so bad after all).
Thank you, ex-boyfriend,
For showing me a little bit of how to date and how not to. I grew from our relationship, and that's cool.
Finally, Thank you, ex-boyfriend,
For cutting the cord on our relationship when I was unable to. I wouldn't be where I am now if not for that.
 
The Lord gives and He takes away, and I am grateful that He still considers me "worth it" to refine and put me through different seasons of life. My prayer is that this will be a testimony to others, and that whatever words are spit out from my trusty Dell Inspiron keyboard, are words that I will live, daily. Jesus' words.

I don't really know how this blog will look in the future, but I'm thinking the dramatic sufferings of my breakup have come to an end and it will focus on other things. I'd like to believe I'm over him and ready to move on to the next challenge :) God bless you all who have read this and prayed for my heart to heal. xoxo!

Do you gotta mask? Or nahh?

After realizing I haven't blogged in all of April, and kind of feeling like I've been going a little crazy I decided it's time to become a little less crazy (Also, for those of you who hate the title of this post because it's so obnoxious, I'm sorry but I've been on Vine all day, and that whole thing has been stuck in my head. Apologies. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, just don't hate me when you Google it and become instantly annoyed).

I would be lying if I said that April has not been challenging. Cutting to the chase, I've been challenged with the charming realization that I spend a lot of my time wearing masks. So that's super fun. I don't know about the rest of you, but mask-wearing takes up a lot of energy. Like, I really don't understand how batman, spiderman, superman (did he actually wear a mask? or was it just glasses as Clark Kent?) do this all day, everyday. Exhausting. And I'm not even saving Gotham and New York City on a frequent basis. 

I don't want to be vulnerable around anyone, so the mask of  "I'm fine," is perpetually on. It might come off a little with my friends. Definitely off with my family when I can't take it anymore. I feel bad for them. But this is part of getting your heart broken, or being scarred from crap. 

The worst part of it all is that it is so automatic and I don't even know it's happening most of the time. I think we're all like that, but that doesn't make it okay.

One of the best things about it however, is that I have some great, godly friends who are so encouraging and don't let me settle for being second-best Mandy. Masks are not acceptable. I love them for that. I don't think I say it enough, but I can't even express in words how grateful I am to my friends who don't put up with fakeness, and really, truly want God's best for me.

I pray with a group of friends on Tuesday night, but I have been on hiatus lately. For those who don't know, praying, especially with others can tend to be a more intimate experience. I struggle with forming my thoughts out loud, and praying with others can be stressful at times. It's stupid I know, but whatever. Praying in a group that happens to include an ex-boyfriend can compound that stress one hundred times over. It's so weird because when you used to be so close with someone, and then suddenly you're not, it's not like they forgot about who you are, or the things that you struggle with. But you have to pretend you don't know them anymore, and pretend to be strangers. It's bizarre, really. Hence the stress. You don't want to appear weak and vulnerable, especially to someone who knew too much about you. You want to appear like everything is together, and nothing is the matter. As if they never mattered at all. Right.

Therein lies the problem. How can we be involved in corporate prayer, or any meaningful relationship when there are masks? We all have them. Don't tell me you don't, because that's probably not true. No offense. ha. Seriously though, how do followers of Christ combat mask-syndrome when they enter into prayer with other believers? Is it simply putting aside the mask as an act of will by realizing we're all cut from the same sinful cloth? Praying the masks away? Is it a "name it and claim it" situation?  

The cynical part of us (who is all up on my grill right now, thank you very much) is very inclined to forget prayer night, and forget everyone who hurt her. Become a woman of all steel, and no feels (ha!).

Wants-to-do-better, living with the Holy Spirit part of us says to pray about this and work on giving up those masks to Jesus. By doing this, I mean in a healthy way, and not to anyone we used to be romantically involved with. If that door is shut my friends, leave it shut until God opens it, and don't expect it to be with the same person (more on that another time). 

If someone is really asking how we're doing, be honest. If we need prayer because we just aren't feeling this heartbreak situation anymore, then ask for it. As fun as it is to be everyone's favorite neighborhood spider man (or woman!), who saves us all from crazy pants Willem Dafoe, remember that even Peter Parker got exhausted by it all. We don't have to be superheros! Jesus died on the cross for us because we, in all our human lameness, could not be anything close to super. Radioactive spiders do not exist. We all suck and are nothing without Jesus' infinite love and sacrifice. He loves us with or without our masks, but He is so ready for us to take them all off. <3

Roots.

Sometimes there just isn't that much to say, but then sometimes you feel like you can barely hold back the words because you might explode if you don't write them down. That's tonight, I think. 

I have been single for.....awhile now. I decided that keeping track of that is stupid and not important. What is important is that a part of me feels better. Changed, in a good way. I feel somewhat confident in my role as a single woman who only needs to concern herself with what God wants, instead of pliable to the constant demands of others. There is a part of me that feels confident with my relationship with Christ, because I'm not doing it to make someone love me. Which is horrible, really. Terrible on both ends. If we can all take one thing away from tonight, please don't do Christiany things to make someone love you more. It speaks poorly of both parties. 

Ironically though, I have become so bitter and angry despite that being the one thing I promised I wouldn't do. I have become cynical and jaded with anger. I can hide it pretty well, and act happy and unconcerned. What I really want is for the horrible dreams to stop and for it all to have never happened. Is it bad to wish you had never met someone? That they were just erased from your life and all the problems and pain associated with them just disappeared too? I crave that. 

Look, I know that this is all wrong, that I should "smile because it happened," blah blah blah. I'm denying God the chance to work in my life through this bitterness, and I'm poisoning myself. Do we girls really think our ex-boyfriends care if we hate them? My guess is no. When we break up and move on, where does the move on part happen, if we are swamped in bitterness? It doesn't. 

I can't pretend like this bitterness thing has completely disappeared, now that I've come to face it. A character flaw that was so detrimental to my relationship that will serve me now though, is my stubbornness. I don't want to be bitter and angry for the rest of my life, because I want more moments of praying with strangers in gas stations after buying them chicken, and I want more moments of knowing that what came out of your mouth wasn't you but the Holy Spirit. I want more moments of being content as a sheep (which is a whole different post for another day).

I'm praying for all of the girls out there who have been hurt deeply by someone they loved. I'm praying that God equips us all with the strength to just let go when it is so easy to hold on to feelings of anger and resentment. He desires the best for us, and even though life can really suck, His plan is perfect. Pain can lead to restoration and beauty, if we let it. 

My conviction moment really came through this verse, which might be familiar: "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Ephesians 4:32

Jesus has surely not liked all the bad things I have done in my life, but he forgave them and has moved on. They are white as snow, not even a thought in His mind. I can't withhold forgiveness from anyone, even if they broke my heart.  There is no "broken heart" clause in the Bible that exempts us from forgiveness. Rather, it seems as if "love" is the best remedy for a broken heart. Crazy? We'll see :)

It's been awhile. I've been avoiding writing for some reason. I don't know why.

It might have something to do with just feeling numb overall. Not happy, not sad, just existing.

People will occasionally ask how things are, and I say every time "surviving," because that's what I'm doing.
I wake up, drag myself to work and work until I need to. Then I either do some other activity, or isolate in my room until I fall asleep. It's a great arrangement, really. 

It's the same every day, for the most part. I exist with the other people around me, but I feel an absence of engagement. I don't mean to be sad, or be dramatic. This my time to be honest and yet I don't even feel like I have anything really to say here.  Sometimes I do better with lists, so I'll try that:

Things that are going well:
1. Disney world in two days.
2. Spring is coming
3. The two month mark passed and I didn't even realize it.
4. Two out of the three holidays are right at our doorstep (St. Patrick's day and Easter. Duh!)
5. By this time next year, I won't be sad about stupid stuff anymore.
6. God has decided every day for the last 24 years that I'm worth it to wake up each morning. I'm grateful for that.
7. "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.   And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!"  (Romans 11:22-25)

Things that are not going well:
1. I have no excitement or trust in people, and I'm afraid it's always going to be like this. 
 
I'm sorry that this post isn't a spectacular literary work. 

This is not a valentine's day post

It's really not, because technically it's February 15th now, and v-day is over with. I can't say I'm sad to see it go, although there were some lovely unexpected surprises. My darling best friend sent me flowers and a card with this text: "You don't need a man today, because you have many other people that love you."
And she's right.

I also received a "not-a-valentines-day card" from my dad. My parents usually get us all cards each year, and I told my parents that I wanted nothing to do with any of it this year. But because my dad is cute and stubborn, he wrote me the best note, ending with this:  "God loves you more than any one else ever will. Put all your energy into discovering the breadth, length, and height of Christ's love for you. A love that surpasses all knowledge and understanding." And he's right.


I woke up this morning planning on avoiding this day at all costs. Throw myself into work and just forget that I used to have a reason to get excited for this stupid holiday, and that I was someone's girl. 
I guess I forgot for a minute that I have always been God's girl, and one person's failure to love me doesn't change that at all.
This whole day makes it all the more real to me now, as I sit and ruminate over what true love really is, while eating my cheesecake and watching trashy television. What it means to sacrificially love others, and what does selflessness really look like. 
The most important thing I can do right now is share what that looks like with others. That real love isn't selfish or indecisive or dishonest. There shouldn't be fear in love, but trust. 
Real, true, 100% perfect love will never be found in a person. I have to stop looking for that with others and place unrealistic expectations on them. People aren't gods that have all these amazingly perfect qualities suddenly, just because they're into you. People have no idea what love even means, until they've been touched by real love and grace through Christ. Even then, some still don't get it right. Followers of Christ are just as flawed as everyone else. I know I am. 

Friends, this is maybe is a more blunt post. I'm not sorry, though. This whole post is the reason why I'm able to get out of bed in the morning, and why I can even stand to be around my ex, because there is no point in being bitter. The point now, is to move on and focus all my energy on Christ, and sharing that with others.

Be blessed tonight, friends. My opinion is a famously unpopular one, but that's okay! God's love surpasses all, and I hope and pray that each of us hold on to that tightly during every season of our lives.

Lies.

In the book Captivating, by the Stasi and John Eldridge (question. Is Stasi even a real name? I was always confused by that) there is a part of the book that exposes the two greatest fears of the female mind. Lies we believe, if you will. There are: I am not enough, and I am too much.

I have read this book a couple of times. Once I even read through the "couples question guide," which was supposed to strengthen my relationship with God and my significant other, I guess? (spoiler alert: didn't quite work). Anyway, each time I've read this book, I've always lumped myself in with the "I am too much" camp because I have a lot going on with a lot of baggage and a scary past with emotional scarring. This is a lie I don't want to believe, but it's one that I am. Maybe if I had toned it down a little bit, been a little less crazy, a little less pressuring, things would be different, perhaps. 

The other side of the coin is the "not enough." Maybe I wasn't enough, despite all the virtues that everyone close to me says I possess. 

It's hard to know which lie to believe; which one to settle on. I feel frantic, like I should be able to just pick one, and once I can do that, the answer of why this whole relationship exploded will be crystal clear. 

I know this is crazy, that we don't just get gifted answers of why things work out or why they don't. It's not maybe in God's plan to have me figure this all out? Maybe if I did, the journey of faith and trusting wouldn't be so sweet and real.  I know that God wants my heart and my everything, but I want answers! I want to know the future, and have the delusional thought that if I know things won't hurt so much, or maybe I'll heal faster.

Waiting and trusting is so hard. I wasn't good at being patient while in a relationship and I'm no better at it now that I'm single.

We can't even be certain of tomorrow, so one day at a time. One foot in front of the other. Get out of bed, and trust God to take care of everything. It hurts, but that's okay. We are not too much or too little, despite believing it when people throw us away.

Today is Thursday.

Warning, sad ahead!

There are times like today, where I just can't take anymore and the frustration and heartache are overwhelming.

Work: The stress is a little crushing and I always feel like I'm doing something wrong. The unique and sad situation of each kid can be heartbreaking, and I'm wondering when it will become too much and I'll become another statistically burned out social worker. A lot of people don't even think I'm cut out for it anyway. Those comments are always hurtful.

God: Fighting for my daily time with the Lord is hard, and there are days where it seems easier to put it aside until there is time. I'm also so tired of crying and questioning why all of this is happening the way it has, and I feel annoying. 

Friends: My friends are amazing..but I feel annoying because I keep crying and complaining over the same things. I'm sorry, friends. Please be patient with me. 


Independence: Moving out has fallen through for the time being, and I am getting so frustrated with things not going as planned. The continual disappointment of my circumstances is so old and I'm just becoming jaded. 

The break-up situation: Anger. Everything is unfair. How can one person be so damaging?

 Handling this with dignity gets harder every day, and there have been an infinity number of times where I just want to drive my car into his house. Which is wrong, I know! I should be the bigger person, I should heap hot coals on his head by being kind. I shouldn't be angry because I can't do things like go to prayer night. 
I shouldn't be angry because he's over it all. 
I need to guard my heart and my mind from everything that is untrue, and just continue to pray through this. My vulnerability is the enemy's playground right now, and I don't want to be played with any more.

I'm just going to take this bad day, and hope that tomorrow is better.

This is my first post.

Once upon a time, there was a girl (me!) who loved to write, and used to "make" blogs: Xanga, Livejournal, wordpress, tumblr, etc. Kind of blog hussy, if you will. Then she realized blogging just wasn't her thing, and that no one really cared about one more angst-ridden blog gracing the internet. 

Sometimes though, things change?

Sometimes there are problems that are just too big for us to handle on our own, and the only thing we can do is rely on Jesus. 

Sometimes it is really helpful to write these things down publicly, in the hopes that others will be encouraged by them. Maybe my pain can help someone else through theirs? Lofty dreams!

So here I am: I'm Amanda,  I'm 24 and have been single for exactly 4 days, and 15 hours. I try to love Jesus with everything I have, and up until recently have never been comfortable displaying my faith and trials in such a public place. I've had blogs before, but I think they require you to be honest- not sure if my previous attempts fell into the honest abe category.

Why am I writing this? 

Because:
1. I got my heart broken this week in what was thought to be a long-term, serious relationship I was sure was "destined" to last no matter what. 
2. I want to encourage others through trials, even though I know that broken hearts definitely don't have the corner on the market of personal pain and problems.
3. I'm at a unique crossroads in my life and I want to document how God is going to fix my broken self and turn this crap load of crappity-crap into something beautiful. 
4. Sometimes a girl just needs to write. 


For the skeptics and the naysayers:
1. No personal information of other parties will be shared in a way that will be compromising. I respect confidentiality.
2. That's all I have to say about that. 


Here we go.