Feet On the Ground

So. Bianca asked. Most people didn’t ask, just said that they’d pray. But she did, and I feel like she asked because she wanted to know how to pray most effectively. Not only that, she wants to grieve with me as I grieve. I’ve honestly never really had many people who considered me that important.

It’s an extremely personal matter, and I don’t feel comfortable putting many details on here because of how personal it is, how much I’m grieving, and also because it doesn’t include only me. I don’t want to hurt the people who are killing me. I don’t want to trivialize what I’m going through by putting it into mere words.

It was a romance. A romance that hadn’t really happened yet, but that I’d had a very small taste of, and something I believe that God was working out to give to me in the future. I believed and I labored in prayer over this like nothing I’ve ever prayed for. I put my soul into this. I was willing to hang on and believe for as long as it took.

And I just found out last night that it will never be mine. I didn’t even know that he was dating her. I feel so foolish. Completely duped.

It’s one of those situations where you can’t even think beyond, “What the hell?”

Because it is hell. What I’m going through right now is the most torment I have ever experienced in my life.

And now I know why tragedy inspires most writers. All I want to do now is write out everything I feel even though it doesn’t make sense. I think I could write forever out of the pain.

I loved him more than I have ever loved anyone in my life. He was the first person I loved, and he taught me that I could actually love someone and that I wasn’t too broken to feel like this. But he doesn’t care, and he’s killing me. He broke my heart and then sent it back.

I don’t want to write forever out of the pain.

I don’t want to grieve this. I spent a very, very, very long time believing for this and I am so not okay with giving more tears and more space in my life to pain. I’ve lived a life of pain and heartache and abandonment and hurt and rejection and I don’t want it anymore.

I’m constantly nauseous. I haven’t slept. I’ve never cried that hard in my life. Of course, finding out on Facebook that the most noncommittal man in the world got down on one knee for someone else didn’t help. He gave her a ring and asked her to spend the rest of her life with him. They’ll recite vows and kiss and she’ll bear his children.

Not me.

It’s a stark reality and I have to accept it and get used to it. I feel like I can’t function. I can’t breathe right. I can’t think straight. I just can’t do anything right now. I want to stop and sit and take comfort in familiar things.

Yet somehow, in all of this, God has been here. He knew that it would happen. I would never, ever, ever have believed for something so strongly had I not believed that it was His plan and His voice and His hand involved in every single aspect of it. I believed for the hugest miracle ever. Now I realize that I didn’t hear His voice at all, and I’m terrified of the implications of that.

But He picked an unlikely source to use to speak to me since I apparently have no idea what He sounds like personally.

David Crowder Band recently released a new CD called Church Music. Ironic title considering that it’s basically techno praise and swine flu will have to manifest in actual flying pigs before we’d ever play any of those songs at my church. Yet it’s basically the best CD I’ve ever heard, and definitely the best thing I’ve heard from DC*B. I got hooked with the album A Collision and was sorely disappointed in Remedy because it was really tame and “normal” compared to A Collision. But Church Music is just on a whole other level of weird. By weird, I mean awesome.

There’s a song called Church Music – Dance (!) and you can listen to it by going here and scrolling to number 13. It has a funky beat and really does make you want to dance. But the most important part of the lyrics are:

Dance if you’re wounded
Dance if you’re torn in two
Dance broken open
Dance with nothing to lose

Perfectly free
Dance if you want to be

It’s SO amazing that God knew that I would go through this and exactly when. The CD has been out for a little while but I just got it and listened to it this morning. It is the only thing that really got me through today without being catatonic on the floor.

You know how yesterday I said that I’ve given up on being happy? The song doesn’t ask me to be happy. It just tells me to do exactly what you don’t want to do when you’re wounded and broken open – dance. Just enter into mindless movements of celebration, even if you’re like me and have no coordination whatsoever.

I’m broken. I’m wounded. I’m not sure if I can live through this. But I can be free from the grief and heartache and all I have to do is live. I don’t have to figure it out. The situation tells me that I’m worthless and will always be a reject and that my hardest efforts will grant me nothing. But God says that I’m perfect in His eyes and that His Son made me perfectly free. To be wounded and dance, and it’s beautiful to Him.

(You know, all of that sounded great, but I’m still terrified and in more pain than I can imagine. It’s 2:41 AM and I can’t sleep and my stomach is completely empty but I feel like I’m going to hurl. And I keep watching the sneak peak video of Glee where Mr. Schu raps Bust a Move. I have serious problems.)

Tags: fail, heartbreak, men, pain, romance

I’m really struggling.

I’ll just be flat out honest about it, right here on my blog, because most people who have one conversation with me can probably see it anyway. I’m really, really, REALLY bitter and miserable right now. About many things. But there is one thing that keeps coming up, stronger and bigger each time, and I have to confront this before it kills any will that I have to overcome it. I know that saying that I struggle with this is showing that I’m weak, and that I’m no better than what I hate. I know it’s irrational. That there are exceptions, and that what I see may not even be the norm.

Regardless of that…I hate men.

I know that my mom will read this and get frown lines in her forehead at the word hate, and that there are some men that I actually love that will read this and be offended, and I don’t mean to hurt anyone else. I’ve been hurt by countless people, but it’s about a million times worse when a man does something to hurt me. I was hurt when my father left, and when my grandfather was silent, and when the man that I fell in love with refused to be seen in public with me.

All men have done is hurt me with their cowardice.

I think feminism is ridiculous, but I see why it was born. Because men refused to be disciplined and to lead. They want the perks of leadership, and in Christian settings will twist the word of God so that they will have authority. But they won’t do anything to actually deserve that role or those perks, and so women have had to suffer and do their own work plus take on the role of a man. I watched my mother work herself into the ground for years because my father is a spineless idiot.

Men should not abuse their authority. But they should stand up and be leaders. God has placed a role inside of every man to be a leader, even if it’s in his own household- which is one of the most important responsibilities a man can be given. Men are just so darn weak. They think that watching sports and working out and drinking beer and cursing and driving fast makes them strong, but it doesn’t. They think that talking about emotions makes them weak, but a man who can realize that he loves a woman and desires to unite with her, to protect and provide for her, to be a warrior for her and to build a home for his children and stick with them because he loves them is among the strongest men that have ever existed.

I’m bitter toward men because I want to do things the proper way. I want to have a good life and be strong and pull my weight and do what I’m called to do and all of that stuff that sounds really, really good. Not just in a romantic setting, but also in friendships and in my church and in my family. But I haven’t been able to find men that are willing to step up and pull their weight. A few try and do a decent job at it, but I can’t help but think about how much better the body of Christ would be if men stepped up and did what they should do and weren’t afraid to risk failure, fail, get back up and identify what they did wrong. If they are strong enough to risk failure, many times they’re not strong enough to admit it when they do fail. And nothing is gained.

I want to be in love and in a great relationship. I want to work hard at it and find someone who will match my determination step for step and lead me when I falter and support me when I’m afraid. I want to learn what it means to support a man and help him to be strong. I want to do it the right way. I want my church to be great and to be packed every service because they’re receiving something great from the leadership- from the pulpit. I want to support the leaders by connecting with people in a way that the pastors can’t. But I can’t do either of these things alone. I can’t do them at all, because there’s no one to lead.

I refuse to follow an idiot down the wrong path.

I’m trying to let God strengthen me through this, and to learn as much as He wants to teach me so it won’t feel like this time is being wasted. It’s so painful that I can’t approach the issue without wanting to rip my heart out. I had to stop halfway through To Own a Dragon by Don Miller because it was so true to the situation and I was in agony the entire time I was reading it. I don’t know how to make it better or overcome this or get rid of this bitterness and hate. I know that holding onto these toxic feelings will poison me, but I haven’t been able to let go and to forgive and to let it all be better.

I really wish God was available for hugs, but I feel like He got so tired of me that He left, too. Maybe it really is my fault.

Tags: father, men, pain, romance