This last week has been a huge wake up call for me. I've had the flu for the last four days, and for some reason, when I'm so sick I can hardly move is usually when I realize the most, along with a conversation with my Dad that seemed to help.
My entire life, I've tried to please everyone. To be "good enough" for those around me. To be a good enough daughter, sister, girlfriend, best friend, grand daughter, cousin, niece, employee, etc. It seems like all I ever do is strive to be what other people want me to be. But even that isn't good enough, because no one is ever happy with what they have. Once, I tried to be happy for me for once, and ended up getting a letter from a family member telling me that I didn't care about them anymore and that I was a terrible person. So much for being happy for once.
As a woman, we want to be fought for, to be captivating, to be lovely. For some of us, there never will be someone to stand by our side to fight for us. For some of us, abandonment is all we'll ever know. I know that sounds like a pity train, but I know too many women that have gone down this same path. Granted, there is one person who will never leave us. However, we do a pretty good job of leaving Him every chance we get.
In my life, I've known three things to be true: death, abandonment, and failure. It's true. Before the age of fourteen, almost all of the important female figures in my life had died and I was left "alone" without them. I've also known abandonment by those who claim to love beyond measure, yet, I wasn't worth the fight. I wasn't good enough. I was worthless. Thankfully, some healing has taken place with one of those people, but I will forever feel that I'm not worth the fight. I've also known failure. It has seemed for my entire life that all I have ever set out to do has failed. All except one, but I left that dream for another, which ultimately failed in the end. I would have been able to go off to college and been done at the end of this year, if I hadn't dreamed so big. But, I guess I thought I could handle failure at the time. I realize now it was the stupidest mistake I ever could have made.
I've also been taught my entire life that everything that has ever happened to me has been my fault. No, it wasn't my parents or a pastor or anyone actually verbally saying this to me, but it's been pretty obvious my entire life that since crap always seems to find me, it's quite clearly my fault, regardless of it being out of my control or not. And then last week, someone very clearly told me that my decisions are what have screwed up my life, and I understood. I do have control over it. I don't pray enough. I don't have enough trust in God. I'm not good enough.
The last couple of months, I've been headed down a pretty bad road. I've been at the bottom of my rope, with no where else to go except groveling around the bottom of a cave with no way out. But being sick has opened up my eyes that my trust needs to be back in God. I've been trying to rely on myself, and not on God, who won't ever leave me. It's been a long journey for twenty years, and prayerfully, there will be some happiness soon. Twenty years of nothing but pain is too long of a life already. It seems to be longer also when the things that brought the only joy into your life are what ended up causing the most pain in the end. It's funny to think that we can take happiness for granted and pretend to forget the pain. It's called getting comfortable. When we get comfortable, God decides we aren't focusing on HIm, so we get a curveball sent our way. But ultimately, it's up to us what we do with it: we can decide to trust Him more, or we can try to take matters into our own hands. I would encourage everyone to trust Him more, and believe that He will ultimately come through on His promises when those on earth can't.
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