Wednesday, August 31, 2011

all for Love and Love for all

this blog post is for someone i have not talked to in a really long time.
someone i have no intention of talking to again.
i have had so much to say to them for so long.
i used to feel a NEED to say it.
but over the summer i learned that saying the words to someone who is not ready to hear them does more harm than good and the words i felt so desperate to say, they always showed in my actions. this person should know these feelings of mine. but in the off chance that he does ever see this. in case he never knew. or if he is finally in a place to hear the words that i need to say, here they are.


i forgive you.
i never hated you.
and while i can not say that i was ever IN love with you, i never stopped loving you.
you hurt me so badly.
you tore me to shreds then picked up the pieces only to tear them up more.
you terrorized me for reasons i do not think i will ever understand.
people will never understand this, but you know me, so you should.
i did see all the bad things you did.
i was not dumb.
i did put all the pieces together.
but i saw how wonderful you were as well.
i saw how nice you could be and how much love you had in your heart
while no one would give you a chance and look past the jerkish front you put up,
i saw who you really were on the inside.
i saw who you WANTED to be.
and after seeing that i could never hate you.
i hate the things you did.
those things will stay with me forever.
they effect my life day to day
they effect every relationship i have had since i met you.
but i still forgive you.
i do not have any anger towards you anymore.
and while what happened between us still stays on my mind, it does not control my life.
God does that part.
and what i always wanted you to know
what i always wanted to tell you,
in case you never heard.
God loves you
He loves you so much
He loves you with love that cannot be changed.
no matter what you have done, God still loves you
i do not know where you are in life right now.
hopefully in a better place than last time i saw you.
but if not
it is not too late.
you can be who you want to be
you can be that guy that was fighting to break free
i really believe that.
i have prayed for you every single day since i last saw you
every single day
sometimes several times a day
and i forgive you for everything
be the best you that you can be
Peace and Love,
sarah

Monday, August 29, 2011

Masks

So, a while back (i guess sometime around 4 years ago) i went to a camp and one of the topics was masks that people wear. I am not going to post it because honestly i dont remember the exact details but here are some of my thoughts i have about my own masks.


I learned a lot about myself this summer. i went into the summer having made the decision that my life had to change and i could not put off the change any longer. so my goal was to at least get started on my way to self discovery or whatever other term you would like to give it. 


one thing i learned is that it has always been much easier for me to be who i think people close to me want to see. it is easier than saying, :no, that is who you are, but it is not who I am." It is easier to let people see what they wish and tuck the rest away, pretending that you fit that mold of who they anticipated you would be. this applies to parents, family, friends, teachers and anyone else that i have a relationship with. everyones opinion and faith would mold my own, or what i adopted as my own without much thought. 


but what i discovered is that i was living my life through other peoples faith and not my very own. i had tweaked my feelings to fit theirs and if someone disapproved of my actions i quickly tried to back peddle. i would talk myself into believing what they believe. the problem is...i do not believe it. and i am getting to a place in my life where i can hear what the people around me are saying and see where they are coming from, but at the end of the night i am living by what i believe in. without shame. i love conversations about faith because i am learning to think critically of what i believe in myself. i just love it. 


i think trying to seem well put together is a mask common throughout the world. it is a mask i try to maintain, but for anyone that knows me, i dont hide my feelings well and my emotions are usually plastered all over my face. but i never talk about what is really wrong unless it is with my roommate, best friends or my fiance. i think that is pretty normal. no one wants to walk around in a t-shirt saying "look at what is going on in my life today". honestly, i think anyone who did that would get many funny looks. the concept is fascinating to me though. how bold would it be to share with people you have never seen before and may never see again. id think it would be intense, but i digress. 


The Mask I Never Wore:


over the summer i worked at burlington coat factory (shout out to my favorite job yet!). one of the girls i met offered to give me a make over (since i have never even owned a tube of lip stick). i declined and we had a nice conversation. i have never been a make-up person (though i have always desired curly hair!). at first i refused to wear it because i never knew how to put it on and there was no way i was going outside looking like ronald mcdonald. but as i developed a relationship with God through high school and college i realized my feelings about it has changed. this summer i thought about trying some out and then i looked and the mirror and said "NO! i walk around with enough masks and i refuse to carry another!" maybe my thoughts are a bit exaggerated but you know what. i just dont need it.


i am beautiful. i dont mean to be conceited, but i just am. i was a beautiful drooly baby. i was a beautiful chubby little kid in my tie-dye swim suit and red cowboy boots. and i am beautiful just the way i am today. i am one messed up, pudgy, frizzy haired, freckly faced, beautiful woman. sometimes i dont see that. sometimes i dont even want to see it. sometimes i feel like i dont deserve to feel as pretty as i do because the ugly things in my past. but in the end, God made ME. and God just dont make JUNK. 


i was asked if i would go all out on my wedding day and get my make-up done professionally. i said yes. because God made me the face i have every day. and i dont think there is anyone more qualified to make me a beautiful bride than Him. so i will walk down the isle with the freckly face and gigantic toothy smile He gave me. and He will be glad. and so will i and my future husband. :)


i think this blog for me is a way to be more open. to be a little bit more me and a lot less mask. so when i say i am always open for conversation no matter how big, small, deep or light, it is true! and i would love to talk to you.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Love

Love is one of the biggest four letter words i have ever heard. 
It is a word that can change a life forever by being heard or by NOT being heard.
And to hear it does not mean you feel it. 

There is the love of family: 
That love that is there no matter what even though there is no other real reason than they are biologically related to you. I know, I know. Its sounds weird to say it like that, but really... that is the only reason for your initial love for that person. Love past that is much more, but that is how it starts.

Then there is love of friends:
These are the people you chose to keep in your life. The people that you depend on and depend on you. For some people their friends are their only family. Friends love each other through everything. You forgive them when they hurt you and they do the same. When you fall they are there to help you back up. I think this kind of love is so special because these are not people that were forced to like you. And when i have a true friendship i love how real it can get. You learn where boundaries are and you poke fun at each other. You sometimes argue and disagree. But at the end of the day when you need a hug, your friends are the ones that are there to hug you. I would not say i have a ton of friends. I definitely have less real friends than i do facebook friends and even less friends that i have shared my life story with. But that is what makes them so special. They are special because they know you and see you in a different way than everyone else does. 

Next is Romantic Love:
I never believed in this love when i was younger. Love was for fairy tales, but not for real life. Not for lack of examples because my parents are still together and my uncles and aunts that i am mostly around in my family are all still with the person they married. Maybe it was not that i did not believe in love. Maybe it was more of me not believing in love for myself. I never believed that anyone could love me in that way. I always felt like i had so much love in my heart, but no one to give it to. I knew how i viewed this love; this sacred, beautiful, lasting, true, forever, wonderful, blissful, you-make-me-the-best-kind-of-crazy LOVE. I have been in some crazy relationships including one relationship of Three and a Half Years. He would say things like, "Oh when we are married...it will  be like this" or "When we have kids and live together...life will be so good". It put me on edge a lot because i never saw those things in our future. I never really saw myself staying with him forever and being this happy family with kids. I knew our relationship too well to know that, that could never be US. i at least knew it couldnt be me. Our relationship went from bad to worse and we finally broke it off.

I fell for the next guy i dated so quickly. Who wouldnt love a gentleman? It only lasted three months and while i never understood why he broke up with me i am so thankful he did. We are so much of different people now. He will always be my best friend, but i couldnt look at him as anything else than a best friend again. No more and no less. 

Then there is Patrick... :)
I was finally in a place in my life where i was totally okay with being single and love was not a hunt for me anymore and this kid walks into my life. I loved him before i dated him. As cheesy as it sounds i knew he was special the week after i met him when i ran into him at Sam's West at Texas Tech and he hugged me. I got tingles on every inch of me and could feel all my organs in my tummy swirling. Thus, love happened. Unexpectedly; unannounced; unstoppable. He treats me like a fairytale princess in every way. And i am happy to say that we are ENGAGED!! he is the only man i have ever been able to look at and picture a future with. Picture having kids with. Picture living with. He stole my feelings of being unlovable and discarded them from sight.i love him like crazy.

Lastly, but for sure not least, Agape Love:
This is Godly love. Unconditional, unbreakable and complete love. Its the way God loves us and the way He wishes we would love each other. 
The love willing to give His son
The love willing to pursue me even when i dont acknowledge Him
The love willing forgive and forget sins no matter how big or small
The love willing heal brokenness and pain
The love willing to see the perfect you instead of the flawed you
The love that would sit with you on the curb and midnight while you release your feelings
The love that meets you where you are instead of where you should be
The love that adores you
The love that is inescapable 
The love that is for all. No matter color, gender, sexuality, height, capabilities, shortcomings, achievements, failures, mistakes or wrongdoings.
The love that knows all tongues and all hearts.
The love you can not hide from.
The love that loves you even when you dont know how to love yourself. 

That is some powerful love. 
Love
Love
Love
Love
Love

Eccl. 4: 9-12

Two are better than one,
Because they have good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him.
Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him,
and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
~~Eccl. 4: 9-12


This is by far my favorite set of verses in the bible. It depicts how i view my friendships and really, how i view all of my relationships. It is also a section i struggle with continually.


A threefold cord (or as in other versions of the bible say: a cord of three strands) is not quickly broken. In relationships i feel as though i myself count as one of the strands, my friend counts as the second strand and we are woven together by the third strand: God. how powerful is that? to me, it is incredible.


the reason this has been a struggle for me is because i am not that outgoing girl i wish i was sometimes. i feel awkward in almost any situation, weather there is reason for it or not. and establishing true friendships is not a strong suit for me, though i am working on that!


when i read "woe to him who is alone when he falls" i cringe. it takes me back to a place in my life when i did feel alone and i fell hard. looking back on the situation i can now see i was never alone, but at the time it was just me in my head. just me falling alone with no one to help me up. and as i was down on the ground i worked so hard to convince everyone that i was okay. i became so good at faking happy that i even started to lie to myself and try to convince myself that i was happy, when i knew i wasnt. this time in my life was before i ever really accepted God. i went to Christmas and Easter mass with my parents and other than that on one spoke of God, at least not that i ever heard. God to me was a fairy god-mother in a story book that people could only dream up. 


i had recently split up with my boyfriend of 3 and a half years when a guy at my school (who later became my best friend) invited me to church camp. this camp is where i saw Gods love for the first time. it was the first time i witnessed Him move not only in other peoples lives, but in my own heart. and also at this camp i read Eccl. 4: 9-12 for the first time. i let out so many feelings there that had been trapped in me for so long and it was liberating. i knew that from then on i need healthy relationships (unlike the ones of my past) and the way to do that is to have God based relationships. 


since then i have grown up a lot. i have become a lot more honest with the world, but more importantly i became much more honest with myself. i admitted to myself that i was not okay and was not going to be okay if i kept fighting battles on my own. so i began to let people in and share my story with them. its funny now because way-back-when i would never consider telling a soul about my past, but now i am fairly comfortable with speaking about it to anyone who asks. i am okay with admitting that i have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and i am okay with who i am.


it feels so good to feel just okay. i havent felt it for a long time.


so i apologize if i seem awkward or if i ever make anyone feel like i dont want to be friends. i am just really shy. but i can say two things about myself:
One: If you ask me a question, i will answer honestly as long as it is a question about me and not someone else. if you wanna know about someone else i think you should ask them :)
Two: i will try to love you like God loves you. i am not perfect and my feelings can get hurt. but i truly do try to love on everyone i can. i am very open minded and even if i disagree with you on something, i will listen to your opinion on it and really think about your view. if we still disagree after that, ITS OKAY i will still love you!