While sitting in the back of my Uber last week reminiscing on my mistakes from the past three months, I decided to at least share the lessons I’ve learned… or I guess I would say currently learning. Anyways! The last thing I wanted to do was go on one more day feeling any type of regret from my lapses in judgment. Cause life goes on no matter what. Making an effort to become the person you desire to be will be followed by setbacks and struggles. No matter who you are(unless you’re Jesus) then you are going to mess up. The problem isn’t making mistakes but letting them define who you are. You have to be capable of taking responsibility for your faults, forgiving yourself, and most importantly asking for forgiveness. There is no doubt that I have learned and grown drastically even just within the past year. Then again I think about well, if I’ve grown so much then how come I still slip up constantly? The answer is because I’m human! Of course I am going to make dumb judgement calls (at least sometimes) but the thing is I need to learn from those mistakes. Also I had to figure out that learning is actually doing. Let me just say – if you’re not putting into practice what you’ve “learned” then yeah you haven’t actually learned.
Alright so truth time. Ok so I am about to call myself out but you gotta be able to accept your mistakes and hey maybe even joke about them once in a while.
STORY TIME. I was talking to Christine just around a month or so back and she was telling me to end this relationship I had been in because she knew it wasn’t the kind of relationship I wanted or needed to be in. And she was right, I wasn’t the person I wanted to be in this relationship and I wasn’t with the kind of person that my whole life longed for. I was… let’s say settling. Anyways my response to her went something like this ” yeah I know this isn’t what I want in the long run but when my husband happens to come into my life, of course I’ll be with him instead.” Ok. Writing that out sounds even more dumb than it sounded in my head. Genuinely that was my mindset though! It truly is so twisted and selfish and deep down I knew it wasn’t the truth but I am thankful that I realized that sooner than later. Immediately after I said that, she told me basically that if I am wasting time with another guy then why would I expect my husband to just float into my life. Yeah in that moment I was like dang yeah I can’t argue with that. It was true and we all know that the truth stings sometimes. Then I started to think about if my husband did happen to show up in my life that I would not be prepared for him. I wasn’t even the person I wanted to be and on top of that I wasn’t even making any significant strides towards the person I wanted to be. Let’s be honest, I was sliding backwards. But still deep down my heart desired a husband that loves Jesus. A lover of Jesus is a man who loves others and himself just as Jesus commanded us to do. How was I going to desire someone who has a strong relationship with Jesus when I was putting my own relationship with Jesus on the back burner? How was I going to want something that I wasn’t portraying? I wasn’t being very loving, I caught myself being selfish, and weirdly irritated with little things(which was unusual for me), ultimately I was just being a hypocrite and I despised it. Two weeks or so go by and Christine and I are still having this ongoing conversation and I kept saying how I was “waiting for the right time to break up with this guy” ” I don’t know how to do it” ” I feel guilty” yeah yeah all this stuff and truly I was just scared myself. I was scared of the reality of my mistakes. When I got out of this relationship I would have to face the fact that I was willingly choosing my own will rather than the will of my heavenly father. That was the thing that tore me up the most. But seriously I had to take my pity party and flip it around because I had a destiny to get back to. I made the decision to not only accept my forgiveness but also forgive myself. I decided to go after the woman I desired to be. Overall, I chose joy!
Ok so let’s get to the end of the story! I break up with the guy, I was sad for a day or maybe a day and a half and then I realized who I was in Christ. Come to find out I was dating an atheist! He would tell me that he is strictly agnostic and he will never come to church with me(which I thought was weird for a person who claims to be agnostic and weird for a person who claimed to like me so much.) Turns out he didn’t know what the definition of agnostic was. For those who do not know what agnostic means – basically it is a skeptic who believes there is some kind of greater being but the person neither confirms or denies the existence of god. But the guy I broke up with was someone who believes there is no greater being than himself. A full blown believer dating an atheist… and I wondered where I went wrong. But hey! Dodged a bullet! and that is the totally finished ending of that story. I am so grateful to God for strengthening me to get out a that relationship and thankful for Christine for physically bringing me to his house to end it. God as always, followed through for me in a situation that I found dreadful to face. So let me share one more little quick thing and it is story that Chris told me just yesterday. (by the way for those who don’t know, Chris and Christine who I’ve been talking about are the two youth leaders.) Anyways the story was about this guy, giving an example of what it is like to be unequally yoked in a relationship. To paint a picture, the guy was standing on a stage and he asked his wife to come stand right below the stage. They held onto each other’s arms and he tried with all his might to pull her up on stage, and of course he couldn’t, it was too difficult. He then asked her to pull him down off the stage and in a single pull he falls off. The point of this story is that it is way easier for someone to pull you down in a relationship rather than you pulling them up. And seriously take me for an example. I am a firm believer and I thought for sure I would be the influence in a relationship with someone who wasn’t saved. But I was the one who ended up falling in result of this relationship. Of course now it’s been weeks and I truly am in such a great place in my life but it took a lot of forgiving and healing to get here.
I had to learn that walking with God and choosing His will isn’t just a one time decision but an everyday choice. I am taking time to work on me but more importantly growing my relationship with my creator. And that is the true ending to my story and a happy one at that.
If anyone! Even just one person wants a little bit of encouragement I want to tell you this. Persevere through whatever you’re going through, whether it is a giant or just a small little trouble. No problem is too big for God and no problem is too little for Him to care. If you are alive and reading this blog, you have a purpose in this world! A purpose that was so important that you were created to fulfill it in a way that no one else on earth can. It is never too late to go after your purpose no matter how messed up you think you are. Go after what you desire, work towards who you want to be, and lastly don’t forget that all things work together for the good of those who love God.
I love all of you guys who read my blog ❤ I am going to try to write stuff more often because I have like 6 drafts that I’m currently working on.
Isabel Loughlin 