Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Been thinkin' a lot today.
So I think I owe an apology to Andrea. I'm sorry I sort of snapped at you with my comments, and now I think you're right. I am totally capable of diagnosing other people's problems from a mile a way, while constantly being blinded to my own. What I'm trying to say is, sometimes it hurts a little less to hear the truth from someone you're close to, than someone you don't know as well.
I had lunch last weekend with good ole' Jeremy D., J.Paul, Jer Bear, whatever you'd like to call him. This is an old picture of us...we don't really have that many pictures come to think of it? I can always tell how old pictures are by what was going on with my hair. Haha. I've known Jeremy since I was a baby, and ever since about high school, his friendship has been more valuable to me than I realized.
We had a long talk about what's going on in our lives. I talked about feeling lonely, wanting to move, change jobs, sell the house, questions about God, etc... And so here it is, when Andrea said, "Stop searching for a man and be happy with yourself", I bowed up because it hurt my feelings, kind of made me feel like she saw something wrong with me. I went into defense mode and thought, "Of course I'm happy with myself? Why wouldn't I be? I'M not the problem, its all the men in the world. THEY are the problem!"
And then at lunch last weekend, you know what Jer says to me? Something along the lines of, "It sounds like you're not happy with yourself. As long as I've known you, you've always been looking for the next newest thing, you've never just been happy with who you are. You're going to move some place, and be the same unhappy person, but without friends around." For some reason, it didn't really hurt when he said it, but rather just made sense. I guess that's because he knows me so well and had all sorts of examples to display.
It's true though. I plague myself with grass is greener syndrome. Sometimes this mentality has led me into some pretty cool adventures...but it's also left me with miles and miles of discontent. You can see the evidence in my life...I'm discontent so a new career will make me feel better, or maybe a house instead of an apartment, or maybe a different boyfriend, what if I traveled to this place, or moved to that place, THEN, then I could find contentment. But Jeremy is right. I'll spend my whole life chasing that dangling carrot if I don't fix the internal issue.
Then there is church. For the last month, my preacher has been telling me how I am NOT the point of the universe, and if I make the whole world about me I can never feel free. The world is not centered around me, God does as He pleases and we each get to play a role. So how do I reconcile these two truths? Because I feel like something is broken in me and I don't know how to fix it. And at the same time, I don't want to put so much focus on myself. Maybe the fact that I HAVE put so much focus on myself is the very reason I feel like some thing's wrong? I don't know what the practical steps are here. I was hoping there would be some sort of kit, or book, or pill I could buy. Those don't exist though. So for now, I'll pray they be revealed to me, so that I can fully understand His secret to being content in all things.
We had a long talk about what's going on in our lives. I talked about feeling lonely, wanting to move, change jobs, sell the house, questions about God, etc... And so here it is, when Andrea said, "Stop searching for a man and be happy with yourself", I bowed up because it hurt my feelings, kind of made me feel like she saw something wrong with me. I went into defense mode and thought, "Of course I'm happy with myself? Why wouldn't I be? I'M not the problem, its all the men in the world. THEY are the problem!"
And then at lunch last weekend, you know what Jer says to me? Something along the lines of, "It sounds like you're not happy with yourself. As long as I've known you, you've always been looking for the next newest thing, you've never just been happy with who you are. You're going to move some place, and be the same unhappy person, but without friends around." For some reason, it didn't really hurt when he said it, but rather just made sense. I guess that's because he knows me so well and had all sorts of examples to display.
It's true though. I plague myself with grass is greener syndrome. Sometimes this mentality has led me into some pretty cool adventures...but it's also left me with miles and miles of discontent. You can see the evidence in my life...I'm discontent so a new career will make me feel better, or maybe a house instead of an apartment, or maybe a different boyfriend, what if I traveled to this place, or moved to that place, THEN, then I could find contentment. But Jeremy is right. I'll spend my whole life chasing that dangling carrot if I don't fix the internal issue.
Then there is church. For the last month, my preacher has been telling me how I am NOT the point of the universe, and if I make the whole world about me I can never feel free. The world is not centered around me, God does as He pleases and we each get to play a role. So how do I reconcile these two truths? Because I feel like something is broken in me and I don't know how to fix it. And at the same time, I don't want to put so much focus on myself. Maybe the fact that I HAVE put so much focus on myself is the very reason I feel like some thing's wrong? I don't know what the practical steps are here. I was hoping there would be some sort of kit, or book, or pill I could buy. Those don't exist though. So for now, I'll pray they be revealed to me, so that I can fully understand His secret to being content in all things.
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