It has been a while since my last post. Life gets in the way sometimes and I honestly, didn’t have it in me to write. I have been depressed, been in another failure of a potential relationship, and have generally decided that I am unlovable, unwanted, and the likelihood of a woman loving me for who I am (and not what their baggage makes me) is exceptionally unlikely.
But that’s if I listen to them. Not just the women who tell me it’s me, not them, but to the devils in the corner that will always pounce on every little crack in my armor, every little doubt in my psyche.
If I listened to the women that end it by saying “you are this” or “you are that,” I would forever be chasing my tail. What one woman loathes, another adores, and vice versa. So I have to be in a place where I like who I am: I know I am a good, God loving man, and am comfortable on my course.
Now, that doesn’t mean I am inflexible or think there is no room for change or improvement, but behavior, perception, and character are three different things. I am content with my character, I know without a doubt their is room for change in behavior or perspective. It just takes the willingness of a woman to allow change and, more importantly, to not hold me accountable to the person I was before the change. If you hope for change in someone, you have to allow that person to be the new one grown by that change.
It is the other creatures, the ones that reside in our minds, reside in our failures, or insecurities, and self-perceptions we have to avoid listening to. I am hurt, I feel cold and distant, and I am struggling with the desire to commit social suicide and give up. I am so tired of trusting and feeling safe only to have my heart smashed, but more so, I am tired of the self-inflicted wounds that come with it.
It is easy, logically and emotionally, to believe that I will never be loved. I will never find someone that will keep their promise, cherish me enough to fight for me, and stay true to a commitment. No one has, so no one ever will. This is a logical fallacy, but emotionally it feels real – palpable. Then the little monsters pop and tell me I will never be good enough. I will never be more than my failures; I will never be more than my mistakes.
That all flies in the face of the atonement. We always will be more than that, but we have to chose to believe we are. Today, while hiking with my kids, my little girl disgustedly said that she was fat and that is why she couldn’t keep up. She is far from it, and I pounced on her. I explained that what comes out of her mouth her on mind hears. If she says it enough, she will believe it, thus making it true, and creating a version of her that is weak, self-doubting, and riddled with insecurities. It isn’t that she is fat, it is that she has little stamina, because she doesn’t hike or exercise like I do. This is true in everything: we make excuses that are easy rather than embrace the truth of our weakness. If we embrace it, it would have to require work to fix it, so we instead latch on to self-destructive idioms because it is easier.
I was rejected, abandoned, and tossed away like so much dross because of their baggage. Sure, they feel justified, but they had to justify their actions to chose their baggage over me, despite testimony otherwise. That was their choice. I cannot, however, allow their choice to be my condemnation or reality. I did nothing wrong: I loved, served, and was kind every moment of our relationship, and I fought for us. She didn’t, but that isn’t a reflection of me, as much as I want to internalize it, it is just the circumstances of someone else’s choice.
We are more than how others see us, but what’s greater, we are more than how we see ourselves. We are not perfect in this life, but we are perfect, embryonically, to our Father in Heaven. We focus on how we feel, how others perceive us and treat us. Heavenly Father sees us as the perfect beings we were when we left His presence and who we could be if we but choose to listen to the Spirit. His Spirit will never tell us we are not enough, we are unlovable, we are damaged. The Spirit will always tell us that we are loved, we are good, and we can effect change and overcome our sin and hardships.
If I listen to them, the voices of destruction and the voices of the damaged, I will never be more than who I am. I put my trust in God and try to see myself as He sees me – His son, doing his best, and worthy of love in this life and the one next. That is enough to give me hope. That is enough to be at peace with who I am and where my journey leads me. it is enough to let me sleep at night.
