Love is strange

Jenn Heckman, this post is for you. Happy birthday and thanks for laughing at me for borrowing Dateable and proceeding to take all the quizzes with me. Two more crushes until I find the one!

Okay, I caved. I'm writing a post on love and dating and its Valentines Day. But to be fair, I've been working on this post for awhile, at least in my head. Since I saw the movie Blue Valentine I began to once again, ponder just why relationships fail. Blue Valentine was an intense depiction of how amazing relationships are at the beginning, and how sometimes, before you know it it completely falls apart with just a pull of one thread.

Why? Why? Why? I have many questions around this, because really I find it pretty heartbreaking when I hear about the break-up of almost any couple.

As a junior high leader at my church's youth group, I am able to borrow many books that are supposed to help us be better leaders to our children. A couple of weeks ago I picked up the book Dateable by Justin Lookadoo & Hayley DiMarco thinking that it would help me deal with my perma boy crazed thirteen year olds. Strangely, I found it helping me more than anything else. No, it did not give me all the answers but I think I have some pretty great insights as to how relationships can come crashing way, way down. So, of course, I must share.

I have to preface this with saying that the book relies strongly on conventional gender roles. While I am not entirely convinced we were designed to follow conventional gender roles I do believe that we are largely socialized to adhere them and therefore I think it is fair to use them for this purpose. Of course there are always exceptions but for the most part it works. Two of the chapters that really stuck out to me are called:

"If I will do it for you, I will do it to you"
"Guys Will Lie to You to Get What They Want"

Instead of me trying to paraphrase or make a point thats already been greatly made, I'm just going to borrow and cite properly.

If I will do it for you, I will do it to you...
 This chapter goes through a few examples of this and here's one,
"A Liar's a Liar,
Politicians argue against this point all the time. You have some guy who cheated on his wife, abused his power to make it happen, and lied to cover it up, and his supporters claimed, 'This does not impact his decisions as President. His personal life is separate from his professional life.' No, it's not! This is a character issue. If someone will lie to cover up a sex scandal, he will lie any time the truth could make him look bad. He's a liar. He isn't a liar in just this situation; he's a liar period.
People who lie are liars" (Lookadoo & Dimarco 58)

Deception is one of the fastest ways to ruin a relationship. Trust me. But this chapter illustrates a great point, "Good character and bad character can't be buds". (Lookadoo & DiMarco 68). Sometimes its really hard to look at the person we are dating honestly, especially when he or she is not being honest with us. This is when you must be aware of his or her actions to everyone and everything outside of you. Does he or she lie to other people? Then he or she will likely lie to you. Did he or she cheat on someone for you? Then he or she will likely cheat on you. These things are character issue, and if you've got good character and he or she doesn't, run far, far away. Fast. 

This brings me to the next chapter, 
Girls will lie to themselves to get what they want.
Some specific lies?

"The 'I'm Better Than Her' Lie,
Every girl knows that she is so much better than his last girlfriend. It doesn't matter what the word is about the guy. It doesn't matter what he did or why they broke up. Girls know that the real reason he broke up with those other girls is that they didn't know how to treat him. You know that the reason he has never settled down or stuck with a girl is that they didn't know how to make him happy. But you do! You know exactly what he needs... Those girls were witches, and now they are just jealous. They wern't good enough. 
Sorry, but no... Girls listen to the exes. If they all say he was a jerk, they're not saying it because they're jealous. They're saying it because he's a jerk. He's going to treat you the same way he treated the others. The issue is not your value but his character. You are valuable. You are important. But you are not more valuable and more important than the last girl. That's the same lie she told herself when she got into a relationship with him. Protect yourself.

The 'I'll Fix Him' Lie

Another way girls will lie to themselves is by telling themselves that they can change him. (The older you get the more this makes sense.) 'He has never changed because he has never had someone to change for. But he will want to change because of how much I love him. I will be able to make him better. He will become Prince Charming and I will be his princess.' Ah yes, the battle cry of the delusional." (Lookadoo & DiMarco 93-94)

Enough Said.

Now, I know this two things that will ruin a relationship.
Expectations & delusions. 

A word of advice for the ladies this valentines day... Let go of expectations. Guy's could care less about this day. Out of the 20 people on my facebook list that had a HAPPY VDAY status, guess how many of them are female?

100%.

Just because he doesn't care about valentines day, doesn't mean he doesn't care about you. Let it go, don't make him care and enjoy having someone to love today and everyday.

Oh. also,

All you need is love. and I hope this happens at my wedding one day.

On my knees, and out of luck, I look up.

About a week ago I was challenged by the devotional book I’m working through (Solo: An Uncommon Devotional) to share my faith journey with someone. So I thought about it and prayed about and tried to just imagine what my faith journey may look like. The first thought that came to mind is the simple fact that I am not the most articulate person when it comes to speaking. However, when I start to write, my thoughts seem to flow through my hands into complete and understandable points and ideas. Moreover, as I prayed for the opportunity to share I realized I had one right in front of me. Not only do I have my very own blog but I also contribute to this .

As I tried to envision what a faith journey was I realized I was getting too caught up on trying to define something that was totally up to me to create. I did know that there had to be an event or an incident that could have gone either way for me. What I mean by this is that I think we all have times in our life where we make a choice. We come to the end of our rope and we either let go, or we turn to God and climb our way back up. As I listened to a favourite song, After The Storm by Mumford and Sons a lyric struck me.

“On my knees, and out of luck, I look up...”

That’s when I realized I had made a choice and I knew exactly when my faith journey began. I would say that I officially became a Christian and accepted Jesus as my saviour in the summer of 2003. However, this is not when my faith journey began. In fact, it did not really begin for me until this past summer, the summer of 2010. Yes, I have attended church in both a sporadic and committed fashion since 2003 and yes I had even branched out and began to serve in areas of my church. I was also baptised in January 2005 and I meant every word I said as I stood up in front of my church community and declared that I, Ashley McAuley was committed to following Jesus. As I look back, I know my heart was pure in all these things but I see them as external markers of a shift I wasn’t fully making internally. I knew what it took to be a true Christ follower but I wasn’t really ready to relinquish all my control. I could have very easily walked away a sad young lady until it hit me.

I have heard that when God is trying to reach you on something He will begin with whispers. Whispers to gentle nudges.  Gentle nudges to speaking softly but poking. Speaking softly and poking to calmly shaking.  Calmly shaking to speaking firmly. Speaking firmly to aggressively shaking and yelling in my ear. God had been whispering to me for a long time and unfortunately because I am incredibly strong willed and stubborn I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t let go. I had to be in control and I couldn’t admit that I was wrong. Until God yelled in my ear and very dramatically showed me that I needed Him.

I needed him.

I needed him and I had to give up control of my life to let Him in and fill me the way I was longing to be fulfilled. This past summer I hit a bottom that I had been dreading for a long time. I found myself with a shattered heart and everywhere I looked I was coming face to face with broken dreams. I had planned and decided so many things for myself and not one thing was going as I had hoped. I realized that the only way I was going to get better and even attempt to rid myself of the brokenness in my life was to turn to God.

So I did. I asked God to take control and I began the delicate process of trust. To put it plainly, I have some issues with trust. I haven’t been able to fully trust some of the people that I have been closest to in the past, and these are living breathing humans who I can see and touch. It was hard for me to trust a God I can’t see or touch or sit face to face and have involved conversations with. However, I’ve come to realize that I’ve had it backwards. Humans will be hard to trust at times because we are broken and we hurt each other both willingly and unwillingly.  But God, he’ll never fail. This is what I can put my trust in. This is what I can put my hope in.

I think the shift happened when I realized to be a fully committed Christ-follower I had to really believe that if I was stripped away of everything today I would be okay because God’s love is all I need. It’s the only thing I need. I know this verse it somewhat cliché and overused in conjunction with romantic love but for me, it’s the epitome of my faith journey. A faith journey should start with the knowledge that this is the way God loves us, in turn, this is how we are called to love.

“So no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares ore for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut. Doesn’t have a swelled head. Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always ‘me first’ Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. (The Message)

A faith journey begins with a decision but it doesn’t end there. I have to remind myself of my decision daily and remember that I am filled because of God’s love and grace and now I have more love to give.

Peace ya’ll, thanks for reading, and have a listen...

"There will come a time you'll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart but dismiss your fears. Get over your hill and see, what you find there. With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair."

ish