The Single Part

So being single is where I start because this is the hinge of this change in me....
I am nearly 40  and since I was little I always dreamed of the day I would find the man of my dreams and have kids.  I have never been the career driven girl. I thought I was doing all the right things to be good, please your family, get good grades.... check, check, check.

This drove my life.  I thought if I got the right combination then God would give me the good stuff.... my Cinderella story.  After all this is America right? I didn't need a fancy house or lots of money just a great guy and nice family and if God saw fit a picket fence maybe a dog and definitely a cat :)

For years, I kept up hope and just thought to myself "there must be something wrong with me".  So I diligently went about trying to fix myself somehow. I went to counselor  after counselor and tried through religion to "get it right"  I'm a get things done kind a girl. If I decide it needs to get done, I hunker down and go full throttle. :) Kind of like my mom's side of the family they come from sturdy Norwegian stock with a dash of German. You know those Farmer types.  Need I say more.... :) I think they coined the phrase "Day light's a burning"  Hence we are like tall, blue eyed, bulldozers with 2 speeds off and 90 mph :)

I laugh, but sometimes this way of thinking is very caustic. Don't get me wrong it is a good trait to have for lots of things in life, but used in the wrong context, it can be beyond toxic.  It was for me.   I was getting to the point I was vacillating between emotionally self flogging, to shaking my fist a God for holding out on me. I sat around an watched year after year friend after friend get married and then kids and I felt like the train is leaving and I'm not on it! Like a bad dream where you try to run or yell and you can't.  Somehow you are tied down or feet are full of lead or your mouth won't move.

Couple years ago my dearest best friend finally tied the knot. She was the last of my friends that was single and I felt like maybe she might be like me and we would hang tough together.  Not that I didn't want her to get married but we were both well into our 30's and figured chances were getting smaller, that maybe at least someone would be stuck in my corner with me. Then she found him..... the minute I met him, I knew he was the one for her.  And when they got married my anger with God reached a level only dog's could hear.
I put on a good face for my friend, but inside my pot of emotions just got flipped to high and I would soon boil over.

Only God knows how to take us to the breaking point without crushing us.  In my narrow vision I could only see how everyone else was getting what I so desperately wanted and honestly what I thought I deserved! I was fixing myself really hard! that should count for something Right?! God knows all about my hunkering death grips on things. He knows that sometimes the only way I'll stop and listen is to turn up the temperature till it is too painful to hold on anymore.

It was super painful and the scar still hurts sometimes, but it was soooooooooooo worth it to let go!  So one dark morning on in the parking lot at work in Dec. 2012, I let go..... I told God "I give up..... You say you love me just as I am, I don't have to fix myself, you will heal me.  I believe and give up!"  Then peace washed over me!

So if you are relating, I'm the chick on the other side of this lonely pile of trash or tunnel or whatever place you're at.  Let go! That death grip will bring just that.... Death.... to every good healthy thing in your heart and it will poison you for the rest of your life.  It will destroy everything you care about and Take You Down.  This is what the devil wants.  Don't let him win. Let Go! and find our Beautiful Savior and peace!