Romans 8:26-27

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

    I read this in my Bible today and it really hit home to me! I can't tell you the number of times I have tried to talk to God, but I was just so distraught that I couldn't even think of words... just pain. Or times when I've been wanting to ask something of God, but I don't even know what it was... hopefully you understand what I mean because I don't know how to explain it (thus the point). 

    Something that I always find intimidating is that when you read through the Old Testament, there are a TON of ceremonial things to do before coming into the presence of God that if they were not completed exactly how He commanded, you'd die. Coming before the Throne of Grace is no small thing!! With that in mind, how many times do you pray for really trivial things? I know that I have prayed for some incredibly dumb things that looking back at now, it's almost like I was asking God to be my Infinite Wizard instead of an all powerful God who is worthy of an enormous amount of respect. For real, the more you think about how powerful God is, the more terrifying it is to know that you've asked for something so stupid as $100. I don't know how to explain it. But then there are the times when you know that you are asking something perfectly reasonable of God. Like, what is His will for your life? Why is He doing what He is doing? Why did this bad thing happen? Don't be afraid to ask God those questions! He's big enough and powerful enough to handle those things. He's not going to be mad at you for being absolutely broken over something that's happened. As long as you don't sin in the process. 

    But while we no longer have to go through all the ceremonies before entering the presence of God, He is still just as worthy of our honor and respect. So that's where this verse comes in. The Holy Spirit intercedes. What that means is the Spirit hears our prayers, and then He takes them, gets to the base of what we are REALLY asking for, and takes it to God in a way that honors Him. In other words, when you're asking for that Dodge Viper SRT10, the Spirit is asking God to supply you with what you need... which at the time may be a 1995 Honda Civic EX with a big dent in the right bumper. 

    I just think that it's really amazing to know that God has given us a Helper who is able to see into our hearts and know exactly what we need to be praying for, and He takes it right to the feet of the Father. What I think is the most incredible is how the Spirit can hear the cries of our hearts and take the pain that we can't even put into words right to the Father. 

Friday Findings....

Okay, so basically I just felt like writing a list of things that have recently occurred to me. They're basically all super common sense things, but things that have actually made a difference in my life lately.

1) Compatibility does not necessarily translate into chemistry... and chemistry does not necessarily translate into compatibility...

I realized half of this lesson because my ex and I have ridiculous chemistry. I say "have" because our personalities haven't changed at all. We think each other are hilarious. It's just a fact. I know for a fact that if he and I were to start talking to each other again, we would probably just fall back into the old swing of things because the chemistry doesn't just go away. But were we good for each other? Hell no. We disagree on virtually everything and our life goals were completely opposite. We are ridiculously incompatible.

The other half of the lesson because I like this guy, he's awesome. He and I have the same interests, same sense of humor, same life goals, same views on things... but I don't know if it's because he doesn't want to, or just because there is some thing that is standing between us even being friends. I don't know. But we are suuuuuper compatible... but as far as I can tell, the chemistry just isn't there.

2) Our worst enemy is our own opinion of ourselves.

This is something that I realized just during this school year... and I've only been here for two weeks. As I said in a previous blog post, last school year was super horrible for me. I didn't know how to make friends and it was super awkward. I didn't think anyone wanted to be around me, and therefore I didn't act in such a way that seemed like I had any desire to be included. That's so dumb. I spent the entire second semester of school completely lonely because I didn't allow myself to have friends. The worst part of it was that I was telling myself that I was trying very hard to make friends. But I kept telling myself that they didn't want me around, and that's because I didn't think I was worth being around. So, my own opinion made it so I had the worst semester of my life.

3) Sometimes when you're trying to make friends, you'll be tempted to act the way that you think those potential friends want you to act. Don't do that. It's so dumb. You won't even be able to enjoy their company because you're not being yourself.

Obviously this is a lesson that everyone has taught everyone every day for ever. It's so cliche and totally common sense... but it's really important to take it to heart. There are at least a billion people who you would get along with wonderfully. Obviously you're never going to meet a whole billion people, but there are probably at least 10 anywhere within a 1 mile radius of yourself. So why would you spend all your time trying to impress people that won't like the real you when there are people who will so close by? Also, another thing is... often times we think that people won't like the real us, and in all actuality, if we were to just let them see that side of us, they would LOVE it.

That occurred to me yesterday when I was in a big group of people and I was holding my goofy side back. I never actually acted the way I would if I was 100% comfortable around these people, but the entire time I was hanging out with them, I just kept thinking, "you know, if I was comfortable around them, I would do _______ in this situation." All I kept thinking was, "well, why don't I do that now then? That's the way I WOULD act... so why aren't I now?"  I never did it though... as I said... 'cause that awesome guy that I mentioned ^^^ there... well he was there too... and I didn't want to make him not like me. Haha. But that's the point I'm making. If he doesn't like the me that I actually am, then obviously he's not the person I should be trying to impress anyway.

4) You just gotta let things go.

I spent around a year trying to move on from my ex. And I know that I mention him a lot, but honestly that's because the majority of the real life experiences and lessons that God has been teaching me have stemmed from that experience. So I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing about him, but I'm a dramatically different person with a dramatically different view of myself because of what happened with him. So. Yeah... anyway...

After about five months of dating him, I was trying to stop liking him because I knew that the relationship wasn't healthy and I knew that I shouldn't want to be with him. I kept telling myself that things would get better, that he would change, that he would treat me well, etc etc etc, if I just gave it more time. But I was miserable. I was crying myself to sleep all the time, I was throwing my phone because I was just so mad, I was yelling, I was treating everyone else horribly because I was in such a bad mood, it's just ridiculous the person that I became because I was so miserable. He did not make me strive to be a better person... he made me feel lucky if I made it through the day without killing someone. He made me feel so angry at everything. I didn't trust him. It was so dumb. We broke up three times... and I couldn't let it go. As I mentioned ^^^ up there, we have ridiculous chemistry, he was my best friend and no one has ever been able to make me laugh that hard, ever. I kept holding onto that. I kept letting myself think that there would never be anyone else that I could enjoy being around as much as him. That's soooo stinkin' dumb. So I dated him two more times after that because I just couldn't let myself let him go. I couldn't make myself let go of all that I had given to him, and I couldn't make myself let go of the future that we had planned. I couldn't let go of any of it... but now I finally can. I am finally able to look at myself and realize that I am worth loving, and I am worth better treatment than the way he treated me, and so many different things.

When you realize that you're worth more than what you're hanging on to, it becomes so much easier to let go of it. I am so glad.

5) To go along with number 4... Every now and then, you need to evaluate your friendships.

It seems a little ridiculous at first glance to say that sometimes you should sit down with yourself and evaluate the people you're allowing to have a large place in your life... but it's so important. You become like the five people you spend the most time with. Obviously that's not a hard and fast rule, but it's a pretty good estimate... So if you are best friends with someone who is selfish, unforgiving, manipulative, and too prideful to say they're sorry... what type of person do you think that will make you? Either you will become like that to other people, or you will become someone that they walk all over. Neither of those options are ideal. Obviously there are other types of bad friends, but that's my personal experience.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we deserve friends who are going to be uplifting and encouraging. Friends who are forgiving and don't hold grudges. Friends who are willing to admit when they've done wrong, and who are willing to apologize. Friends who think that the friendship is worth taking the time to sit down and sort out all the kinks that are destroying the friendship. Obviously not everyone who could possibly stumble across this blog is going to be a follower of Jesus, but I'm going to make the claim now that as human beings, we deserve those sorts of friends.

So since all humans deserve to have uplifting friends, all humans should really evaluate their friendships. Maybe the person you spend the most time with is not an encouraging friend who makes you want to be a better person. Maybe you have a good friend that does make you want to be better, but you just don't spend as much time with them... perhaps you should place more value on the friend who uplifts you and encourages you to be a better person. I have really been looking at my friendships lately, and I have been realizing that I have been placing value on a friendship that does not make me into a better person, and I need to stop that.

6) Christ-centered relationships are better relationships.

I have been finding lately, that the friendships that I have that spend the most time talking about God and the things that I have been learning through praying and reading my bible, are the best, most rewarding relationships that I have. I think that is how it will always be for Christians. I can be feeling extremely bogged down and just drained, but when I spend almost 4 hours talking about things God's been showing me, or even things that God has been showing the other person (because conversations are obviously more than one sided), I feel so rejuvenated and like I can take on the entire world. It's amazing! I am so blessed to have such amazing women that I get to spend most of my time with at school!!!

7) Being alone isn't bad.

Although things are a lot better now that I think more highly of myself and I'm back at school, that doesn't mean that every second of every day is spent with another person. For a few minutes today, I was starting to feel a little alone because there was no one around to be around or eat dinner with. Then I had to stop myself and be like, "okay, just because everyone already has plans does not mean that they don't like you, and besides, if you have dinner by yourself, you get to listen to whatever music you want, or you get to read your Bible and pray." And then I was okay with it!

I think that people need to learn how to be alone without being sad about it. If you're always around people, when are you spending time with God? When are you learning to depend solely on Him? When are you spending time with your thoughts and evaluating the changes that you need to make in your life? Obviously those things can be done in groups, but God can't work on you individually if you never give him your undivided attention. Yes, we are to be around other people, even when we are studying the Word, but we are also supposed to take time by ourselves to learn about God and to listen to Him.

So yeah, it's healthy to be by yourself every now and then! And it's healthy to realize that even if you want to be around people and they're all busy, that does not mean that they don't like you.... apparently I am not as good at liking myself and thinking positively about myself as I was hoping to be at this point. But that's okay! Life is all about progress. If you have an insecurity, it will be something that you struggle with every second of every day for the rest of your life. So the best you can do is catch the thought when it attacks you, face it, and refute it with the truth and God's word, then just let it go.

A Time of Healing.

    So last year after going through that really horrible break up (the second to last one... for those of you who can't keep my relationship stupidity straight), I was very lonely all the time while I was at school. I assumed that no one really wanted to be around me and I never felt included and I just felt like an enormous inconvenience...

    Lately I have been evaluating my insecurities and I have really been looking at them through the the lens of how God sees me. Obviously I am no where near perfect at seeing myself the way God sees me. I'm a human being, and I'm a female human being. For some reason I think that we just tend to be more insecure than guys (although I am completely aware that guys are very insecure in their own ways). My biggest insecurity is basically that I am insignificant and that no one really cares whether I exist or not...

   I have always felt pretty lonely, but it was particularly bad last year after the break up... But after looking though the lens of scripture and realizing that even if I don't matter to a certain group of people, I do matter to someone... and that's all that I really needed to know I guess. I guess when the break up happened, I felt like if someone who had dated me for basically a year and a half couldn't love me and didn't want to be around me, then I guess no one wants to. I didn't realize how much damage the ex-boyfriend did to my self-esteem until literally ten minutes ago. He manipulated my emotions and my security to the point that my entire self-worth was attached to whether he wanted me or not. That is so completely unhealthy.

    Now that the ex and I have been broken up for almost three months and have not spoken in just as long... I am back at school and I was just thinking about going to dinner... it seems so natural now for me to go to dinner with the same group of girls that I was panicking about whether they wanted me around or not... nothing about me has changed, nothing about them has changed, and nothing about our relationships have changed... so why does it seem so natural now when it didn't before?

    I think the answer is simply that there was no reason why I should have felt excluded in the first place last year. These girls did nothing to make me feel that way and they gave me every reason to feel like they wanted me around... but because of the damage that had been done I viewed myself as an inconvenience and as though no one would want me around.

   So yeah. Just food for thought. I don't know this is mostly just a journal to me because I figure no one really reads it. So sorry if someone is reading it and it made absolutely no sense to you. :)

Love

Recently, I've come to the conclusion that I have way too many insecurities.

What I have decided to do to combat these issues is to write down everything that I am insecure about, whether it is something I think is wrong with me physically, whether it is something wrong with my personality, or whether it is something that I am afraid of becoming.

After writing down that list, I chose to group my insecurities together by theme. What this did for me was allow me to see what it was that I am REALLY insecure about. I found three major themes.

Before going further into this, I just want to say right now, I am not writing this to "fish" for compliments or anything... basically I'm just sharing a way that God has used to help me feel encouraged instead of the way I normally feel. :)

With that said, my three major themes are:

I am unlovable
I am worthless
I am unattractive

I didn't realize just how much Satan was attacking me with lies... but now that I have realized it, I have chosen to use scripture, God's Word that is 100% true, to ward of Satan's attacks.

So today I chose to work on attacking the insecurity of being unlovable. These are the verses that I have so far. I'm pretty sure that I will end up writing more and more verses as I find them.

Fighting against Satan's lies is not a one time thing. He will continue trying to undermine God's Word for the rest of my life, so it is my job to be prepared for those attacks.

So here it is, straight from my journal:

Psalm 139 - O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar ... If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, and your right hand shall hold me.

Romans 5:8 - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever would believe in Him should not parish but would have everlasting life.

John 14:21 - Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me. And he who loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Romans 8:38, 39 - For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation. will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

and last but DEFINITELY not least, the super long passage:

John 15:9-17 - As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my life, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one that this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Moral of the story:

I am NOT unlovable. 

and neither are you. 

Rearranging Relationships.

The other day I read something that said, "I asked God to protect me from my enemies then I began to lose my friends." ...Or something along those lines.

It really got me thinking about that. How often are we just so concerned about not being alone that we just suffer through really crappy friendships or relationships of any variety...

I think as human beings, we are made to be in relationships. It's only natural. That's why people feel lonely from time to time. And since anyone reading this is also a person, I am clearly preaching to the choir because I can guarantee that you have felt alone at some point in your life, and I bet you weren't a fan of it.

So what do we do when the only relationships that we have available to us are with people who are not good for us. People who are manipulative, selfish, and prideful? Obviously no one wants to be like, "my only friend is a really bad friend... but if I give them up then I'll be completely alone." We're so terrified of being alone that we settle for being in an unfulfilling relationship, whether romantic or platonic. It's really weird and super sad.

I got into a fight with a good friend, that fight made me realize that the friend was not as good of a friend as I had originally thought. It was one of those fights that should never reach "fight" level because it's just such a ridiculous thing, then all of a sudden the person is making a huge deal out of it and is attacking you and you're just so caught off guard that it progresses past the point of no return and at the end of it all you can think is, "holy crap.... how did I end up here?!"

Normally I would just apologize to this person... but I thought over the fight and realized that this person never takes the blame when we argue or when things are bad in our friendship. Either they find a way to blame me for it and manipulate me into taking full responsibility, or they just ignore me and wait for me to come crawling back to them.

That's not healthy at all.

So I sort of made the decision to just trust God with it. Like that quote says, God will protect us from the people that will do more harm to us than good. So we have to trust Him with it. Even if we end up having absolutely no friends, having no friends and having an amazing relationship with God where you completely trust Him to fulfill every single need that you have is so much better than being in an anxiety ridden friendship/relationship where both people are not being fulfilled.

So yeah. That's just a weird, jumbled, sorta downer thought that I had. But at the same time it's kind of encouraging. Due to the (temporary?) end of this friendship, or best-friendship at least, I have reached out to a former best friend who I have drifted apart from who I've truly missed so terribly... and if I was relying on that unreliable friend to fulfill my friendship needs, I would not have fixed the friendship with the girl that I do honestly know is an exceptionally good friend.

So yeah, God's moving in my life and rearranging my relationships... it's good! I'm excited to see the outcome of all that He's doing!

Well, it has been quite some time since I've written a blog entry.

A lot has happened since then... and yet I'm pretty much in the exact same place.

You see, I dated that boy again. You know, the one that had all the issues and was such a terrible person to me? Yeah... I think that it probably shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but he was exactly the same as before, except worse. Although, he didn't break up with me by running away, he broke up with me by saying he didn't want to date me anymore and then hanging up on me on Skype. So I guess maybe tact has found him. Sarcasm.

Something that really got me recently was the thought of Peter when he denied Christ three different times.

Every time that I was dating this guy, there were so many times that God was slapping me across the face making it SO obvious to me that this man was not a godly man and I was just wasting my time, body, and heart on someone who was not who He had for me. God gave me so many opportunities to obey Him and I didn't. Three different times. Every time that this guy and I would be broken up, I would have some personal little epiphany and I would get back where I needed to be with God and then I'd do it all over again.

So to me I remind myself of Peter. I love God, and told Him that I did and that all I wanted to do was obey Him... but when it came down to it, I chose myself over obeying God.

Now that this man and I are broken up for the third and final time, I feel like I'm at the stage of my life where God is asking me, "Kaitlyn, do you love me?" and I say yes... to which He responds by commanding me to take care of His sheep and then asking me two more times if I truly love Him. As with Peter, it is heartbreaking to have the Creator of the Universe remind you of when you denied Him... but it is a relief to know that He still cares and wants me to be part of His plan.

So, we'll see what happens from this point on. I know that if that boy tries to talk to me I'm probably going to do some weird dramatic thing to make sure he never does again... but for now I really don't think that he will ever talk to me again. Which is good. I don't need that temptation in my life ever again. I'll mess up all on my own a million other ways, I don't need to make the same mistake for the fourth time.

The beginning and the end

So here's the story that changed every aspect of my life (sorry, I basically wrote a book).

Around the beginning of October of 2010, I met this boy that went to my school. Now, before officially meeting him, he had caught my eye. I remember very distinctly sitting at a table with a friend, this special boy walked by and my first thought about him was, "I can't decide what I think of him." I remember exactly what he was wearing the very first time I saw him... so clearly I knew what I thought of him, even if I wasn't conscious of it.

He was tall... normally I liked shorter guys. He had strange fashion, but I liked it. Normally my type is the, "Zac Efron" type... this guy wasn't that at all. But something about him stuck out to me... and I couldn't put my finger on it.

Anyway, homecoming came along and I was hanging out with a couple of my friends who just so happened to be friends with this boy. He was super funny, goofy, outgoing, and just ridiculously social. He had actually introduced himself to me earlier in the year (twice), but he didn't remember meeting me (twice). Well, after homecoming, the girls that I was hanging out with invited him to hang out with us as we went to McDonald's and to the playground behind it. That was when our friendship began. He immediately took an interest in my life. He was so easy to talk to. Normally I don't have an easy time talking to guys. Something about them always scares the crap out of me. But this guy was different. He was sweet, kind, caring... and I just knew that I could trust him.

So our friendship sort of grew from there. It was an extremely fast friendship. I know that I liked him before I was willing to admit it to myself, but I didn't want to admit it, because once you admit something like that, then you begin to act weird and mess everything up. So no, I didn't like him. That's what I had to tell myself at least.

Then Halloween came along and he got invited to go trick or treating with the group of people that I was going with. He was clearly more interested in talking to me than anyone else. But I refused to pay attention to that. I just decided that I would enjoy my time with everyone. Then as the evening progressed, this boy left and I stayed with the group of people, but they began to irritate me so I left before I got too mad at them.

So I signed onto facebook, decided to "like" the band "Of Mice & Men." then I received a new message on chat saying, "YOU LIKE OF MICE & MEN?!"and from that, a conversation that I had never had with anyone before ensued. This boy and I talked for several hours after that. I shared with him my deepest secret. A secret that I had never shared with anyone else. Ever. Not even my best friend. But I knew that I could trust him with it. I knew that I wanted to tell him. And I knew that I really, really, REALLY liked him. He was unlike any guy that I had ever talked to... and I liked that.

After that, he and I hung out quite a bit. We texted all the time. We shared things with each other that no one else knew about us. Throughout this process, he knew that I liked him and he hinted around that he liked me too, but he had just gotten out of a relationship at the beginning of the year and he wasn't sure whether his feelings were real or if they were rebound feelings. He told me that he wasn't ready for a relationship and that he wasn't mature enough for one. He told me that he had promised God that he would take a break from girls until at least his sophomore year. Now, this sort of devastated me because I liked him so much... But he seemed so godly and like honoring God in his relationships was what he longed to do most. Which I respected and I decided that, "You know what? As much as it sucks to have to be just friends with this guy when I want to be so much more, he's worth waiting for." So I just enjoyed the friendship.

Around Christmas break, we got into this weird fight thing because he confessed to me that he did like me but he didn't want to date me... and that he had known the whole time that I liked him. Which isn't a huge deal, but he treated me in certain ways that are really inappropriate if you don't like a girl but you know she likes you (meaning, he led me on hardcore. Cuddly and stuff). So I didn't really talk to him for the entire Christmas break of 2010. Finally he apologized and promised me that he wouldn't treat me that way anymore.

That didn't last. He was just as flirty as ever. Just as cuddly. But I still liked him so much that I didn't want to say anything about it. I just chose to accept that he didn't mean anything by it and move on. Well, one day I was in his room for open hours and we were watching a movie together... and he held my hand. Obviously that made me so happy and I was so excited because I was so crazy about this guy and he was already my best friend. That was around February 18th of 2011.

So, March 1st, 2011 came along and this boy and I were in the student center playing pool together, which we did all the time, and he scratched the ball in what seemed like a ridiculously intentional manner. So I told him so, and he was on the ground laughing. I was really confused why he was laughing so hard, until he got up, walked over to the pocket, and pulled out a note with my name on it. He had written me a note telling me all the things that he liked about me and asked me to be his girlfriend. It was so sweet and romantic. I still cherish the memory.

Well, that was the beginning of our relationship. I had never had a boyfriend before so I wasn't really sure how it all worked... but I was sort of getting the hang of it. But as I stated in an earlier blog, this boy had had a traumatic experience with his father that caused him to be afraid of telling the truth. So when we had gone home for spring break, he asked me if I was okay with him hanging out with his ex girlfriend. I wasn't really okay with it because I knew that they had gone way further physically than they should have, and because of that there were emotional connections that just couldn't be broken. He told me that he had already made the plans but he wanted to know if I was okay with them. I said that since he had already made the plans, that he should just hang out with her and then not do it again. He said, "No, I'll just cancel the plans, it's not a big deal! :)" So, I was happy! I thought that was a very mature and honorable thing to do, especially since I had not asked him to do so.

Well, once we got back from spring break, we were hanging out and he confessed to me that even though he told me he had cancelled plans, he really hadn't done so. That was the first time that he had lied to me since we were dating. And it wasn't the last.

There were many other stories that were about as similar in severity as that one. All of them get me so badly because if he had just been honest from the start, I would not have gotten mad at him. But as soon as he lied to me abou things, I just felt betrayed and hurt. I couldn't trust him at all.

There were two major lies that this boy told me. Here's the first of them:

This boy loved going to the club. He loved to dance and be goofy. I am reserved and not super big on the idea of clubbing. With that being said, he asked if it was okay with him if he went without me. I told him that I was absolutely not okay with him going to the club and dancing with other girls. To me, grinding on other girls and letting them grind on you was the same as cheating. If it looks like having sex, then it's cheating. Even if he didn't consider it to be cheating, he knew that I did. Meaning, if he did it it would be a direct betrayal of trust and the same as saying, "I don't care if it hurts you, I want to do what I want to do... I'll just hide it from you." But he said he was just going with a guy friend and they were going to just dance around and goof off together. So I said that I trusted him not to do anything stupid and he went. We'll pause that story right there for now.

Throughout the rest of the school year and the summer, I discovered that this boy had a lust problem. Pornography, bad movies, bad places, bad pictures, etc. He struggled with it. That was really hard to deal with. I was super insecure, which made it worse. I hadn't had the foundation of placing all of my value in Christ rather than this boy, so when he began to look towards other women for sexual gratification, it made me feel worthless and like I had no value. Rather than doing what I ought to have done, which would be seeking out God and placing my value in him and trusting him to work in the boy's heart, I decided that I should probably just make sure that he got the gratification from me. Obviously lust is a heart thing though. So it didn't matter how much I did to try and be enough for him, his heart was still in that dark place and he wasn't trying very hard to get out. My biggest regret is the fact that by trying and being the only gratification that he needed, I really ended up making the problem worse because he would get all hot and bothered by something that he had looked at, and then I would promptly reward those lustful thoughts. Knowing how negatively I affected his walk with God haunts me at night.

But anyway, he had this lust problem and he had this lying problem... the two of those things combined really caused me to feel very hurt, betrayed, neglected, and just altogether... I don't even know how to describe it. But I was disappearing. I wasn't the happy Kaitlyn that I used to be. Every second of every day was spent trying to be enough for this man that I loved so much and then finding out yet another way that he had betrayed my trust and hurt me.

Our relationship quickly became one fight after another. I didn't trust him which made him angry, and he wasn't trustworthy which made me angry. It was a vicious cycle. But throughout it all, we loved each other so much more than we could even put words to. It's really tragic all the way around. We were best friends before we dated, and we were still best friends while dating... but we had made enemies out of each other. Our relationship wasn't about two people growing in Christ, it was about two people who didn't want to be without each other, but who couldn't stand being with the other.

That all happened during the summer. Around two weeks before the 2011 school year began again, I found out yet one more way that he had lied to me, so I broke up with him. I had acted rashly and what I had thought was a lie really wasn't, but he had been lying to me so much and betraying my trust so often that I couldn't see that until the thought of being without him crashed down on me. He begged me to give him another chance, and promised me that he would be truthful and seek help for his lying and lust problem. So I told him that I would give him another chance. He felt as though he needed to make some confessions and most of the confessions I could deal with. All but one.

Press play on the story I began to tell up there ^^^^

Turns out, he had danced with a girl at the club. He had tried to tell me that she was just dancing in their area and was like, 5 feet away. But that lie quickly deteriorated into the truth. That's when I snapped. He had lied to me so many times, he had looked at inappropriate things so many times, he had been too flirty too many times, and he had blatantly checked out too many girls right in front of me too many times... and I had maintained (most of) my composure through it all... but finding out that he had blatantly done something that he knew I considered cheating (and I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the bible it says something about how if you're not sure if something is a sin and you do it anyway, it wasn't done out of faith and is therefore, a sin... so I feel like that same principle may apply. I considered it cheating, so it was cheating just for that reason). And I became the crazy psycho bitch of a girlfriend that so many people make fun of. Now, I know that there are those girls out there that literally have zero reason to behave that way... but having gone through what I've been through, I'm slightly more sympathetic to them. I became super controlling because I just wanted to know what he was doing and who he was doing it with at all times. I somehow managed to convince him that youtube was an awful thing and he gave it up... which led to more fights when I found out that he had used it. There were many other crazy things that I did or demanded that I'm so completely not proud of. And I know that his actions can only influence my behavior... but because I had not placed my value in Christ, his actions made me feel worthless, and I felt like I had to do all these psycho and controlling things to keep him honest and faithful to me. The problem is, all of the things that I did to try and keep him in love with me, really just pushed him away.

Eventually, he began to tell me really hurtful things. That he didn't take me seriously, he didn't like to be around me, he thought we talked too much, he didn't value my opinion, and that he didn't care what I thought, he needed his best friend's opinion on everything before he would make a decision with me. We would get in fights, and rather than dealing with it, he would just yell and tell me I was being stupid and hang up on me. One time he hung up on me in the middle of a fight and turned off his phone for a whole weekend and refused to respond to my e-mails. He became extremely emotionally abusive (but the signs were there even before we began dating... I was just so blinded by my feelings for him) and he was no longer treating me in the kind, sweet, gentle way that he had treated me before. It got to the point where if we were hanging out, he would have a bad attitude towards me, or we would do...bad things... together. I basically became a body to him. But it was the only time when I felt completely loved by him. He was convincing when he was seducing me. He would show me the man that I had fallen in love with. I think that's the reason I did that stuff so often... because I missed the way he looked at me when he was in love with me. And even if he was only giving me that look to get sexual gratification... to me it was worth it because I just wanted to feel like he loved me and ONLY me again.

Then things happened, he kept treating me horribly, he told me that resolving a fight with me wasn't worth his time and he refused to answer his phone, so I called and left a message telling him how that made me feel, he took it as me breaking up with him... which I wasn't... and he refused to get back together with me.

We were broken up for 3 months, during which he was an even worse ex boyfriend than he was a boyfriend. But during that three months, I was able to get myself where I needed to be with God. I placed my value in Christ instead of in this boy, and when I did that. I realized that everything that the boy was struggling with had nothing to do with me and everything to do with things in his past, and things in his heart that he had not surrendered over to God. And I forgave him. Completely. I had so much trouble forgiving him while we were dating. I just couldn't do it. I was angry and it was easier to be bitter at him than to let myself be vulnerable to this man who kept hurting me. But while we were broken up. I forgave him. I surrendered my bitterness to God and accepted the Lord's forgiveness for the things that I had done while dating this guy, and I was truly forgiven. I did some terrible things. Things that are completely not in my nature to do. And if God could forgive me for that, then who was I to hold these grudges? So I let it go.

Eventually the boy and I tried to be just friends and catch up and stuff, but that didn't work out so well and we began dating again. I had a new resolve to be completely different than I had been the first time around (which was pretty easy, seeing as who I had been the first time around wasn't even myself) and to just start completely over where I trusted the boy not to break my heart. I jumped in wholeheartedly and I didn't guard my heart at all. Big mistake. It is very very VERY difficult to backtrack once you've gone too far in a relationship. So when the boy and I got back together, I told God that the relationship was in His hands. I put the sexuality, the distrust, the unforgiveness, the insecurities, all of it. I put them all in God's hands and said, "Lord, I can't do this on my own and I need you in control of all of these things." And I promised Him that it would be different. But like I said, it's very hard to backtrack. So I reached into God's hands and I pulled out the sexuality. "Just for today" I told myself. But when I did that, it was as if God was like, "No. If you want that back, then you're getting the rest of it back too." So I was flooded with the insecurities. So, I made a stupid decision to look through his history. It was foolish and stupid and it was a lapse into the insecure Kaitlyn that I had been before. But it only lasted for about five seconds before I was so overwhelmed with guilt that I had to close his computer because I knew that he had a password on it, so even if I wanted to look again, I wouldn't be able to.

But while I was looking on it, there was something there for me to see. He had attempted to look at pornography. Now, to me... that moment was a huge sign of how far I had come. I mean, I had looked at his history, which was a sign that I still had a long way to go, but the fact that I could see that he had tried to look at porn, forgive him almost immediately, feel more terrible about invading his privacy that angry at what I saw, and still hang out with him that evening and act like everything was fine... and not only that, but everything WAS fine... proved to me that I really did love him and he really was worth it to me to work through his struggles alongside him. In a way of love. The way I should've done it from the very beginning.

But I told him. He asked me flat out if I had done it and I refused to lie. He broke up with my by literally running away from me and sending me a text saying that he didn't want to talk to me again. Then he promptly deleted and blocked me on facebook. He sent me an email telling me that he couldn't be with a girl who was so curious that she would break ethical boundaries to figure something out (mind you, before he even knew that I had looked through his history, he told me that he had tried to look at porn because curiosity had gotten the better of him... to me that is the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard of). and he told me that anything I sent to him would just be deleted. He refuses to give me closure, he refuses to talk to me. In fact, he said hi to me today for the first time in a month...

Just all of it is really messed up. We got into one fight and he told me that "we were well on our way" to becoming like we were before. He said that we fought just as often. Except before, we were fighting every time we hung out. And not just little tiffs... they were HUGE fights... this time around, we got in one fight because he broke a promise, and the second the day he ran away from me.

So, I don't know what to say or do about it. I love him dearly. While we were broken up the first time, I knew that I had done so many things wrong and I had given them over to God and I am a completely different person than I was before. He didn't give me the chance to show him that this time because he was just so primed to see the worst in me. He couldn't see how much I've changed or that I had truly forgiven him. I don't know. All of it just makes me sad because I love him more than I love myself. But I know that God is working some things out for me. He is either protecting me from what the boy really was, after all, his emotionally abusive tendencies had not subsided in the least during the three months apart, or maybe God is separating us for a time while He works on our hearts individually. Either way, I have to give it up to God and just live as though the boy and I are never going to be back together.

That's the thing with break ups. As much as they suck, they are preparing you for something even better. And there's no guarantee that the something better isn't going to be the same person just at different places in their lives. And there's no guarantee that the person you are in love with isn't going to grow up and be married three different times because they just can't have a successful relationship.

The point is, God is good and has your best interest at heart. He isn't going to make your life easy and problem free, but He's going to give you a life that only has the kind of problems that are perfect for your spiritual growth. You just have to follow God. He knows exactly what He wants for your life, so rather than trying to do it all on your own, you should just turn your life over to God because He's the only one who can make it turn out the way it's supposed to.

So while I allow God to mend my heart after it received the beating of it's life, all I can do is trust God and hope that in the end, His plan will be completely worth it in the end. Which it will be, so there's no way I can lose, here. :)

With all that said, if you're in need of some encouragement, click here. It's a really awesome blog that I stumbled across. :)