Not my actual knight...my book arrived yesterday! I had some time to read today and quickly went through the first four chapters. Usually, I get so wrapped in reading that I hate to put a book down until I'm through. Except this isn't that kind of book. This is a take-a-chapter-a-week book that requires deep soul searching and lots of honesty. I sat down with a calendar yesterday as well. Six months from now it will be November. Seeing all those months in between the beginning and end makes it sees a lot longer than I expected. But I do want to be whole. I do want to be right with God. One step at a time...one day at a time...
Maybe you find yourself in a place where you are starting over. Maybe it's a relationship, a job change, or a move to a new town. I highly recommend Andy Stanley's Starting Over series as a good place to get on the right track. Even if you aren't a believer in the Christian faith, he gives some good advice that you might find useful. My "starting over" is due to a relationship that ended about two months ago. The first step of "Own It" was easy enough to do. A relationship is made of two people and no one is perfect. If everyone is contributing to the relationship, then they contribute something to its failure also.
Okay, easier said than done. But I truly wanted to move past the hurt and get to a healthier place, so I sat down with my notebook, drew the circle of blame, and listed my part of what went wrong. So now what?
One of my biggest struggles has been forgiving myself. In the past 6 years, I have gotten better about weeding out the guys that weren't quite right. I was praying about each relationship as it came up.
When Mr. X came along, he had a lot of good qualities. I really want him to be "the guy" and stop searching. But I was trying to force a square peg into a round hole and ignored red flags. Somewhere along the way, I lost my focus on God and limited His input. Thankfully, God saw something I didn't and closed the door on that relationship.
The second step to starting over is "Rethink It." When we find ourselves in a jam we ask, "How did this happen to me?" Andy Stanley gives 7 common assumptions that explain what we were thinking in some of those situations. As I said in my last post, it's like he was talking directly to my situation at times. The first assumption he mentioned hit it right on the head. I thought if I could just find the right person, then everything in my life would be better. In my moments of honesty the last few weeks, I realized I had been trying to get a man to fill a Jesus-shaped hole in my heart.
In this same sermon, Andy Stanley suggests taking a year off from dating. That's a long time! Especially when 40 seems to beating down my door. But this idea of taking time off from dating kept creeping back in. I wondered if anyone else had taken on this challenge. In my search I came across a blog from The District Diva, who took 6 months off from dating.
The idea of not dating for 6 months came from the book “Your Knight in Shining Armor: Discovering Your Lifelong Love.” Six months seems like a much more manageable amount of time, so I ordered the book to guide me along. Not only is this 6 months of not dating, but it's also about spending more time with God.
I officially decided to make this pledge on May 27. So here's to the next 6 months minus 2 days!
"A lot
of pain could be avoided if people learned to be honest with
themselves. If you aren't being honest with yourself, then you aren't
loving yourself. If you aren't loving yourself, then you can't really
give anyone else love. Be honest with yourself so you can give the best
of yourself to the relationships that truly matter."
This idea was rolling around in my head during the drive home from family vacation this past weekend. Almost two months out of another wrong relationship, I was contemplating life as I drove the long stretches of highway, my boys distracted in the backseat with a DVD.
How had I once again found myself in this place? Why was I starting over again?
Recently, I watched Andy Stanley's new series about Starting Over. So many times it was like he was speaking directly to my situation. So while I had a few minutes to myself, this idea of loving yourself came to mind.
Of course, I was thinking about how it applied to him...the most recent guy to exit my life. But there's nothing I can do to fix anyone but me.
So how does this apply to me? What am I doing to love myself?
