When someone tells you how happy they are to not have you in their life it’s not necessarily comforting, but it does give you a kick in the pants to move past whatever feelings you had for them.  I only know this because it’s happened to me.  Recently.  As in today.
There’s not much to be done about letting emotions get the best of you, at least not after the fact, and honestly I’d rather let them take their course than harness them.  When I harness certain things they come back at inopportune times.
My BFF told me once that when I go through break ups (at least, the important ones) it’s not like I need time to get over the person, I don’t deal with things like a normal person; I go into mourning.  I literally mourn the death of a relationship.  And she’s right, I absolutely do.  I can’t always let go when things are over because the person is still there, and the end of what we had feels like the death of a close friend.  I’ve experienced both.  I can see the similarities.
I’ve been doing a lot of processing lately.  Painful, good, hard, enlightening and relieving processing.  I’ve been remembering more and more that God is great, strong enough to save, and absolutely sovereign over what happens in this universe.  His blood has covered my sins and cleansed me, his law is written on my heart, his gospel is what I want to live to tell and his word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.
My dissatisfaction with my life is a signal to me that I need to figure out where God wants me to be right now and whether or not he wants me to be going anywhere else.  These days I get smacked in the face by realizations of my sin, of my selfishness, of my denial and my ignorance.  I do not want to be an opportunist of the grace that I have been given.  I want to live a life that is for the King, not for myself.  But that’s hard to hold to sometimes.  It means that I have to give up dreams.  It means I have to do things I am afraid of.  It means that I have to be willing to bend and sometimes to break.  It means I have to handle rejection.  It means I have to let others go.  But in all of the discomfort I find peace, and in the sorrow and pain I find healing.  His promises are for a time such as this.

I hear You say “My love is over,
it’s underneath, it’s inside, it’s in between
the times you doubt Me, when you can’t feel
the times that you’ve questioned ‘is this for real?’
the times you’ve broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate Me & the times that you bend
well My love is over, it’s underneath
it’s inside, it’s in between,
these times you’re healing
& when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you’ve fallen from grace
the times you’re hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry & are tempted to steal
in times of confusion & chaos & pain
I’m there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
I’m there through your heartache
I’m there in the storm
My love I will keep you by My power alone
I don’t care where you’ve fallen, where you have been
I’ll never forsake you
My love never ends, it never ends.   –  Tenth Avenue North, Times

I’ll update again soon I hope, to explain why I’ve been MIA, to tell anyone who will read about the musical I’ve been a part of, to tell the story of my toe infection, to explain my epiphany of storytelling, and more.

I hate the song about a “God-shaped hole” being in all of us.  It makes me think of everyone I see all lined up and having the same shaped puzzle pieces missing from different spots on their body.  I think it’s a generalization of problems that are specific to each individual, and that when we make things so generalized we keep from giving each person attention that they need.  And that’s how I know I’m still a work in progress and broken, because I still think the individual should be recognized as important mainly because I want to be recognized as individual and important.
I am a broken person.  I am so broken that I want to be seen as something special, as someone unique and irreplaceable.  I want to be acknowledged, given credit for things, noticed.  I want the questions that will be hard to answer and the love of people who are brave enough to ask and not shy away from my answers, maybe even love me for my answers.  I want to be seen as someone particular and lovely, by someone who will be able to pursue me and win my heart.  I’ve had this in someone, but he left.  And the reason I’ve gotten to this spot of needing to understand this ugly need of mine is that he’s coming back. 
He’s coming back, and he wants to see me.
Like the flick of a painter’s wrist can change a picture entirely, a small occurence can tear things down so quickly.  The coverings, the tarp, the scabs, the duct tape and straw and leaves that I’ve been trying to camouflage this hole with have all been torn away.  It was something aching in the background for a while, but now it’s been exposed as a fresh gaping wound.  And I’m afraid because I don’t think I can ignore it anymore.  Being so exposed, even if just to myself, might lead me to do something reckless, selfish, destructive.  It’s got the potential to effect my mood, my relationships, my behavior, my mental stability. 
There is no bigger paralyze for me than looking at the possibilities of my future and seeing myself alone, always alone.  One step removed from the friends that are moving into marriage, from the single friends who are coping in their own ways, from the well-intentioned comments from family and compliments from strangers.  None of it changes the fact that even with the opportunity to see Sampson I know that the possibility he should represent doesn’t exist as long as he is not a christian, and that rips the wound even wider.  It tears at my heart because it seems that the fact of the matter is I am only marriage material to non-christian men.  What does that say about me?  About my past, my character, my sin, my heart, my trying?  I’m so damaged, wounded and broken that no God-fearing man will want to marry me?  If I never settle I’ll be alone forever?
Honestly, being sick and having to take care of myself exacerbates these feelings.  While I am feeling like some sort of sea creatures got implanted into my brain and don’t want to be standing up for more than 5 minutes, and no one asks me how I am or trys to make me feel any better, I just want to cry all the time.  I don’t though.  I’ve been praying through most of it. 
Praying that God has a reason for these longings.  That there’s a reason that I have to go through this.  That whatever my failures and frustrations lead me to are just entirely good and perfect for me, no matter what they are, because they are His design and not my own.  That He’ll give me the patience to wait through this, because I know he just wants me to wait for it.  But I haven’t been able to wait for anything since I figured out how to use the microwave.  Not only can I have pizza anytime, because when pizza’s on a bagel you can eat pizza anytime, but you can have it in 2.5 minutes. 

“If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
   O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
  that you may be feared.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
   and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
   more than watchmen for the morning,
   more than watchmen for the morning.”  – Psalm 130:3-6

I’m so bad at it, and I can loath repetition, but I’ve been meditating and praying on basically this page of psalms, just trying to hold on to the air that keeps escaping me, trying to hold my chin firm without the quiver, trying to keep my head bowed and my hands raised, giving up the desires that I cannot navigate by myself.   Trying to keep my soul calm and quieted, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child ceased from fretting.