Freaking Celebrate

Ahhhh, Valentine's Day. The day that many of us singles tend to dread from February 15th till February 13th the following year. If you're like me and have been single more times on Valentine's Day than you have been in a relationship, the day can be tedious. You log onto social media and can't scroll two pages without seeing an overabundance of roses, chocolates, or stuffed animals holding roses and chocolates. Grocery stores start preparing as soon as Christmas is over, and you can't even go to the store for a jug of milk without being bombarded by oversized balloons and frilly pink fluff. As a single woman on "Proclaim Your Love Day," it would be extremely easy for me to get down, to focus on all that I don't have and complain about those who do. Instead, I'm choosing these three things to focus on, and I hope they help you as well. It's time we stop channeling all of the negative emotions that this day can bring and instead celebrate with our peers who do have relationships and thank the ones we love for loving us back.

Stop focusing on what you don't have

Most of my Facebook friends are posting pictures of their gifts. I've seen everything from chocolates to engagement rings, from stuffed animals to live animals. Initial response for me is to roll my eyes and think, "You can't show her how you love her outside of February 14th?" I'm putting an end to that. Today, and all days after, I'm choosing to say, "Congratulations. I'm so happy for you!" Why does someone else's happiness have to be our pessimism? Don't talk about how much money someone spent on someone else, and instead choose to rejoice with those who are happy.

Stop calling it "Single's Awareness Day"

I don't know if it's me, but I absolutely hate when Valentine's Day is referred to this way. As if I need to point out the giant scarlet "S" on my shirt any more than it's already done. Stop using this holiday as a way to mourn your relationship status and instead choose to rejoice that you haven't settled for  less than what you deserve. In a way, calling it "Single's Awareness Day" is a way to downsize those who are celebrating with their significant other. I know three years ago (my last Valentine's as a non-single), I felt guilty for posting about my then-boyfriend doing special and lovely things for me because of all of the single women who were bashing Valentine's Day. I don't mean just posting meme's about Valentine's Day, but actively bashing the flower-giving and the chocolate-consuming people who were celebrating. Let's be more aware of what we're saying, encourage, and uplift each other, regardless of our relationship status.

Freaking Celebrate!

Okay, so maybe you don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend, wife/husband to celebrate with today. You do realize that you're not alone in this right? Stop focusing just for a second on the multitude of Valentine's Celebrators and look between the lines of Facebook and see all of the single friends that you have. Who says that you can't celebrate yourself? Whether it's going out with the girls, treating yourself to a massage, buying the largest pizza you can find and watching Netflix, celebrate you. Choose to love yourself on National Love Day, rather than choosing to be pessimistic about your single status. So you don't have a Valentine on Valentine's Day. Realize that some people don't have a mother on Mother's Day, or a father on Father's Day. Celebrate what you do have, and thank those who love you for loving you. I'm sure they'll appreciate it far more than you realize.

Tonight, I'm choosing to stay in my pajamas and watch the newest episode of The Walking Dead. And you know what? I'm really and truly okay with that.

Break My Heart

"This is something we've been praying for." 

"Who's been praying for this?"

"Everyone."

 

My mom told me these words, verbatim, about two weeks ago as I poured out sadness that didn't seem to ever have an end. My heart had been shattered about a month before, and no amount of time or well wishes seemed to be any sort of super glue to put the pieces back together. How could any sane person say that they'd wished for this? How could any mother honestly look her daughter in her tear-filled eyes and say, "We'd been praying for your heart to break"? Who would ever wish this upon anyone, even their worst enemy?

 

These were the questions that wracked my brain that night as I went to bed. My first response (which thankfully only occurred in my head and never reached my lips... Thank goodness for a filter!) was to blame my mom. "So this is your fault that I'm brokenhearted? You prayed for all of this to happen? How could you?" After a sleepless night and many internal battles, I got the nerves to question her.

 

What I expected was my mom's voice, which I heard first:  "We'd prayed for God to move in you."

What I didn't expect was the second voice that came next, still and small: "They wanted you to see Me."

 

I realized then, that my mom and our family friends hadn't been praying for my break up, for my heartache; they'd been praying that God would show Himself to me.

 

You see, last year I started to lose sight of who I was. I began to drift from everything I'd ever been taught about Christ and the Church, without realizing that I was moving down treacherous paths. They say that the path to Heaven is straight and narrow, but I'd found the larger path, the one that winded and took unexpected turns. I thought that this path was going to be beneficial to my Christian walk. "I can relate to people now. I can see why they believe what they believe. I can argue why it isn't beneficial to do XYZ." What I didn't expect as I wandered down the larger path, is that the more you allow yourself to wander, the larger the path gets. Your boundaries start to fade. Your faith becomes something that you used to be proud of, but now you're ashamed of.

 

So as I soaked in the still, small voice that told me that I'd been prayed for, that I'd been watched over and cared for, I began to see how His hand had been on me the whole time. While I'd done things I thought my "Super-Christian" self would never do, I was given a one-way ticket out. I'd been given the gift of heartbreak, rather than the burden, that brought me back to my Creator. Often times, we hear the prayer, "Not my will, but Your's be done," but do we ever actually realize the meaning behind that? Do we realize that whatever His will may be, might actually break us before it makes us? Fortunately that large path took a detour that had a toll booth, so I cashed in my heartbreak and realized that on the other side of the toll booth was the straight and narrow path I'd once traveled down. I never realized how much I needed the one-way road until I'd ventured off of it into the chaos of a road being walked on the way the streets are being driven in Port-au-Prince.

 

There's a line in "Hosanna" by Hillsong United that says, "Break my heart for what breaks Your's." I can't tell you how many times I've sung that line and never realized the intensity of the request. It's not saying, "God, I want You to do great things, but I want them like this..." It's saying, "Remove from me anything that isn't from You and give me a heart that wants only You." It's saying, "Remove all of the things that make me comfortable and put me where You want me."

 

My prayer for this year is to submerge myself in my Creator; to become so one with Him that people can't help but to say, "Her heart's been broken, but it's been broken for God." I want to be able to pray that prayer, to be able to give up my comfort zone, my plans for my life, my heart, and become so embedded in Him and that be enough.