empowered

That's the new me; empowered. I'm not lonely just because I'm alone anymore. I'm on fire! I never forgot my first love, but I have definitely stepped out of a place that kept us distant. In the past ten months I have been alone, romantically speaking, and It has been the hardest thing I have ever had to persevere through. However, I am encouraged now to keep going. I thought that the physical and emotional pain I was feeling was something I was forced to endure. Although I still believe this time will continue to be a time of endurance, I am no longer going to suffer in those lonely moments in such an immense way. It all changed when I realized that I was equating loneliness with abandonment, rejection, and more-so worthlessness. Being alone was being rejected and worthless, they were one in the same to me.

I thought that everyone felt that way when without a partner. I had no idea that I was believing a lie. This is just what being alone feels like, I thought. No, no it's not. I had met women who were so independent yet single and admired them; however, I assumed that they all just passed the solitude with meaningless flings to hold them over. Of course that is not an option for me, so I figured I was doomed to be depressed every evening until God knows when. Without realizing yet that I was believing a lie, I came to a cross roads. I could chose to persevere through this pain or find some way to camouflage the loneliness with some temporary kind of affection, anything to keep me alive. I am convinced that if I chose the latter, I would not have had the opportunity to come to the awareness that I did. And thank God he gave me these girls to make it impossible for me to chose the easy way out.

I made it known to those that love me that I was hurting, hurting really bad, and that I felt like I couldn't go on any longer like this. Once I got vulnerable with these issues, the truth was found. I tried to pull the thread and realized that loneliness has meant worthlessness for a long time! It goes all the way back to high school for me. And probably started to creep up in middle school when my friends first started to get boyfriends and talk about how many times they've kissed a guy. In high school especially when I was the one doing my friend's hair for the dances instead of going with anyone. I compared myself to my friends and I continued that insecure pattern until it became dormant when I got married. And then now, I was comparing myself to other mom's who's husbands didn't leave them. It's an ugly thing that Satan does when he rubs it in your face like that, but he can't do it if you don't let him. He has to convince you first that you are less than them because of what you don't have. Once you start believing that, you forget that your worth is so much greater than simply loved by a man or men or people for that matter. Then you forget that you are loved by God.

I feel so empowered. I am alone, but I am loved and there is no one to distract me of that right now, and that is okay. In fact, it's great. Well maybe not great all the time, haha, but It is not death!