And the walls came tumbling down...

Have you ever fallen for someone that you honestly knew was rather unrealistic? When I was younger I fell for this incredibly handsome young man known as Devon Sawa. You may recall his appearance in the movie “Little Giants” or possibly as Casper’s human version in the last few minutes of the movie. I’m not sure what I liked about him more, the ability he had to be attractive and the friendliest ghost you could know, or possibly that he was so unrealistic I’d never have to be caught off guard at the possibility of it working out.

As much of a joke as it was back then, this mentality followed me through up until my sophomore year of college. It was as though I would deliberately choose to like people who were entirely unavailable as some form of defense mechanism. Take Aaron Conlin for instance. Aaron was someone who I though was one of the most attractive boys that I had met in my entire life. When I first met him however, he had a girlfriend. I was a bit taken aback because I personally don’t really get to know guys who have girlfriends, but I thought I would still be friendly (appropriately of course) and just assume that it would never happen. Well…it didn’t happen.

The thing was that a year or so later Aaron called me up to let me know that him and his girlfriend had ended. He was so sure that I would be willing to run to him now that he was available, but it was during that year that I really let go of any chance of possibly being with him, so when the time came I had already emotionally moved on. The problem was that I didn’t move on until about midway through liking him. I kept my distance and didn’t really get to know him once I realized I had feelings for him, but I still always liked to believe that if he had been single we would have had a quality go at a relationship.

He moved away shortly after revealing that he was interested in me and I haven’t really talked to him since. In fact, it wasn’t until recalling that story that I realized how much thought time I had invested in him during those months of liking him. See, rather than make myself available to those that are actually available I tend to go for the ones that I have about a 90% guarantee will never work out. That way, when it doesn’t end up happening in the long run I don’t get hurt.

You would think this line of thinking was rather crazy, and honestly it has served me a good five years of missing out on incredible opportunity around me, but remaining entirely protected. Last night I revealed to you how much rejection I’ve had in my life. I should also let you in to the fact that I have rejected a few offers here and there on account of my fear of something actually working out. How can a girl who is so relational struggle when something actually goes her way? I think it is because I don’t anticipate having feelings reciprocated, so when it happens I always question the motivation behind it.

Now here is where it gets a little sketchy. Many women, friends, and coworkers claim that I am afraid of relationships because I am insecure. I would like to tell you that it stems directly from that and once I gain a good hold on my confidence, all will be well. The problem is that it is so much more than that. I do struggle with insecurities, as do we all, but it isn’t within them that lies the root of why I protect myself. It comes from a lengthy past of being manipulated to partake in things that I never wanted to. It comes from being taken advantage of by certain men in my life and having to get over the fact that I am worth far more than what my body is capable of doing. This is why it is so hard to trust the motivation behind being pursued, and why I am so good at protecting myself from having to deal with it.

As much as it works, it almost works a bit too well. At the beginning of my spring semester a friend of mine told me that I was intimidating. I asked why and he suggested that I take a look at how independent I am. I never really thought of myself as independent. I mean I would like to think that my relationships are give and take, and that I rely on individuals to support me in my pursuing of what God has called me to do. After a few hours of taking a deep look at myself however, I realized that maybe he was a bit more right than I wanted him to be.

In making a list of boundaries, and setting out to help women become self aware and learn how to appropriately pursue relationships that don’t hinder them in their relationship with the Lord as well as relationships with other people, I have to admit that there is an overprotectiveness that can work against you if you take my advice too far. There definitely is a point in which you need to use my writings in guarding yourself, but I would never suggest to be so protected that you miss out on what God has for you.

This became true in my life this last year. I have been so focused on knowing in my life that I have not met the man who I want to entrust my heart to. I was so sure that God did not introduce me to him yet that I put up a wall in regards to shielding myself from seeing any possible chance of love around me. I have my goals in place for my life. I know what God wants me to do and I am chasing after it with my whole heart. I used to believe that if that were all true, God would bless me in His timing if He wanted me to be married.

Then the inevitable happened. I was approached with an opportunity that I didn’t know how to respond to. I needed time. I needed time to process all that was happening and figure out what it was that I even wanted out of a relationship with someone at this point in my life. Well, once again….nothing happened. Only this time it wasn’t so much that I was closed off to anything happening, I just didn’t know how to phrase it in a way that made it fair to the other person. So much of this came from the boundaries I had placed in my life.

The thing is that I don’t regret that it didn’t work out but I do regret that in the process I lost one of my good friends. As I grow older I’m starting to learn that it is so good to have a strong focus on what I want, that I need to be focused on what I want in order to get there but please, understand me when I say that being focused doesn’t mean that you can discount your desire to be with someone. It isn’t even so much that I want to be with someone specifically, but I used to think that I had to be okay with being alone for the rest of my life because I thought that meant I was somehow strong enough to be. While I don’t think it is okay to tell someone that the man of their dreams is out there when I don’t know if he actually is, I still don’t think you should ever hide the desire you have for relationship, especially from God.

There is this push for women in our society, especially young ladies, to remain pure and naïve and wholesome. In the church we don’t talk about sex drives or desire or passion or lust when it comes to women. How many of you have heard a Pastor say, “Now men….we all know that you struggle visually….” While it may be true that men do struggle I get tired of feeling like we aren’t supposed to have the same tendency. Maybe one sex struggles more than the other in different areas, but I’m so sick of women being told that they are purely emotional beings. If that were true, then when I watch my romantic comedies I wouldn’t want to go make out with the boy next door right after. I would be focused on wanting to be wooed first, but the truth is I’m not.

All of this hushing and quieting of desire is even more of a push to protect you from any inkling of an attraction for someone else. It breaks my heart when women don’t know how to respond to someone being interested in them so they end up shutting down completely. Strength isn’t characterized by having no desire. Strength is characterized by entrusting your desire to God.

In the same way, I can’t expect to be open to a relationship in my life if I’m not willing to let down my walls but keep my boundaries. Boundaries are in place to allow for relationship. Walls are something for you to hide behind. Boundaries are something for you to live by. It is as though I live in a kingdom. I can’t let someone in if they can’t even get in past the gate. I still have protection once they pursue me, but I have to at least be able to see them for pursuing to occur. The walls have to go. Not only are they entirely unnecessary they are hurting me from the chance of being open altogether.

Please, if there is anything for you to take away from my advice. It is that you don’t live by extremes of what I have to offer. I am merely suggesting that you start to look at what trace you are relationally leaving behind, not so much what rules or regulations are necessary for someone to be interested in you. Be open but smart. Don’t be willing to give everything to someone at first glance, but pace yourself in getting to know him or her. That is what the boundaries are even there for.

Thank you so much for reading.

I am a reject.

Five pounds heavier, Cadbury chocolate drool down my cheek, and The Holiday playing off in the distance and I’m still me. Satan plays brutal tricks on me sometimes that I feel as though I can’t handle. Have you ever met those girls that seem to entrance any man that they so desire? It is this incredible ability that I have never fully come to understand. Then these men, bless their hearts, seem to fall deep in love with these women only to find themselves a few weeks in and completely devastated over the heartache that the woman they thought was for them is now gone. Guess the game doesn’t work so well if the participants aren’t fully aware of it.

Tonight I received some news. Rejection. Rejection, rejection, rejection. There is no amount of Ben & Jerry’s that seems to medicate or remedy the emotional and mental trauma that come along with it. I’m not good enough. My stomach is too fat. I have a beauty mark under my left eye that is gross. I have to tweeze my eyebrows or I look like a member of Jacob’s wolf pack. I understand. I get that I may not be exactly what you are looking for. Tonight I discovered that a man who I had found highly attractive my freshmen year fell instantly for the woman that I used to wish to be.

That is the thing about envy. Although it may be all consuming, it seems to come in waves and currently I am or was sitting pretty in regards to my opinion of myself. I don’t think I’m hot. I think I am a true beauty with a solid heart and a willingness to get to know anyone. I have to pull at my jeans to camouflage an extra roll or two of holiday weight gain. My eyeliner never really seems to stay put. My arms wave hello just as much as my hands do. I shuffle when I walk. My hair looks like I just woke up at any point in the day and when I truly smile, my top lip becomes nonexistent. I am imperfect. I am not the woman who I so envied. I don’t have the ability to entrance any man of my choosing, and I’m not someone who the men find ridiculously attractive.

Isn’t it easy to pick ourselves apart? Give me a mirror and I’ll give you fifty reasons why a man would pass by me and not even take a second look. Today I was chatting with a friend over the power of outwardly appearance and the ridiculous stress our society puts on finding someone everyone else considers attractive. There is the key. You see to some of you my imperfections may appear rather unavoidable. You may look at me and suggest I buy a bigger t-shirt, or try wearing a different shade of foundation, or even buy a cheap box of hair dye to fix my roots or enhance my skin tone. The truth is that I care. I wish I could sit here and like so many incredible women say that I don’t but I do.

You know I used to think that my confidence level in God was marked by how much I did or didn’t care about other’s opinions? It is quite the ideal to think that the moment we reach ultimate confidence in Him all insecurities fade away. While it may be true in a moment, it is not necessarily a daily thing for me. I don’t wake up each morning and feel beautiful. I don’t feel not beautiful. I just don’t necessarily have an opinion of myself for the day just yet. I go to the mirror, pray a prayer of thanksgiving for having the body to be capable of getting out of bed this morning and then go to put on my makeup and fix my hair. It is at this time I am challenged. I am challenged to look at myself in the image of God. I often fail at this point.

When my eyes meet my eyes in the mirror I see something beautiful. I don’t think I am the most beautiful woman in the world, nor do I start dry heaving with disgust at what God has given me. It is not really an extreme of some sort but rather a time of choosing. I get to choose how I will approach the next twenty to thirty minutes of prepping and primping myself to what I would deem as average.

This weekend I spent the entire time feeling so encouraged by my girlfriends. I genuinely started to believe that I was beautiful, and didn’t even have to second guess it for the last three days. Then I come home and find out that the minute the woman who I so badly envied for the last few years worked her charm, the boy I liked for three months who I still can’t seem for the life of me to even have a genuine conversation with fell in love. It was heart breaking, but why?

It was heart breaking because I was unwanted. I think this is where I get so confused. I was unwanted which in turn would mean that I was rejected but it doesn’t necessarily make me rush to the gym to lose fifteen pounds to gain the attention of the man who rejected me. I don’t really want his attention I just want the affirmation that I’m not unwanted by someone else. There is this bittersweet understanding of mind that I came to about six years ago. “When one boy rejects you, you are just one step closer to the one who won’t.” I don’t know who in the heck told me that line, but it is so against my views on where my confidence should be stemming from.

I’m not going to sit here and wait for the man of my dreams to come along and affirm me. I don’t want to place my confidence in him because he will ultimately fail me. This constant believing that we are to just wait for someone to give us that affirmation needs to stop. I want to find my confidence in God alone. This also comes with the responsibility of remaining humble in knowing my confidence is from Him alone as well.

I’ve been rejected multiple times in my life. I will probably be rejected several more but that is the thing with rejection. Sometimes it is necessary in being exactly where we need to be at the point we are at. Praise God I was rejected by the boy from freshmen year. I am thankful that we did not date because if we did I can honestly say I wouldn’t be who I am now, nor writing down all the things I have to offer. I want to be attractive for one man and one man alone. This year has held within it some pretty brutal rejections. I don’t want to have to prove to someone that I am worth their risk, or time, or effort.

In the same respect, I don’t want to convince myself that someone is worth my risk, or time, or effort. I think sometimes we don’t see the flipside that rejection also has within it the fact that it hurts much less when we cut it off the sooner we know. I do believe that there has to be some sort of closure granted to those that we don’t feel right with. I don’t know if “right” is even the appropriate word but I’m suggesting that give others the same respect you would like. I want to be told when I’m not what someone wants because it gives me the release of not pouring myself into that relationship.

I’m not trying to be brutal here I am just saying that from all my experience in being rejected, I wish some of the men that had done it would have just been a little quicker in doing so. Yes, sometimes we genuinely don’t know until later on that this person is not necessarily the one we want to be with, but don’t prolong the hurt out of fear that maybe it will get better or maybe you will eventually start to like them in that way. Just say it. Be honest, be open, and be true to what you have to say.

The last piece of advice before I go to bed is that you don’t see this as me saying I’m too fat, too ugly, too whatever it may be. I’m saying that I don’t live in the way that it is that extreme. I don’t think I’m too anything but I also don’t have my confidence placed in the Lord. That is almost scarier because I think it causes my insecurities to go unnoticed until rejection strikes and suddenly I feel more worthless than a car with no engine. This is all such mumbo jumbo but I told you it’d be raw, and tonight this is what I’m dealing with.

Apologies and Bridesmaids

First and foremost I have to apologize for my lack of posting. Finals, midterms, whatever you'd like to call them they have been completely distracting me from getting my book done...how rude! It is as though I'm a college student or something.

Seriously though, it has been far too long and so I thought I'd start us out with something a little different. I wanted to let you know that I have been prayerfully considering all aspects of a single life, especially being a single woman. It isn't that men aren't important by any means, it is just that I have the pleasure of knowing far more about being a woman than a man! So, just in case some of you were wondering, although my writing can be easily applicable to several walks of life, ages, and so on, it is definitely more focused on the woman's side of how to live. I would appreciate that you men read what I am saying and give me feedback on what you can take away as well, as I do believe there are some solid principles underlying the majority of my work.

Today I want to chat with you about bridesmaids. For some of you, you are already married and thus are a bit over the whole ordeal of who to choose, who to let go, and who you want to stand next to you as you marry the love of your life. For me, I was given the opportunity to come to a brutal realization a few months ago that I was not chosen to be next to one of my closest friends. This realization hurt, it was more painful I believe because it really put our relationship into perspective. For the last several years it always seemed as though our relationship was rather unbalanced. I would call her for insight, utilize her prayer warrior abilities when coming into new situations, and call upon her when I was unsure of what to do.

The problem was is my phone remained silent. I did not receive phone calls, nor text messages or lengthy e-mails requesting prayer. I never found myself feeling as though our relationship was a mutual blend of reliance upon one another. That definitely became clear when her wedding rolled around in January, and my name was nowhere to be found in the bridal party.

A few evenings ago, I was sitting with some girlfriends chatting over lemon pepper chicken and diced potatoes, and I made a funny comment that has stuck with me ever since. These lovely women have just stepped foot into my life this year. I have appreciated them so much in learning more and more about myself and feeling held accountable to the progress I am making in my journey with the Lord. As we were chatting, one of the women claimed that she enjoyed our coming together, and I jokingly said, "You two are definitely bridesmaids material" or something to that extent.

Later on, after the dishes had been done and the girls had gone home, I sat in the living room and pondered what I had said. I believe that just as some women have this innate desire to be married to the man of their dreams one day, they also have this incredible passion for finding women to support them in doing so. My first year at Biola was spent doing just that. I had a scrapbook mentality in finding women who would complete the idealistic group of individuals who I wanted to spend every Saturday night going out with, every Sunday morning praying with, and every holiday sharing gifts with. I wanted a group of inseparable girlfriends.

I wanted to be able to step foot into a relationship one day with a man, knowing that I had at least a group of three to five women supporting me and holding me accountable through that relationship. I even made a claim a few years ago that I would avoid the dating scene altogether until I had done so. Well, here I am heading into my senior year here at Biola, and the closest thing I had to my dream was let go a few months ago when I chose to study abroad rather than stay in California.

It is so interesting to me that we go through areas of life where God brings in different individuals to join us in our efforts of following His plan. We may not always find those friends that last for lifetimes, but there is something bittersweet in finding the ones that partake in certain areas, where there appearance was or is definitely necessary. I was spoiled in finding a friend who I consider to be one of my best two years ago. She lives in an entirely different state than me, and yet we both seem to somehow make it work. She knows my heart, and my struggles. She isn't afraid to suggest guidance and counsel, or remain silent when nothing is to be said. From her, I learned that perhaps I've been looking for the wrong things when approaching my "bridesmaid" friends.

It is silly, but I am being honest with you when I say that I still somewhat cling to that mentality, that one day I will be able to stand before my friends and family not only with the man I am committing myself to by my side, but also the women affirming and holding me to that commitment on my other. I've started to recognize that my idealistic view of what a quality group of girlfriends looks like has changed. I no longer find someone just to attend soccer games with, or share a pint of Ben and Jerry's when I've watched one episode of the Bachelor too many, but someone who can also point and direct me to Christ on a daily basis, even through the blubbering nonsense and spoonfuls of New York Super Fudge Chunk!

I would challenge you to recognize what blessings God has brought into your life as friends. It may not look like how you pictured it, I know mine definitely don't. It is when we forget to recognize what we do have that Satan begins to pester us on what we don't. It is when we forget to be a friend when we start to lose those closest to us. It is when our motivation is impure that manipulation begins to creep into our relationships. Keep in mind that God knows exactly what you need in each moment.

Two summers ago when I was guiding I was faced with a similar scenario to depict this idea of friendships. My campers and I had already had a rather exhausting week, and as we headed into the most intimidating rapid on the river, my heart sank. I knew that my line was completely wrong and suddenly I felt my boat being pulled into a dangerous position. One of the girls in front of me started to fall out, and in grabbing her I lost my own balance and ended up overboard within seconds! I quickly realized that my girls were now going downriver alone, and that in sheer panic they all began frantically paddling, causing them to do circles. From the shore, another guide began hollering orders at my boat. The girls, after a few moments of shrieks and gasps, finally paid attention and got themselves over to the edge.

When I reached them, they were all so proud of getting through the situation without their guide. When I got back into the boat we talked about why they felt so confidence once they realized they could do it. They shared with me that it was because of the woman who had called to them from the shore. They trusted her, because she knew what she was doing and her commands were identical to what I had been calling out all day. It was familiar, and even though it wasn't necessarily mine, they knew that they could get back to safety. I told the girls that sometimes in life this is where friendships are the most crucial. We may be going through some pretty scary situations in which we don't feel like we can always hear God, or His commands. The girl knew the actions, they had the training and knew how to move the boat, it was the direction that they lacked. Sometimes God blesses us with utilizing relationships in our lives to keep us on track. We may not always hear what He has to say but we can trust those who are obviously living in line with Him to direct us towards His voice.

I have been so thankful for the solid relationships I have built over these last years. In coming back to school I've had to let go of several friendships that I truly cherished last year. The problem is that we all change, and sometimes friendships may be appropriate for one season, but not another. I would challenge you to remember that there should be discernment in selecting those closest to you. I'm not saying that you have to reject everyone around you who doesn't fit what you are looking for in a close friend. I am merely suggesting that you take into account that who you surround yourself with heavily influences you.

It is no longer about finding women to just stand by me on my wedding day. It is about finding those that direct back towards Christ each step of the way, with our without a marriage and with or without their name on a wedding program to feel affirmed in it. In the same way, I have recently started challenging myself on the friend that I want to be. We have heard this lesson several times before, and even writing it now I can honestly say I'm a tad bit desensitized to its impact. I'd challenge you to move past the simpleness of it and find the truth. Seek those that will hold you to who He has made you to be. Women seek women. In the next section I will be talking about male friendships. While it is so good to have brothers in Christ who you fellowship with, please know that there is nothing better than surrounding yourself with women who support you. You don't have to let go of those friendships once you marry as well. Keep that in mind :)

Blessings,

Kendra