When Wedding Bells Sound Like Hell's Bells (Even to a Bride to Be)

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about what it feels like to me as a mid-twenty-year-old male watching a high majority of my friends get married. This post is a guest post written by a good friend of mine, CeCe, not only in response to that post, but more so as a reflection to that post from a mid-twenty-year-old female's perspective. As she told me, "Everyone's feeling it, but nobody's talking about it." 

So here's someone talking about it. Thanks, CeCe.

I am a twenty-something female, and my body is split in two. I’m at a point in life
where my heart wants to get married, but my head’s not there. After I was asked to
pick out some engagement ring options, my heart somersaulted and I scoured the
Internet for hours looking for a ring that embodied my spirit and personality.
Apparently my spirit and personality are pretty broad because every shiny and
sparkly thing caught my attention.

While my eyes and heart were copying and pasting links and pictures into a
document, my head was sprinting to catch up. My relationship isn’t new and I don’t
question my future with my significant other, but I still feel so young and so
unprepared. Yes, I’m technically an adult but I still feel like I’m an undergrad. I
mean, I still get nightmares about missing a final. It seemed like my social media
went from twenty-first birthday posts to engagements overnight. Nearly every day
on Facebook or Instagram someone is getting engaged. And I used to feel serious
pangs of jealousy at newly engaged couples that had been together for a shorter
amount of time than my boyfriend and I had. It didn’t seem fair. We were in love,
why couldn’t I be the one flashing my new ring?

It wasn’t until my best friend got engaged that I realized how juvenile I was being.
Sadly, leading up to her engagement I told myself I was allowed to be upset but then
I had to pretend to be happy for her. After receiving a text from her saying she was
engaged, I didn’t feel upset or jealous or any of the negative things I thought I would.
I was too happy, because she was happy. She was in a place in her life where it made
sense for her to be engaged. I wasn’t. Looking back, I feel horrible for being jealous
of something that hadn’t even happened yet. I measured the success of a
relationship with diamond rings and surprise proposals. If you take away the ring,
you still have a couple who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives
together, and that’s what I have now.

Being patient in this matter is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Watching
friends plan weddings and have showers fills my heart with longing but my
somewhat sensible head always catches up and reminds me that I am happy just
where I am and to enjoy being in love and being loved. There’s a peer pressure that
new adults face and it’s sticky and smothering and hard to escape. Surrendering to
this pressure left me feeling impatient when I could have been feeling joy. Until my
day comes, I will continue praying for a patient heart and an understanding mind
because nothing good comes from a disconnected nervous system.

-CeCe

CeCe's Note: If you take away the ring, are you still a couple who loves each other and wants to spend the rest of your lives together?

*More to come from CeCe in the future. Interested in writing? Get in touch*

When Expectations Don't Go Your Way

Have you ever gone on a a trip to Wal-Mart that you expected to only take 10 minutes, but instead it took you 45 minutes? (because Wal-Mart) Or have you ever gone into a store thinking, "I'm only going to spend $x amount of money," but instead you end up spending $xxx amount of money? Or what about hobbies- Have you ever tried to learn some new skill that ended up taking longer to learn than you initially expected? In each of these situations, or any situation like them, reality doesn't coincide with our expectations, and as a result, our emotions run in all sorts of ways, but at the core of it all sits the emotion of frustration. 

Yesterday, I went on what turned out to be a 6-mile hike. It wasn't initially supposed to be a 10-mile hike (it started out in my mind as a simple 'nature walk'), but, like the situations stated above, my expectations didn't coincide with reality. After not reading the trail map correctly, my thought of a short, 30-minute hike with my camera wearing in jeans, Chuck Taylor's turned into a full afternoon of trekking across Greenleaf State Park looking for the infamous 'Swinging Bridge,' which, I did eventually get to-3 miles further than I thought. 

I was hot, frustrated and at times, lost. I even caught myself saying out loud to myself, "I wish there were just some place closer to park so I could've driven here," which, if you know me, is very unlike me to say; however, my expectations weren't being met, and I was worried as to whether or not I was going to make it back to my car before nightfall. 

In the end, I made the hike, saw the bridge I was looking for (which was totally worth it), and I made it back to my truck before dark safely. I was satisfied with how things turned out, but I was also really confused by the comment I'd made to myself earlier and just how unlike myself I'd become when my expectations weren't met and frustration took over-especially on an adventure like a hike. It's evidence though to just how unlike ourselves we can become when selfish gets its grip and takes over our personality for a moment. Comments come out we don't mean, and we miss out on the adventure at hand. 

When life throws you a curve ball, don't duck out of the way or get made that it wasn't the pitch you were expecting. Adjust to it, stay in the box and take a swing ( pun intended on the bridge) because some of life's greatest memories are made when life doesn't go how you expect it to. 

-Cliff

Cliff's Note: If you want to hike the Greenleaf Lake Hiking Trail, plan for a full-day's worth of activity. Looks are deceiving on their map. 

Where God Wants Me

It's 2:22 am, and I just got home from a 16 hour work day. I have to be back at 6 a.m. (4 hours from now), but that doesn't matter. I couldn't be happier; today was a day I realized I've landed right where God wants me.

Despite the heavy work load, the abnormally long hours for my current season of work and not having a legitimate place to live until two days ago, I'm beyond content. If you had told me two months ago the number of hours I would be working and the uncertainty of a living situation, I probably wouldn't be where I'm at, but that's not the case. I'm exactly where God wants me for the time being. 

Today was one of those, "Aha!" moments for me when I was able to look back on everything that I've been through and been learning over the past couple of years and say, "Oh, yeah. Now I know why I learned that. Now I know why I experienced that." I'm coming to understand why I was plunged into urban ministry in Seattle, why I've made the friends I've made along the way and why I've been out of the state of Oklahoma for quite some time. Sure, there's still lots to be revealed and lots to learn, but the blind fold is slowly coming off my eyes, and I couldn't be more thankful.

God is faithful, and no matter where He has you, in whatever situation that may look like, it's definitely for a reason. God is intentional, and He definitely doesn't waste time. Ever day and every experience as its purpose; don't miss that. He is faithful, and trust me, the patience pays off in the end when His plan is revealed and begins to take shape. There's nothing like it in the world. 

-Clif

-Cliff's Note: God's plan is living, active and noticeable in the life of a believer. It just takes patience to see it through.

The Loving Reason Behind Reason and Love

People can be some of life's greatest problems, myself included. People can be frustrating, hard to work with, irritating and, frankly, crazy sometimes; however, it's impossible to get through life without working with people and especially without working with yourself (which can be the most difficult at times). Understanding how to work with people and how to have grace in the times when someone makes you want to scream is vital to any social environment.

Thinking about this, I was asked to look at this quote by C.S. Lewis recently. You'll love this golden nugget:

"Can we repent if God helps us? Yes, but what does that mean, 'helping us?' We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He (God) puts a little of His love into us, and that is how we love one another. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it."

I don't know how familiar you may be with C.S. Lewis, but this quote, like many of his other ones, is packed like a loaded gun. It's got so much power behind it, and it's only a sentence or two long. It's wise, yet simple, profound, yet light and easy to hear.

Think about it; the idea of God actually putting some of His reasoning and His love in our hearts so that we may begin to have the potential to love other people,  reason with them, work with them and begin to understand them, is mind-numbing.  Where would we be without that little gift? 

Without this gift, it would be impossible to love our neighbor as ourselves, impossible to empathize and relate to others and, even more so, impossible to be loved and reasoned with. The only reason we can love and reason is because God loves, reasons and helps us. The only thing in the world that is truly keeping us all from absolutely destroying one another are God's pieces of reasoning and love He has instilled in us.

We love because He loves, we reason because He reasons and we're patient because He's patient. Being reasonable and loving is about thinking through things, looking at them with a fair and eternal perspective and not making decisions based off of emotional, in-the-moment feelings.

In the words of my friend, "To combine love and reason, we must look beyond ourselves." 

I couldn't agree more.

-Cliff

Cliff's Note: Though a situation may be difficult, find comfort in knowing that God has put His own little nuggets of love and reason within you to share with the world.