Finally

"These forms of accountability and seeking God certainly have their place. But make sure you are doing it for the right reason. Are you placing expectations on your relationship that God Himself does not have? Are you pursuing holiness in order to earn the reward of marriage? Are you trying to perfect your love life apart from the grace and mercy of God? By trying to avoid idolatry of a person, are you idolizing the perfect relationship instead? 

Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more: What would it look like to date in the freedom of that reality? What would it look like if the goal of dating was not the perfect marriage, but a better love of God and neighbor? Would that spell the end of random devastation like the one experienced by my friend? Not entirely, but perhaps Christian dating relationships would be a little less riddled with angst. And freed from the pressure to “get it all right,” we will find Christ’s yoke is so much lighter than the burden of perfection."

The excerpt above was taken from this article HERE, which my friend sent to me, with thoughts that I would find this an "interesting" read. Well, indeed it is.

The past month has been seeing me confused and disillusioned from the spark of various thoughts and queries. I still don't find it safe to say that I've been completely set free of anxiety and pain. While I'm mentally accepting the fact that the past has to stay in the past and I have to move on, matters I cannot understand unconsciously spills out of my hippocampus, forming strange dreams that make no sense at all, or dreams of what used to be, a prospect now null and void. It's moments like these that often make me question myself and wonder why I did whatever I did and I begin feeling anxious all over again. Regret pays me a visit, and I'm forced to come to terms with myself and ask myself over and over again, why, why, why?

And I'm forced to say, I don't know, because I truly didn't. I was just lost in the frenzy of mental activity that I'd truly forgotten why I made all those decisions a month ago.

But now I see what the matter really is with me. I see what it is I'm doing. I'm centralizing my entire life towards this one matter, constantly working to further myself and find inert peace, only to fail and search somewhere else for an alternative source, and fail again. That is precisely what I'm doing.

I'm investing all my time and energy into fixing this perceived "problem" with hopes that once it becomes fixed, I can safely move on, but we all know that isn't true. The more I choose to deal with it, the more it deals with me. And trust me, it sucks. If you were in my shoes, undertaking those sleepless nights, you'd probably feel like verbalizing your inner anguish by screaming, "JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!", like I actually do.

Thing is, I thought whatever I did was going to please God, because I thought it would. I earnestly, honestly, sincerely thought it would. But I didn't know better. I'm learning now, but I still don't, really.

I won't say I'm drawing up conclusions based on this one "interesting" web article that conveniently happened to pop right in the midst of all the pandemonium in my life. I won't base my verdict according to what I feel I am convicted to do. The last time I tried correlating God's will in my life to the events that occurred, I made what could possibly be the most rash decision in my life, EVER. See, that was what it was - I oversimplified the entire thing based on coincidence and took it all too seriously after. And then I suffered from my mistakes and laid in utter agony for 2 weeks. And then I "moved on".

However, what I'm advocating is this - letting go of the past and letting God. The more I try to solve this equation, the more complicated it gets. Only my best friend is the most fit at solving equations, anyway. But that's besides the point. The point is, I have to stop trying to move on. I have to stop trying to become a better person. I have to stop trying to overcome my fears and find the right people to befriend. I need to stop trying to hard to do all these things on my own, when God is already offered me a hand and is saying, "Do you need help? COME TO PAPA!"

For in Matthew 11:28 it says, "Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

So I'm taking His offer and I'm on my way to find peace, and rest.

The only thing I can do at this point, really, is to learn. I need to learn to learn from my mistakes and not mope about in misery. And no, that wasn't a typo. I need to learn, TO LEARN. I need to stop thinking that screwing this up ultimately means that I'm screwed for life. Instead, what it only means is that I will learn from it. I may have gotten it wrong that time, but that only means if I'm faced with this again the next time, I'll definitely get it right. I gain something new from every experience and as long as I do, I have nothing to lose. Unless you're talking about one's virginity. Then, NO. JUST NO.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I can't change what has happened. But I can change the consequence to my actions. I can learn from this. It's funny, isn't it, how it took this long for me to understand why I felt what I felt and why I did what I did?

But God's here, and He's going to fix things. That's all that matters.