My beautiful friend, Emily sent me the above picture recently. She said it reminder her of me. It, naturally, appeared the exact day I needed a reminder.
As I have said before, and I shall say a million times before I die I'm sure, my best friend always told me to live life without regrets. He was right; that's the only way to live.
The thing about this picture, this saying, is that it came, as I said, on exactly the day I needed it. Amber has been trying to convince me that I need to recognize that the boy I am love with was brought into my life for a reason. We were supposed to connect. Clearly I got the wrong memo on how deeply we were supposed to connect, but clearly we were supposed to connect. She kept saying I needed to remember to focus on the good and learn from the rest of it. I shouldn't regret this relationship just because it feels like it's ending. Maybe it was never meant to be a permanent thing, but good would come out of it.
Then Em sent me that. God speaks.
He consistently amazes me. Sometimes I ask the question so many times that I forget to listen. And then I run face first into the answer.
For days now I have been trying to find some kind of purpose to the relationship I had with this boy, this man.... Today I realized something, he is what led me to actually start taking an interest in myself. Sure, I still am not completely happy with myself (as anyone who has ever read anything I write might be able to tell). Because I adored this man, I began taking some pride in myself. I wanted to be my best because I felt that is what he deserved, and if I wanted to be loved by him, I wanted to be someone he could love. Yeah, maybe that's a little screwy, but I think it has begun good things in me.
Because of my relationship with this man, I finally forced myself to ask God to help me figure out exactly what I should be looking for in my future spouse. More importantly, maybe, I have been asking God to shape me into the woman He wants me to be so that I can be someone I am proud of and therefore someone my future spouse can be proud of as well: physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually. It's been a major boost in my relationship with God. I want God to be the center of my life.
Maybe this relationship didn't work out the way I had hoped, well, obviously it didn't, but it has done a lot of good in my life. It has triggered major change and growth for me, and I am grateful. Even if I never get to tell him, I hope he knows I am grateful for the friendship we had. I hope I was something good in his life as well.
Find the good, and really, my loves, live life without the regret.
And lastly, here's looking at you,