I Know It's Late...but I need to type!!

I've attempted sleep...and it didn't come. I've been thinking...hard. I've had some chances to talk out my whole coming-home-from-camp saga the last couple of days. I took it out on God...let him know how much it hurt...how much I wanted to go back and be around those people again...how much I don't want to face the people at school...and did I say how much it hurts!!! Really it does. And tonight...well it lessened...but it also worsened. See we went over to a families home from our church. They are fairly new and we hadn't really had a chance to get to know them. However my dad use to work with this guy so they had a background with each other. They are an amazing family. They both just encouraged my parents and just talked for hours with each other. They have a daughter a few years younger than my sister, but close enough that they can chill with each other. They've asked me if I would be willing to come over and hang out with this girl when they need me to sorta as a babysitter, but at her age it's not the same. We also got to meet the lady's oldest daughter and husband. They were really sweet and also joined easily into the conversation. The husband has us three girls rolling with laughter and we got to watch the dvd of them skydiving. However I found out over the course of the evening that neither of them had dated before meeting the other. Totally cool to me!! To be honest I wanted to have that same testimony...I wanted to be able to say my husband is the first man I ever dated. I can't. Now I don't view my previous relationship as a chip on my shoulder and now I'm not perfect...heck I already wasn't!! But I always dreamed of saying that my husband was the first to hold my hand, to hold me tight, to kiss me (although I can still say that). Then I saw something that looked good. It felt good. And at the time I thought it was good. I thought that this could be the guy I married. I "prayed" about it. My prayers went like this: God this guy is amazing and I thank you for giving me someone that I can be myself around. I thank you for giving me a relationship. Now I look at that and see my backwards thinking. See as I got to know the guy...I realized that I couldn't really be myself. He thought me crazy for dancing in church. He questioned over and over why I wanted to and enjoyed speaking in tongues. he would tell me to "be careful" in my spirit-filled church because "things could and have gone wrong." My thinking always was "umm yeah we are human. We make mistakes. When we make one we have to repent, but God's not going to not forgive you becuase you made a mistake that took a whole church down...you just have to repent."

I always kinda felt like my freedom was crushed. Like I had to explain evey aspect of my faith. Now to me there is a difference between defending and explaining my faith. Defending is saying I believe this and I desire this and you can't tell me what to believe because I know it's true. (of course anyone from another religion also believes they are true...moe on that another time) Explaining my faith sounds more like this: "Well I do this because my Bible says it's okay to do it and I enjoy it and well it interests me." or "Umm because, well, umm, see it's like this." I don't see that in a relationship with a "boyfriend" that I should have to explain my faith...I believe that he should always be encouraging me and uplifting me.

Another thing...I could never be alone to work things out. Now I can see if we were married working things out with him. But we had only been dating a month and my begging and pleading for him to give me space so that I could work through my self-confidence problem...resulted in a load of hounding quesitons and no space. I wasn't enjoying life or my time with him. In fact I found myself dreading his very presence. I had more fun when he wasn't around. His idea of fun is getting hurt...if it doesn't involve physical pain...it's not fun. Ok well I don't like pain so we had no common ground on the fun factor.

Now it wasn't all bad. But I don't miss him and really I halfway regret my decision to date him. I regret the day he held my hand. I regret the way he held me. I regret the times he said I love you. I regret literally forcing myself to reply because I thought this was the guy. I regret thinking that God had this guy for me...when really he has someone so much better that I can actually enjoy being around.

I don't regret his wisdom of the Bible. I don't regret explaining my faith and beliefs (I just didn't enjoy it). I don't egret taking my stand of purity and not allowing him to kiss me and laying that down before we even began dating. I just wish I could look at my future husband and say I left it all for you. But I can't. I've got a restored mental and emotional purity (thank God for his restoration) and I've had a pretty physical relationship with one person...as physical as holding hands and cuddling can be...cutting it close though. I know that God has someone in mind and when the time is PERFECT I will find him and I will know without a doubt that he is the man I will spend the rest of my life with. And I will actually take the time to pray about it...really.

I know this blog was sorta a rant...I apologize...but when I'm thinking so hard I can't sleep I must write (or in this case type).

Quote: "I will date (again) when there is a purpose" - Friend of mine