No More Tears?

Every time in my life I've cried over a boy, I've sworn that I would never do so again. But I always do. Pain always seems to come with having feelings for someone. It's utterly ridiculous, because I know that real, godly love isn't like that. Relationships are supposed to build up the people in them, not make them suffer. Relationships do not harm; they heal.

I can't help but thinking that, if it is God's will for me to marry someday, I'll have wasted time on so many crushes that I won't have enough heart left to give my husband. I realize that this isn't true, that most women (and men) have tons of crushes before getting married and still end up in healthy relationships. The paranoid side of me (which is rather strong), thinks that I'm somehow breaking my own heart a little more all the time. My hope lies in God's ability to mend hearts. He gave me the feelings that I have, so I know that he's going to protect me from them when they get out of hand.

I mentioned in my last post that having feelings for someone makes me weird. It also makes me unsure of myself. I'm comfortable with my personality and my body most of the time. It was a long road, and there are always things that I can improve, but I've made it to a place where I'm truly happy with myself. When I get a crush on someone, though, all I can think about is whether I'm laughing too much or coming across as too geeky, or whether my hips are too wide and my tummy isn't tiny enough. It's terrible. I get to be so self-conscious that my insecurity makes me more miserable than my aching heart does. I always recall a line from The Crucible, a play that's very dear to me:

"I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me. Suspicion kissed you when I did; I never knew how I should say my love."

I've always identified with Elizabeth Proctor. I struggled with self-image issues from the time I started going through puberty at age 10 until halfway through college. I'm pretty new to this whole "loving yourself" thing. Thus, whenever those old feelings of insecurity start creeping back, I get scared. And then I feel awful because I've lost control of even the feelings that I thought I had tied down years ago.

I have to believe that, if I am to marry, when I meet my future husband, I'll be able to have butterflies in my tummy without wondering if my tummy is too big. I won't feel ridiculous about the things that I'm interested in or what I laugh at, because he'll be the kind of person that sees me as a child of God rather than a flawed and sometimes-awkward girl. And my heart won't have to ache, because God will have sent someone who's actually going to be around for the long haul.