I deserve better.
For the first time in a very long time, perhaps even in my life, I can truly say and believe that I deserve better. It has been told to me many times before by all kinds of different people: my best friend, my parents, my brothers, my aunt, my grandma, and even myself. But it is definitely one thing to say something, but completely different to believe it. I deserve better.
It didn’t happen suddenly, this belief, but rather it happened over a period of many months, maybe even years. I had always viewed myself as a sinner. I saw someone in the mirror who wasn’t deserving of the very best because of the mistakes (the many mistakes) I had made in my past and the people I had hurt along the way. It was easy for me to settle for someone or something that was familiar and knew my past, yet looked past it. Yes, I may get hurt in this relationship, I may not be treated all that great, they may not pursue the Lord or even truly want what’s best for me, but at least they loved me, right?
Wrong.
It all had to start with God and with me. First, I had to truly realize and believe that I had been forgiven by my Father. I needed to put the burdens down that I had been carrying around with me for far too long. I am redeemed. My past has helped to mold me into who I am today but it does not define me. Once I put those burdens down, some of them not even being my own to carry, I needed to leave them. The second step was for me to finally forgive myself. That, for me, came in the form of telling myself over and over again that I was, indeed, redeemed, as it is repeated in the Word. Once I reached that point where I knew that I could leave those burdens behind, I felt like a daughter of God made new and whole again.
God continued to show me that He loved and cared for me deeply over the next few months. I no longer felt like a guilty convict running from Him, but rather a loved daughter running to Him.
Once He showed me these things, He brought in a random conversation for me to hear. It was having to do with one of the girls on my squad talking about her boyfriend and how they had grown even closer to each other since she had left for the race. Her last statement regarding their healthy and loving relationship ended with this, “And that’s what happens when you have a Christ-centered relationship.” It was like a slap in the face from God (ok maybe more like a gentle nudging, but it felt like a slap to me). A Christ-centered relationship? What did one of those even look like in my day and age? Yes, my parents have been a shining example of putting God first, but let’s be serious, where have all the good men gone (wait…isn’t that a lyric or something?)? But even with those doubts, I knew that it was time to let the past go and to trust that God had something better.
The last lesson that He taught me was in the form of a book called “Praying for your Future Husband.” They are out there (the good men that is). I can’t physically hurry or help this process of waiting to meet “the one” along, but I can pray for him. I can pray that he is a man of integrity, that he wants what’s best for me, that he will be pursuing the Lord with all his mind, heart, and soul and will continue to all the days of his life, and that he will love me and cherish me the way that I deserve. Because I deserve that.
Until then, I am, and always will be, content in pursuing the One who has loved me before I was even born, who has been there for me in every good and bad circumstance, and who has seen my past, every part of it, and forgives it easily. He calls me to be great and assures me that I deserve it too.
I deserve better.
