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viralhottopics · 7 years

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The Hardest Breakup Of My Life Taught Me This

To say I was devastated would be a severe understatement. I remember it all too well. Crying on the bathroom floor at 2 AM, praying to God she would come back to me tonight. Crying in bed and skipping class because I was too sick to go, wishing she could be there to take care of me again. But then again, I dont remember it all too well.

I was black out drunk, vomiting all my feelings into the toilet along with a whole bottle of vodka. Stumbling back out to the party and having to fake and smile so I could down some more liquor in hopes to ease the pain of losing her. I recently just went through the hardest experience of my life, and that experience was breaking up with my girlfriend of a year. The moment I met her, it was an instant connection. Just like in all the fairytales, I saw fireworks and sparks and all that other bullshit. I loved her with every ounce of my being and she worked her way into my soul. She was my everything, she had the ability to change my mood at the drop of the hat, and when her hazel eyes locked with mine, I was at her mercy. All I knew is that I would follow her anywhere. But sometimes good things dont work out, and she left. She left me much like a tornado leaves a town. Damaged and in shambles, wondering if I was ever going to return to my original state again. And in all honesty, I did not think I would make it. But somehow through all the sleepless nights, weeks without eating solid food, mornings with dry eyes from crying the night away, and evenings eating dinner alone, I taught myself some of the most important lessons I have ever learned.

I am stronger than I ever knew I was

Ive been through my fair-share of heartbreaks like any girl my age. But this one rocked me to my core. I could FEEL it with every inch of my body. Some mornings I couldnt get out of bed. Hell, some days I didnt even leave my apartment. I laid in bed all day and cried, and asked for anything to bring her back to me.

I remember going into the dining hall at my college and sitting in the back, not knowing what to do without her. I would eat, or attempt to eat, by myself with my headphones in listening to anything Taylor Swift. I would see her around campus having fun and smiling with her new friends and the new guy she was with, and I would feel myself shatter again. At this point, it was always a race against time to get back to my apartment or my car before anyone saw me crying. But you want to know what the crazy thing is? It got easier. The days spent crying turned into hours, which turned into minutes, which eventually turned into laughter somehow. The meals I couldnt stomach turned into yogurt, which turned into oranges and apples, which turned into slices of pizza and burgers. The vodka turned into water and I felt myself slowly being glued back together. I could sit through a class and not cry. I could see her around campus and even look at her, and no longer felt tears welling up.

My toughest battle turned me into a girl who couldnt be stopped. I achieved my best semester academically in college EVER and discovered a new career path that would eventually become my calling. I rejoined my schools basketball team and was able to lose myself in the sport I loved. I made new friends who showered me with positivity and optimism. I felt like I could conquer the world and shatter any obstacle in my way.

My friends are amazing people

My God, this to me is the most important thing I learned. My friends are truly a blessing from the Lord above, and I will say that until Im blue in the face. It was Taylor and Olivia, always being there for me and supporting me through everything and being the epitome of what a best friend is, coming over every single night and talking to me about my breakup even though you were so sick of hearing me speak her name. It was my whole basketball team welcoming me back to the team with open arms when I needed them and the sport most.

I could never formulate words to help explain how important the team atmosphere was to my healing process. To have 12 girls who I could turn to, who would always have my back, who believed in me, is a feeling that only a few lucky people get to experience in their lives. It was my coworkers Merry, Allyson, Madison, Bre, Tricia, Jess, Sarah, Rosa, Abby and Rachel who always had my back and would do anything for me, those who saw me cry and collapse to the floor at work and still picked me up every single day, both mentally and physically.

Its my new-found friends Kayla and Helena who chose to look past all the issues I had at the time, and showed me that people can still love a broken person, not in a romantic love kind of way, but in a pure, friendship way. Its my friends from day one Kristen, Tori, Jayne, and Miranda, the girls who have seen my rise and fall many times but chose to believe in me and my ability to never give up the fight. Its the other people who are too infinite for me to mention but touched my life during this period. I cannot thank you all enough, you are the reason I am so strong now, you are the reason I never gave up.

I am enough

Finally, this is something that I wrestled with up until a few weeks ago. When someone walks out on you, its a scary thing. You dont know what you did wrong exactly. What did I do to make her stop loving me? Could I have done more? What if I had handled this situation differently, would she still be here? Is this really whats right for both of us?

These are the things I asked myself every night, until I came to the realization. It was nothing I did or did not do. It was nothing I did wrong or right. I just happened to be too much for her and not enough at the same time. And once I realized that her leaving was her decision only, not based on my actions, I began to realize other things. Our relationships demise was her decision, not mine. I did everything I could, but you cannot change someones mind. That is not how love works, you can tell someone how much you love them and how much they mean to you but that will not make them love you again nor will bring them back or make them stay. All of this being said, I harbor no ill-feelings or hatred towards her. Sometimes you cannot force someone to love you back. Sometimes love is not fair. Sometimes giving your heart to someone does not work out. So instead of loving her, I began to fall in love with myself again. I could look in the mirror again and think I looked pretty for class that day. I was able to feel confident in my own skin. I was smiling bigger and laughing louder than I ever had and nobody was going to stop me from being this new, happy Rachel. And quite frankly, I will never let myself be a slave to anyone else or their love ever again. I am my own person before I am anyone elses. So I suppose at the end of the day, losing her was vital for me to become the girl and young woman that I am now. I know I have a huge heart and cant wait until I can meet the person who I can give it to. Im a confident woman who has high goals and expectations for myself. I have a great support system full of people who have my best interests in mind from friends to professors to teammates. I am beautiful and happy and caring and confident and kind, and sometimes to make myself feel that way, all I had to do was tell myself I was. I look around and see beauty in everyday life now. From the people in my classes to natures beauty, I take a second longer to appreciate the beauty in everything. I am now seeing in different colors and dimensions and have such a positive outlook on life. I am a child of Christ and His love for me is eternal and He has forgiven me for my past mistakes. I have incredible parents who love me and support any decision I make. Parents who only want the best for their only daughter.

Its been about 5 months since I lost her. She is still gone. But thats okay.

Read more: http://tcat.tc/2jPvo21

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#The Hardest Breakup Of My Life Taught Me This

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nbafunnymeme · 7 years

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The Hardest Breakup Of My Life Taught Me This

I am stronger than I ever knew I was

My friends are amazing people

I am enough

Its been about 5 months since I lost her. She is still gone. But thats okay.

Read more: http://thoughtcatalog.com/rachel-losey/2017/01/the-hardest-breakup-of-my-life-taught-me-this/

http://nbafunnymeme.com/nba-news-and-higlights/the-hardest-breakup-of-my-life-taught-me-this

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dmmowers · 7 years

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“Come and See”

What are you looking for? For 38 verses at the beginning of John's gospel, we hear nothing from the main character of the story. We hear plenty from John the Baptist, but nothing from the man himself. So when Jesus finally does say something, we might expect him to say something that will set the tone for the rest of his ministry. We might expect him to tell us what to do, to love one another. We might expect him to tell us that he is God. We have his first words in this morning’s reading, and they are unexpected. They are not a doctrine or a command or even a statement.

Jesus' first words are a question. What are you looking for? John the Baptist and his disciples hadn’t gone looking for Jesus, but they notice someone coming towards them. But even then, they don't recognize Jesus. It takes John the Baptist to tell them to look before they actually see Jesus. John says, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." That's the New Revised Standard translation that we just read. Others are better: the New International says, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." The King James Version says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

John’s followers didn’t see anything unusual happening, and then, suddenly, John, a messenger from God, says "Behold! Pay attention! Look! Something is happening here! God is on the move and you may not notice that's what's happening. This man is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

The next day, John and his followers see Jesus again, and John goes much further in telling his followers about Jesus. He says Jesus out-ranks him because Jesus came before him, that Jesus is older than him. But there’s a problem with that. The story of John’s birth is told in Luke chapter 1, and we know that he is actually older than Jesus. His mother, Elizabeth was already pregnant when the angel Gabriel comes to speak to Mary and to inform her that she will become pregnant. And yet, John says to his followers that Jesus came before him. John doesn't stop there. He says that he witnessed the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus, and from this he knows that Jesus will be the one who will baptize people in the Holy Spirit. So Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, Jesus as the one who out-ranks John because he came before John, Jesus as the baptizer with the Holy Spirit. What could all this mean?

Even with this introduction, John's disciples are only intrigued. They say to Jesus, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" They don't fall down and worship him, or proclaim him as Messiah yet. They just ask him where he's staying. And Jesus answers them, "What are you looking for?"

II.

What are you looking for? This morning, maybe you're looking for a little inspiration, to see some friends, to calm guilt about not being at church for a while, or to be spiritually refreshed. But if I took a poll of the room, I wonder how many of us would say that we are completely satisfied with our lives. Always wanting more, never being satisfied, never having enough: three phrases that are more or less synonymous with being American.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's smash-hit Broadway musical Hamilton explores what it means for Alexander Hamilton to never be satisfied with his life. In one number, Hamilton describes himself as being "just like my country, young, scrappy and hungry",[1] and in another, he is described by Aaron Burr, who would eventually kill Hamilton in a duel, as being "non-stop". Burr's character asks, "Why do write like you're running out of time / write day and night like you're running out of time / everyday you fight like you're running out of time." This drive to achieve, to constantly work, to constantly write, to make a name for himself in history, had disastrous effects on his marriage. Later in the same number, Hamilton's wife Eliza wants Hamilton to finally take it easy after ten years of fighting in the American Revolution. She sings, "Look at where you are / look at where you started / the fact that you're alive is a miracle / just stay alive / that would be enough / and if your wife could share a fraction of your time / if I could grant you peace of mind / would that be enough?" But when George Washington offers Hamilton the position of secretary of the Treasury, reminding Hamilton that history has its eyes on him, that the first secretary of the Treasury will have enormous impact on the new country, Hamilton accepts. His wife explodes: "What would be enough for you to be satisfied? Look around, Look around! Isn't this enough? What would be enough?"[2]

Look around, Look around! Isn't this enough? What would be enough? What would be enough to give you what you're looking for? Peace of mind? Courage to go on in the face of cancer or disease? A certain amount of money? Another house, 1000 square feet bigger than the one you’re in? Maybe you're here in church because you want your kids to acquire some morals that aren't taught by the culture. Maybe you're looking for healing from a broken relationship. There are lots of things that we might be looking for. And it just might be that we are so distracted by those things that we don’t notice the man walking up the road towards us. We don’t notice this one whom we’ve heard preached about and talked about, and we’re lost in our own thoughts. And maybe this morning, we can hear John the Baptist saying to us, “Behold! Look up! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

III.

John’s followers turn and start following after Jesus down the road, wondering where he is going. He turns and notices them and says, "What are you looking for?" And they say, "Rabbi, Where are you staying?"

Come and see, Jesus tells them. Come and see. And they came and they saw where he was staying and they remained with him that day. They came and saw and remained with him that day. We don’t know what they talked about. All we know is that when the disciples come out, they rush to find their family members to get them to come and see and remain with Jesus.

John had told them that Jesus was the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, that Jesus had come before John even though John had been born first, that Jesus was the baptizer with the Holy Spirit. But it took them hearing Jesus' invitation to come and see, and their following him to where he was staying, for them to know themselves that Jesus was who John claimed that he was.

Why was what John told his disciples significant? First, he said Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. My experience with church people is that we are deeply confused about what sin is, and about what it might mean for Jesus to take it away. Many of us think that people are basically good, with only a handful of exceptions allowed for the truly horrible people of history - Hitler, serial killers, child molesters. For all the rest of us, the assumption is that because we’re good people we’re good with God. But this idea is far from what the Bible teaches about sin. The Bible tells story after story of human failure and human brokenness. In his letter to the Romans, Paul says, "God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he might have mercy upon all." Russian novelist and political dissident Alexander Soltzhenitsyn put it another way: "the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts."[3] None of us are good people. All of us are imprisoned by the power of sin, all of us are subject to death, all of us are subject to injustice and oppression and everything else that opposes God in our world. But through his death and resurrection, Jesus has conquered the power of sin. It is no longer able to imprison us, and it no longer has the last word over creation. Jesus offered himself as a sacrificial lamb – the Lamb of God – to bear away the sin of the world.

Second, Jesus is the one who comes before John. John is older than Jesus, and yet he says Jesus out-ranks him because he is older. John is claiming that Jesus existed before his own birth – and in saying this, John is saying that Jesus is a part of God, that he shares in the life of God. He is not simply Rabbi, a teacher among the great religious teachers of the world, but rather God himself, the God before which every idol and every other so-called god will bow. When we say in the creed that we believe that Jesus is of one Being with the Father, this is what we mean.

Third, Jesus is the one who is baptized in and will baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also a divine person together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit marks him out as God’s unique instrument to bring about the conquering of all evil and the end of sin. [4]

John the Baptist’s testimony is a complete Christology; it told his followers everything they needed to know about Jesus. But they still only recognized Jesus when Jesus invited them to come and see.

IV.

This is the season after Epiphany. Epiphany is about realizing that Jesus is not just Rabbi, not just a teacher, but Lord of the universe. Jesus is not just a baby in a manger but the crucified God on a cross. John told his disciples what they needed to know, but his disciples didn’t come to realize who Jesus was until he invited them to come and see. Epiphany is about moving from “What are you looking for?” to “Come and see” where Jesus is staying, and, having seen, believed.

So, come and see. Maybe you’re one of those people who’s never satisfied, whose husband is never quite good enough, whose kids are never quite smart enough. Maybe you’re always looking for something that will satisfy: more money, more lovers, one more hour with your family. Maybe you’re looking for answers about why life has turned out the way that it has.

Come and see where the Messiah is staying. Come and see Jesus the Lamb of God at work in our lives: this Epiphany may the Lamb of God will help us to conquer long-standing destructive habits. Come and see where the Messiah is staying. Come and see the one who has come from God living in the midst of our broken hearts, in the midst of our chaotic lives; come and know that you are not alone, not far from God, but that Jesus is right in the midst of our brokenness and chaos. Come and see where the Messiah is staying and receive the Holy Spirit: receive power to live a life that is based solely on bearing witness to what this Messiah has done, receive healing in all the broken places of our lives; receive courage to see the world differently, the way that Jesus the Messiah sees it.

In a few moments time, we will come to receive the Eucharist, to receive Jesus into our bodies. May each of us invite him in that moment to come and see us, and to remain with us. In the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

[1] “My Shot”.

[2] “Non-Stop”.

[3] The Gulag Archipelago.

[4] Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, v.1, Anchor Bible Commentary, 58-66.

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