Sandpiper Searching

Long time no type babes! 
Life has been eventful in both great and terrible ways.

This morning I woke up to altered weekend plans, I woke up confused and humbled by my own nativity. 
I woke up single. . . again.
So, where did the day take me?
Where the sand meets the sea and where salt water heals the broken. 
I maybe yelled at God a little bit, cried just a teensy bit, and let go of a lot. Ultimately, I asked God for a word or phrase or SOMETHING that I could climb out of this rut with. 

I didn't hear an audible voice but my eyes were drawn to the tiny birds that run back and forth between the breaking waves searching desperately for nourishment. I watched them and I thought about how i've been running myself ragged trying to fill my own voids. That was it, that was the revelation I asked for and it is as simple as this:

"When God has something or someone truly good for you, you are not going to have to keep running into the deep to seek and dig it out yourself. He will bring it/them to you."

Don't be the Sandpiper. 

Let it be. 

He will provide. 

I was also reminded of something my friend Mango wrote about a few months ago:

“You can so easily build a knight in shining armor out of a man made of straw.”

Do not over promise, do not compromise and do not date on someones POTENTIAL. People will show you who they are, don't ignore the little things that make your heart drop a bit or your stomach clench. Trust your instincts, but also realize that there is no perfect man. 

That is a lot to keep in mind but only because dating is such a convoluted game these days. I wish I could go back, clear the record and just wait on God's timing. I can do that going forward but I can't go back and gather up the pieces of me that I gave to all those men boys of straw. Those are precious pieces and you should protect them, your knight in shining armor will care about those pieces enough to protect them. 

In the meantime, (try to) enjoy being single, get to know yourself really well and go on some rad adventures. You have the rest of your life to be somebodies somebody, today just be  your own person. Have fun. You don't have to be lonely though you are alone for this season. 

Tootles for now!

Peter Pans and Magnolia Farms

With a title like that I was scratching my head too, but I think i'll be able to tie it in a nice little bow for y'all. 

Sorry, i've been hooked on Fixer Upper while intermittently running down to the laundry mat to tend to the linens or whatever. 

So anyway ladies, I'm going to talk about some un-fun stuff, also about the "ultimate dream" and what it looks like to bridge that gap. Anyone who knows me, can pretty much tell that I've not had much success with the ol' L word, L O V E.  Maybe I have a light up sign on my forehead advertising that I really-enjoy-being-treated-badly or maybe I just like people with problems, I don't know. Either way, not good. 

The past is the past right? 

Yeah, but I keep finding them and somehow it manages to surprise and devestate me each time that they turn out to be peter-pans. 

I don't know about you, but I am really freaking tired of keeping quiet and being a doormat for THOSE types of guys to tread on. I mean, what a waste of time and dreams, in each situation there have been some good memories - ish, but more so there was lot of slashing into my confidence, trust and heart leaving scars that feel a mile wide some days. I'm foolish but I'm hopeful too. Despite the past, that I have to accept is mine, I almost always believe that people can change. They don't, not those type of people. They see nothing wrong with how they treat others and rarely admit fault. 

I am grateful to have people in my life that force me to see what is really there and not romanticize it. I'm a dreamer with a stubborn soul, I don't like to let go and I really hate being wrong about someone. But I was wayyyyy wrong recently. 

Babes, just please don't settle. Don't try to make an excuse for someone who is selfish enough to put you down like its a sport, someone who feels it necessary to read you the ingredients off of the dang spray butter bottle, or doesn't think to include you in their plans for the future, when you would have moved your life for them. Just don't. 

What should one do when they don't have a template for what is worth waiting for? 

Short answer: watch Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines all day on HGTV.

 

#RelationshipGoals

Longer answer: fall for yourself first - you have to know your worth to know that you deserve better. 

I can tell that i'm in a slightly better place than I was last year because I down right couldn't stand how I was being manipulated /treated last weekend, so I did the hard thing and had a heartbreaking conversation - at least for me, because I had invested too much. 

It was also a major step to be able to be so vulnerable, but it got little ridiculous with the tears. . . just picture Splash Mountain on a 24 hour cycle. 

After you stand up for yourself and cut off dead branches, you have to connect with your savior - only He can fill the gap that you are asking a human man to. Write a list and be VERY specific about what you want in a man, God already knows but He likes to grow us which means digging deep and being honest.  

Next step, STOP COMPARING.

For whatever reason this is the journey that you are on and for right now they best way for you navigate it is alone. Someday it will all make sense. 

Once you have your template it won't be so hard to see who stacks up and who wouldn't make the cut if they were a zillionaire or not. 

The results of how I spent my lazy Saturday = my couch now has an Aly shaped indent and I want to buy an old ranch in Waco, Texas just to have fixer upper come by to hang out and um, fix it up. 

Books that I would recommend:

I Don't Wait Anymore - Grace Thornton

Wild and Free - Jess Connolly and Haley Morgan

Scary Close - Don Miller

Also, I've been reading a lot of Job - trust me, whatever man problems/anything else that you boss babes might be facing. . .it could be so much worse! haha.

Have a happy 4th of July weekend lovies!

Are you mad AT or mad FOR your Maker?

Do you want to hear something legitimately silly?

Sometimes, I get mad at God, like ball up your fists and 'pout or shout' about it mad. 

From His heavenly view, it must be hilarious to watch this freaking ant-sized girl full of sass and regret, stomping around trying to negotiate acts of faith for tangible wishes granted. 

Those of you who are enduring a season of waiting will recognize the exasperation of there not being a clear answer or end to the "whens" and "whys".  I heard one of those statistics the other day about how much of our lives we spend washing laundry, grocery shopping and on the toilet and I just started to wonder about other ways in which I, personally, am wasting my one trip around the sun. 

One obvious thing stuck out.

The shear amount of time I spend praying, wishing, dreaming, begging, picturing, writing, and thinking about how much I don't want to be alone anymore. About wishing that prince in shining armor would just ride up in his white mustang already. . . it's exhausting. I don't know if I've ever wanted anything as much as I want to be with that forever person. 

It hasn't been an easy journey to try and find him. 

Settle down RyGos. . .

So far I thought that I found "him" 5 times, my track record sucks but, I guess, Ryan Gosling was never really an option, haha.

Growing up I was pretty naive and pumped up on Nicholas Sparks novels, I thought life consisted of reaching a certain age, finding your person, getting married, having a family and then growing old while your brood doubled or tripled in size. I thought that was the whole point, I was sure that God had hand selected one person for each of us and the biggest challenge I would face would be figuring out which guy that I grew up with, would be at the end of the aisle. I never considered just how much could go wrong during that pursuit. I didn't entertain notions of divorce, waiting, infertility, long periods of singleness while everyone else you know seems to be drinking the engagement water or sending out birth announcements. I never knew how bitter I could be or that I would blame God for forgetting about me. But I did. 

Judge me if you must but, who else could possibly be to blame. . . ? 

Me? 

Don't be cray cray.

Many times I've repeated Jeremiah 29:11 to friends that needed encouragement along their own journeys, but the promise was lost on me because I couldn't see it in my present situation. 

Ladies, if you are waiting on that miracle man, baby or whatever else might be near/dear to your heart, it is not God's fault that we don't have what we think we need, desperately want, or feel we might deserve. We have to stop comparing our lives to those of the ones we envy on social media.

Let's not focus on what we don't have, lets take stock of the blessings we do have and look forward to what might someday be, with excitement - without robbing us of the here and now. 

Your life is not "paused" because you are waiting. There was/is a bend in your path to give you the opportunity to experience something that not all get the opportunity to. If you can not muster Queen-Bey-like contentment and confidence, if, instead you struggle with singleness like myself, use this time of un-distractedness to redirect your focus, be purposeful. Practice being happier than you feel and kinder than you're inclined to. Learn to love yourself. Thank God for this time to bind your heart to His before He places it in the hands of the man who is worthy of it. 

Trust me, settling is an awful, broken thing straight from hell.

Babes, I'm preaching to myself here too,  I want to be expectant of great things.

I want to be intentional with this time and not wish away my 20's, Lord knows they are flying by fast enough as is!

Daniel 3:18

Just know that when relatives or older people or sometimes even your peers, make comments that hurt and remind you of what you don't have. . .they haven't walked a mile in your bada** boots, they haven't lived through what you have. Things were different for them and God bless em, good for them! You are not "less" simply because you aren't in their position. You are enough and your life matters just as much. 

You aren't forgotten darling, 

He is holding you a little closer right now to prepare you for the blessings headed your way! 

Praise hand up, thats worth getting excited about!

W O R T H Y

Happy Saturday boss-babe-risers!

I have an exciting update for you. . .

We have a gorgeous new co-host coming to this blogosphere!

To me, she is Mango, however she will have a chance to properly introduce herself! Haha.

We are so excited about this blog, this platform to step out of our comfort zones and write about the God-placed things on our hearts. 

Being a voice for young millennial women, being an encouragement for the broken, being more honest than you are used to in this politically correct world, being ready for wherever this adventure takes us,  being a support for those who struggle to love themselves. 

We get it. 

We struggle in our own ways too, society is constantly pushing ideas on us about what we "SHOULD" be/do/idolize, they jabber on about what their narrow minded ideas of beauty, happiness or success looks like.

Screw that.

We are all beautiful, happiness and success will look different to each of us. 

Today I want to talk about a company that I absolutely L.O.V.E.

The Giving Keys

Y'all, I love supporting small businesses, this company is no exception!

They employ people who are transitioning out of homelessness, how great is that?!

Maybe you've seen people wearing keys engraved with words like, "Breathe", "Let Go", "Purpose", "Brave", "Hope", ect.

Have you ever wondered about that?

I did. 

I mean, old keys. . . cool, intentional words. . . cool. . .but why?

When you order a key with whatever word you choose, it can be one of their 12 standard options or a custom word, it comes in a little cloth bag  and a card inscribed with:

"PAY IT FORWARD

Embrace your word. Then

pay it forward to a person you

feel needs the message 

more than 

you."

It took me a few months to choose the right word for me. 

I decided on a word that I struggle with, a word that makes me both blush and feel disconnected to. 

I chose:

w o r t h y

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't cringing right flippin now while writing this out, 

but feeling worthy is something that I struggle with. 

Especially in the department of love.

This is not a sob story, but it is an honest one.

I grew up without a dad. 

For all intents and purposes he might have been there, 

at least until I was 14 and then he wasn't, but he was never there. 

I hardened my heart to the idea of a dad, 

I told myself that dads weren't really important and I didn't need him anyway. 

Fast forward 10 years and the very broken little girl inside my 24 year old heart was wondering how in the H E double hockey sticks I had ended up in such an awful, loveless and abusive relationship. 

I'm not mad at my dad, sometimes people can't handle what life hands them, 

but I see now, all that I missed in not having a dad. 

Dad's are supposed to teach their daughters about their worth.

They are supposed to show them how a man should treat them, what they should look for in a spouse, show them that they are a daughter of the most high king and as such should be treated with love and respect.

Not having that as a kid, left me grasping for whatever love I could find and not knowing my worth meant that with my ex-husband, I settled for the mood swings, the name calling, the degrading insults, the fighting, the abuse and just accepted that as being what I deserved. 

- Perks of Being a Wallflower

Flash forward another there years, E V E R Y T H I N G  in my life is different which is both good & bad.

Good because, duh I'm not with someone who makes me wish I wasn't alive.

Bad because, where the heck do I go from here? 

Dating has been an interesting and mostly horrible adventure. 

So horrible in fact that I put myself on a dating fast. 

Most of that was because once again, even though I had risen to the challenge and taken myself out of a horrible marriage, I still had no idea what I was worth. 

I fell into some of the same patterns, I attracted some similar guys. 

Not in an abusive sense just in a sense that they didn't honor my worth any more than I did, maybe they didn't see their own worth either. I don't know, but it wasn't what I was looking for. I didn't want more messes to contend with, but that what I got.

I think part of the problem is that, so often, people confuse LOVE with CO-DEPENDENCE.

That's a whole other post, but I know for me I fed off of the affection and affirmation, 

however it was very difficult to go any deeper then that. 

I couldn't bare my soul, I couldn't fully be myself.

It's been so weird and so great getting know myself during the dating fast.

I am a very introspective person, when I finally put down all the social masks and knocked down most of the protective barriers, I kind of liked what was left.

So i'm learning, I deserve more.

I am worth more, 

I am worthy of healthy, soul baring, life doing, butterfly inducing, God-created, forever love.

I am worth higher standards. 

After all, I am royalty. . . and so are you.

So this word "worthy", i'm still working on it.

Theres head knowledge and theres heart knowledge, 

it hasn't made its way to my heart yet.

For now, I wear the key as a reminder.

SIDE NOTE: I started a new job two weeks ago, yesterday I wore the key necklace for the first time. Two of my co-workers asked me about it. One of them said that the whole thing sounded amazing and the other one looked at me and said "Alyssa, you're worthy" without even knowing my story! Which reminded me, it's just a story.

It's what happened to me, it is not who I am.

Okay ladies, I hope you have an amazing weekend! 

What word would you choose if you ordered a key?

"It's not your time yet."

Have you ever been on the receiving end of those words?
Meant to comfort, yet left you feeling pretty raw and full of why's?
Me too.

My entire existence, I've heard about 'God's plan' for my life.
Several times I've veered (see also: nose-dived) off that path, only to find my way back wishing I had just stayed the course. I am impatient, I look too far ahead and want it all before it's ripened. I'm guessing I'm not the only one in this particular corner.

The season that I am in has left me quite jealous - bleh, I hate that word but I can't phrase it any other way. The age group that I am in, the people that I grew up with, most of them are engaged or married and starting families.  Even though we all got married around the same time, we didn't all stay married (oh wait, just me?), that puts me back a few steps. I understand that time has a say in all of this, it requires much to heal a wound that deep.

My heart so longs for the companionship of a spouse, and I actually want one of those screaming, pooping, cooing little things that it seems like everyone else has left the hospital with. I genuinely have never wanted to have children more than I have in the last year or so. But I can't, being single, I don't have the other half of the required DNA strand. I don't have someone to adventure with or learn and grow with. It would be different if I was happy in my singleness but I think it's safe to say that I am decidedly not overjoyed about it. The most common antidotal phrase that one hears whilst whining about such a problem is "it's just not your time yet", well why the heck not?

Not to make a mockery of God's plan but why would He create such a strong desire in my heart only to have me wait? I'm sorry Lord but the wait has made me bitter, I don't get it. It feels like i'm forgotten. Can I just be blunt and say that I'm pretty upset about it? (If you couldn't tell, lol)
I mean, after everything I went through, I definitely expected there to be a well earned, unicorn, fairy dust, weak in the knees, type of love on the other end of that battle.

Switching gears:
I've had some time to think about this, I think the answer lies in the fact that I feel like I deserve a relationship, I deserve the happily ever after - don't get me wrong, i'm hella worth it, but God doesn't OWE me that. He's not indebted to my wants. He has a good plan but it doesn't mean that He will give me exactly what I, in my humanness, want. Does that make sense? No? You've probably never been to church and think I sound bat-crap crazy. Sorry, google Jeremiah 29:11 - it'll make a little more sense, haha.

Last year my counselor recommended that I read "The New Rules of Love, Sex, and Dating" by Andy Stanley - I really didn't want to. I didn't care about anything at that point so reading a dating book wasn't high on my list of things to do. However, I wanted to finish up counseling so I ordered it.
It collected dust for awhile. I started to read a little bit of it, which was actually pretty interesting - but I was dating someone (awful) and I didn't like being so confounded by the truths in that book. Once again it sat for a month or so. As I closed in on my twenty seventh birthday I finally deiced to finish it so I could donate it or burn it or whatever. This time around though, the experience was completely different. I was open to the wisdom before me, I didn't feel guilty about what I read. I laughed, I dog-eared the pages, I told my friends about it, highlighted it, and lent it out to a friend when I was done. Most importantly, I took the challenge at the end of the book.

Andy Stanley had the nerve to challenge me to take a break from dating, the idea seemed preposterous - I was actively trying to find my one true love and settle the heck down, not settle into singleness. He wasn't wrong though, I kept finding myself at the end of these relationships in which I left feeling unwanted and worthless. I was constantly searching and not finding. I was obsessed with the idea of getting engaged and having the perfect do-over wedding and then, then I could have it all. The family that I so longed for, I would be able to relate to my friends again and feel worthy.

This self-forced break encouraged me to take a hard look at why I didn't feel worthy. It forced me to date me, to find things about me that I like. Instead of trying to get someone else to fall in love with me and make me acceptable for me. Thats a heck of a lot of 'me' but you get the point. I ended up telling a lot of people about it and two more of my friends hopped on the bandwagon, which is great.
But I lost my focus a while back, while diligently searching for my one true love, I neglected my first love. God put the dating break in front of me so i'd have no choice but to look upward and inward, and learn that I am very much wanted and loved, I was created for a purpose and as His kid I am worthy. I only have a few more months of this fast and as much as I loathe being single I'm going to stick it out to prove to myself that I can make a commitment and follow through.
The book begged the question:
"Are you becoming the person that the person you are looking for, is looking for?"
Four months ago the answer was no, today the answer sounds a little more like i'm 'in the process'.

I haven't risen completely above those pangs of envy that Facebook and Instagram tend to generate but, I don't hate myself for not having a husband and children, yet.
Someday it'll be "my time", right?
Yeah.
Some day.

If you are waiting, be encouraged - you are not alone and this season might just be a gift.