I'm In Love!

YES, it's true I'm in love and so happy to share my testimony. It's been a long time coming but I'm finally here! After several failed relationships, years of waiting on "the one", many nights of both prayers and tears, and countless hours of self-reflection and pep talks with my girlfriends I have finally found the love that I was looking for. You would think that after seeing Ntozake Shange's play "For Colored Girls that Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" I would have gotten the message much sooner about the difficulty in finding your true love but unfortunately I didn't get it.  Ntozake summed it up perfectly with one powerful line in her play,  "I found God in myself and I loved her fiercely."   

Don't get me wrong I truly DESIRE the love of a man in my life and look forward to the day that God allows me to meet my soul mate and future husband. I have desired to be in a committed relationship for years but I had to get the same life lesson Lauryn Hill writes about in one of her song's...

"Father you saved me and showed me that life

Was much more than being some foolish man's wife."

I did not realize that the love I was looking for in a marriage was different from the love that I needed to develop as a woman. I thought the love I longed for inside could be provided by someone on the outside. The truth is that no man alive could fill that void. It was on;y through my understanding of God's love that I became liberated enough to love myself deeper and created an abundance of love for me to share with another. I needed to quench my thirst with something beyond the confines of this physical world. I needed to tap into the unlimited supply of unconditional and unmerited love by Jesus Christ. I finally understood the true nature of LOVE. I knew what the bible taught about love but I just didn't realize it was to be applied to self as well.  

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not        

  dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

        Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. ~ 1 Corinth 13:4-8

Ironically, I had not anticipated that through the pain of rejection I would be FORCED to work on self-acceptance. I had not fathomed the idea that the perceived curse of "loneliness" was the very emotion that FORCED me to deal with past pain and unresolved emotions. I certainly could not mentally process that the shattering of my ego would reveal the true state of my self-esteem. It was actually my brokenness that FORCED  me to gather all of the shattered pieces of my spirit and create a beautiful mosaic of self-love, self-mastery, self-acceptance and radical forgiveness.  

Y'ALL I FINALLY GOT IT!!!!!  I have been waiting on ME to show up! I've spent so much time waiting to love or be loved by the "right man" that I totally resisted and resented the fact that God allowed me to experience singleness as a blessing to master self-love. God  has not been denying me any love but He been showering  me and teaching me how to love Him, myself and others without limitations, conditions or judgments. 

The irony is that I thought self-love was the LAST area I needed help mastering.  As far as I remember, I've always had a very confident air about myself and a huge dose of self-esteem. Well..to be perfectly honest what I have realized is that I only mastered the ability to support an ego that could shut down the bully in the school yard and bold enough to be competitive with my peers. However, often at night when I was left alone with my thoughts and no one was around I knew I didn't measure up to the image that I wanted "everybody" to believe about me. For many years, after my ego would drift off to sleep I would lay wide awake feeling like a fraud, inadequate, and unable to measure up to the image that my external self displayed to the world.  

Then life taught me.......

As my grandma would say, "Baby just keep on living and Life will teach you everything you need to know." I didn't know what the heck she was talking about but I GOT IT NOW! Life has been my greatest teacher! I think they call that wisdom. (smile) And yes sometimes I still experience feelings of loneliness but I now recognize that I am never ever alone.  Being able to distinguish the difference between the two has changed my life. 

My love journey has been an interesting one and it still goes on! My love affair with others and myself has gone through it's share of ups and downs, twists and turns, and many trials and tribulations. However, I have finally arrived at the point in my journey that "my love" is not about someone else, selfishness or how-my-ego feels but it is firmly rooted in God's unconditional love. Like with any relationship, self- love is an ever evolving and deepening process...my journey continues. Now even on my loneliest and most challenging days I can  tap into a greater LOVE with a simple reminder and declaration, "God LOVES Me and so do I"! (and now I truly know what it means)