GIRLS ARE CRAZY.

Girls are crazy.

I’ll never understand it. I pick regular fights with my boyfriend and they all play out like the same bad dream, really. In the dream, I’m running and running straight for a monster cliff, but I’m powerless to control my actions. Everything inside of me yells, ‘hello, you’re headed straight for some serious self-destruction’. But, my body doesn’t seem to care and continues recklessly skipping towards the edge. Right before the plunge, I slip back into consciousness and wonder why or how this ever seemed a good idea. Poor chap.

Judge me for my honesty, if you must, and have mercy for my patient-slow-to-anger boyfriend. This takes an extreme amount of courage and a huge gulp of pride to even write about. My hope is to speak truth to the women. I guess it’s possible that I’m alone in this emotional defeat, but I have to believe in this underground crazy girl circuit. And nobody talks about it, or else will get our pledge’o’sanity card taken away.

“Hi, I’m Jen and I am an emotional mess.”

Dare I say it is a gift from God?

God made us emotional at our very core and it reveals to us a piece of his character—though tragically much has been lost in the translation. God packaged us perfect and balanced. An apple tree later, we arrive in a fallen world with no instructions and unable to return to sender the damaged pieces. This is my attempt to sort through the emotion and find truth in a sea of lies. My desire is to place a healthy understanding of the strength we have in Jesus Christ and use that to not drown our emotions but to recognize it for what it is and go on to defeat the enemy.

I can trace the brokenness back to high school. The desire to be sought after lead me on an exciting game of catch and release that always left me wanting more. I asked of each boy a void that was impossible to fill; a huge undertaking for a movie hero, let alone a high school Casanova. And for whatever reason my heart was “broken” the first time, I carried baggage over to the next and so on and so on, and so on. Some seven years later I realize Satan has learned to use every bit of my dysfunctional youth to destroy anything good I get my hands on. When I was single he would whisper the same sweet lie to me over and over:

You’re too much. You’re not enough. You’re unlovable, unworthy, and WAY too emotional.

And the irony of it all is now that I’m in a relationship, the lies still ring true.

You’re too much. You’re not enough. You’re unlovable, unworthy, and WAY too emotional.

Now I won't excuse the boys as completely innocent. So gentlemen, don’t take this as your ticket to slack off. I believe we live in an era where boys have too easily forgotten the art of pursuit. Men take the role of finding a helpmate with a splash of laziness and a heaping of passivity…shaken not stirred. And in a twisted chain of events girls have become the aggressor, the hunter. The roles have been flipped and everybody loses. But, for the sake of this argument,the emotional battle is ours to conquer… not theirs.

…

I’ve spent a fair share of my life consumed by chick flicks, self-help books and human experiments all trying to figure out the trick--unlocking the key to making a relationship magical and movie-esque—each time losing a piece of my self and my faith in romance. First mistake, I sought after movie love. The thing about movie love is it doesn’t exist for longer than an hour (three if it’s the Titanic). Men aren’t strong communicators and that’s why I would argue they cast men playing actors and not actors playing men. Please don’t brush this off as cynical or anti-men. If anything, I’m trying to help the men out here. If we are always waiting for men to meet us at the top of the Empire State building, we’ll miss the men who want to talk over coffee.

Next problem with movie love would be the lack of Jesus. My relationship is nothing if it doesn’t glorify The Maker. There is a direct connection with my contentness in a relationship and my spiritual walk. So, I’ve boiled it down to this. When my thoughts are vertical and I find my value in Jesus Christ, He fills the void that would otherwise be rendered empty if it were left up to a boy. In a sense, loving Jesus makes it easy for a boy to love me.

I am capable of being loved. I am beautiful. And when I start to believe otherwise I need to recognize it for what it is... a bold face lie. I know this, because if I open up my Bible the truth shouts out from its pages that I am made in the image of God. I am a beautiful creation who already has the love of The Creator. A love that pursues me to depths I cannot comprehend—a powerful love that is made perfect in weakness. If I believe Truth than I understand that God will fill the desires of my heart. It’s a devastating love triangle where He desires me as I desire worldly love and should desire Him. Most importantly when I settle for anything short of God’s love, I will collapse every time… every single earth shattering, heart breaking time.