This Girl's Worth

So I must admit, as I am finding my new confidence, I have this insatiable desire to be petty. I don’t want to let anyone get away with a single thing. I know where it stems from. I didn’t have boundaries for so long because I wanted to “understand people”,so when I had to stand up for myself, I felt guilty and ungodly, which caused me a world of pain and unnecessary experiences. When the guilt of boundaries began to come off of me, I felt like the big bad wolf. Well, maybe not the big bad wolf, but I felt rough and stuff with my Afro puffs. Don’t even try and play me. If you eva’ tried to talk bad about me, I had the receipts, and I was going to expose whomever I needed to. But just when I was about to be great petty, the Lord intervened in my life.

Now, I am not going to lie, I had a temper tantrum with God. Let me give you some context on just one of the struggles I had recently so you can understand my rationale. I was in an almost four year entanglement with a narcissist a beautiful man of God. Now, I could go into a rant about what happened to me in that relationship, but I’m don’t have the time to put someone on blast today that’s another conversation. To say the least, we ended up cutting contact after we were already basically not talking. There was no closure in our breakup. It was dysfunctional. Despite the emotional abuse, psychological abuse, constant lying, and manipulation I experienced, I didn’t hate this person. I actually still have love for him. I knew this person came from a traumatic childhood and so there were some things that weren’t normal. This is the nicest I could say it, so don’t come at me.

While I don’t believe a single person is perfect, I don’t subscribe to this idea of your side of the story versus my side of the story. There is only the truth. The events are the events. Manipulators are really good at getting you to question the events that transpired. They can create arguments about the sequence of events which deflects from the issue at hand, which is the crappy behavior. The only thing that is “your perspective” is your feelings.

So, my side of the story is the truth. Why would I say this? Because I won’t deny a single thing that I did,why I did it, and I won’t make excuses for my behavior. When I talk about the relationship, I talk about the events and the effects. I was (am) willing to admit I wasn’t the best version of myself at the end of the relationship because of the amount of abuse I experienced. I had become depressed, fearful,anxious, aggressive defensive, and nervous. Even now, when I have to explain myself, my shoulders get stiff, my head starts pounding, I start talking faster and with anger in my voice, even if I am not angry. That came from being in a relationship where I had to become a lawyer to get my feelings to be heard. It does something to you when you have to explain to someone why basic things like them walking away while you’re talking, cornering you while arguing, not sexually respecting your boundaries, or how constant lying negatively impacts you. It teaches you that you have to protect your feelings at all costs. Mentally, I lived in fight mode, even when it’s not that serious. It’s post relationship trauma.

So after all that was said and done, I decided to let bygones be bygones and to talk about the relationship as neutral as I could. Just because things didn’t work out, doesn’t mean I have to completely bash him. Was I going to tell the truth, absolutely, but I still had an ounce of belief that we meant something to each other. However, the love was never mutual and he decided to talk about me in his podcast, saying I wasn’t good for him and that he only stayed with me because he thought he needed me.

Skkkrrrr. Hol’ up! Now, I was a of things in the relationship. Codependent, yes. Lacking boundaries so I gave too many chances, oh Lord, but good for him? Darn right I was good for him. So when he decided to show his butt and spread lies, I was ready to drop all sorts of receipts: screenshots of text messages and Facebook messages, letters and cards written, emails admitting everything he had done, text messages with business ideas I’ve given him that he’s currently using. I was about to come full fledged. I even imagined it in my head. I was going to release my blog and podcast to the public. The title was going to be “Addressing my Ex”. I was ready to put it on my Facebook where his family could see. I was going to spill every little juicy detail. I wasn’t worried about protecting my image and looking perfect, I just wanted everyone to know the dysfunction I was dealing with. I recorded the episode. I wrote my blog post, and then the Lord said, “Skkkrrrrr!”

“Revenge is mine,” said the Lord.

I wasn’t trying to hear it. What do you mean? Do you see what your mans is doing, Lord? You’re going to let him play Your daughter like that?

I said, “But God, you said in the Bible that evil will be exposed, and he is walking around using Your name to spread lies, pretending that he is doing something Godly by lying on my name about me. You saw what happened. You saw what I went through. If I don’t expose him, no one will know. He will do this to other women like he did his exes and now me,”

God replied, “I want you to tell your story, but not like this. I want your story to be used for my glory. To teach, uplift other people, not to seek revenge. What is owed to him, he will receive. My Word says what you reap is what you sow. No one can make a mockery of God.” (Galatians 6:6-10; Deuteronomy 32:35, Proverbs 20:22)

That did not comfort me. Now, I’m frustrated.

“God, you know what I’ve been through. I understand grace and mercy, but why does it seem like he gets away with using me, and I have to be the good Christian girl and not defend myself. God, I stayed out of love. Even after all he did, I still tried to love him,and he desires to bring me down, to invalidate my love for him. Just for once, let me be petty. For once, I don’t want to do the right thing, I want to do what feels good. Releasing the truth will feel good. It will make things right. I’m tired of being angry about this and not defending myself”

“There it is. Your ego. That’s what this is about. You are angry at me because of him. I know what you’ve been through. I know that he invalidated your entire being. I know you bared your heart to him and he misused it. I know that you asked for consideration and he rejected you. I know it hurts to think about. I know that after all that was said and done, that he continued to invalidate your existence when you prayed that he would do well. Haven’t I been with you this entire time, comforting you when you stayed up crying about him? I know how many tears you cried about and for him. I know how you loved him when I asked you to. Trust Me and know that you prayed for me to remove him if he wasn’t for you, and I removed him from you. Remember how I love you. He had no intentions of loving you the same. You tried to love Him with My love, and for that, you will be blessed with love that you will know comes from Me. “

My heart started to soften towards what God was saying, and my defenses started to come down.

“But, you must also submit to me. You must remember that you are not perfect. You must remember that if you were to see him, you are to show My love. You are to show My mercy, you are to show My grace. You are not to play God. I removed him and so it shall be, but this is the level of forgiveness I need you to have in your heart. Remember, these are the things I also gave to you.”

God didn’t have to read me like that. I knew God wasn’t denying my love, He was asking me to love how I asked to be loved. The point was, God has me covered and I couldn’t forget that in my anger. Surely, there are some mistakes I made that I barely faced consequences for. There are struggles I dealt with as a consequence of my actions that no one knew. There were moments I was suffering and it whipped me into shape. I knew it was God dealing with me, pruning me. There were things I wanted so badly, and it didn’t work out. There were moments I just felt broken and alone because I was living in disobedience. Yet, simultaneously, there were also moments where God spoke to me and said I was made in His image when I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. Knowing that, how could I wish ill and want to destroy someone? With the Holy Spirit in me, I couldn’t.

It gives me peace knowing that God’s correction in love is far greater than the correction I desire to give in hate. At the end of the day, if what God does saves his soul and makes him the man of God he is supposed to be, I can hop off the petty train.

It’s not always about me, even though I’m God’s little brat, and sometimes I want it to be. God doesn’t want me to be great petty, He wants me to be Godly. I just so happen to like the Godly version of me better anyway.

Once again God, You win know what’s best for me!