Being Negative...it's easy

Boy do I know all too well the truth of the above statement. In all, I'm actually a bubbly, goofy, funny, down to earth positive person...accept when it comes to relationships. Every experience I've ever had with a love relationship, or a desired love relationships has left me feeling disappointed, rejected and empty. So of course, me being the analytical and logical person that I am; and wanting to avoid anymore pain in an area that seemed extremely impossible, my solution was to avoid the subject all together. What I mean is avoid the act of being hopeful or positive about that subject; or at least it's occurrence in my life.
If you know me well, or if you've a read a couple of my blogs (and you're an insightful person who can wrap your mind around this concept) I basically gave up on love being a part of my life all together. Every time I would become the least bit expectant or hopeful, I would quickly start to say out of my mouth how love could never and most likely would never be a part of my life. As far as I was concerned; it was an impossibility. Usually when I say that, people become confused.
Some give their opinion about my physical beauty as a reason for their confusion; to which I'm flattered but I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; and it's not that I necessarily feel I need the approval of men; but it occurs to me that men reared in our society find that my kind of beauty is secondary; and if by chance they do feel that it is not, I'm usually not attracted to them. Once in a blue moon, maybe once every 7 light years or so, someone will be attracted to me that I'm attracted too... or at least that's how it seems. Some people compliment me on my intelligence as a reason for their confusion. Interestingly enough, since I am an insightful, analytical, opinionated person, to me that was precisely the reason why men didn't like me. The idea of a man liking me because of those things, I must admit even now still seems kind of unlikely.
So before you stop reading this because of all the "negative" comments I'm making, let's shift gears. I'm sure this may be true for others, but I have definitely wondered why it is so hard for me to believe that anything good can happen to me in this particular area of my life. Have you ever met someone (maybe you) who seemed to be so hopeful and positive about everything else in their life accept one thing; or who even had faith that God would do amazing things in that area in your life or someone else's life but not theirs? As if, somehow God either could not or just flat out would not bless this area of their lives. Does it drive you crazy? Probably, huh?

Have you ever asked them why they feel that way? I've had people ask me why I felt that way; not many but some. At first, it was very difficult to explain and I couldn't put it into words. But then why I was able to put it into words, no one was listening anymore...for whatever reason. It might have had to do with one particular man that I was speaking about that the listener assumed I was chasing (I suppose since I was talking about him so much {by the way, that can be any man that I've ever had feelings for ever, not one in particular, lest I get emails and phone calls})

That happened allot. I would begin to have feelings for a man, it would freak me out, and I would begin my process of analyzing and over analyzing every single solitary aspect of him, his behavior, his behavior toward me, his behavior towards women, what people said about him etc etc. The list goes on. I always had a billion and one questions. I had these questions way before the man even said anything other than hello to me. If I could see something in his body language, or a frequency of him looking at me, or a way that he looked at me that even remotely seemed to suggest in the least or the slightest that he even thought I was attractive and I was attracted to him, I was scared out of my mind and found it extremely necessary to begin trying to figure him out. In the early years, I went about this by trying to get to know him. I would never wait for him to ask me out (partly because I couldn't go out on dates when I was growing up. {That's a hint for parents right there; if your daughter is old enough to drive, and have a job, if she can't ask your permission to go out on a date with someone, something is wrong. One of the set backs of that is that if you never let her date while she's in your house, she'll leave your house with absolutely no clue about how a man is supposed to treat her. She may also have some deep rooted low self esteem that you don't know about because she doesn't feel she can go to you about it. Just some food for thought.} )

In any event, whether I was a teen growing up or a young woman in college, it didn't matter....I was totally freaked out. When I say freaked out, believe me that's exactly what I mean. As I got older, and the chances of me ever having that as part of my life seemed slimmer and slimmer, my anxiety got worse and worse and worse. It went from a simple feeling of discomfort to having a serious amount of tension in my neck, my back, my shoulders accompanied with my heart pounding, my blood racing and an extremely present feeling of wanting to get out of the situations as soon as humanly possible. Psychologists call this the "fight or flight" feeling; referring to the feeling that you either have to fight your way out of a situation or run away as fast as you can(flight). That's how much anxiety was in my brain in just considering the idea.
Whenever a situation would go south, for example if I would find out that they in actuality didn't really like me or that they had chosen to be in a relationship with someone else or I wasn't "their type", what do you think happened? If your guessing major emotional pain, you're right. What I was never able to articulate was that the result was always the same no matter what I did. If I called them incessantly, it ended like that. If I didn't say anything at all, it ended like that. If I was candid and honest about my feelings, it ended like that; if I was secretive and withdrawn and despondent, it ended like that. If I was my usual self it ended like that. It absolutely did not matter how I acted or didn't act, the result was ALWAYS the same.
Now a curious thing can happen when you feel overly rejected for a long period of time. You can definitely feel flawed, unwanted and scared; but another emotion that doesn't show up in everyone but definitely has the potential to.

Anger. Bitterness. Resentment.

I became SO incredibly angry at men. They became a part of the "society" that had always rejected me for simply being myself; and I was very angry at them. My anger was fueled by hearing the typical banter of women who came before me like "all men are dogs" and "a man is gonna be a man" and "men are another species." These little sayings had the tendency to sound like men didn't have any feelings at all, or like the only thing they were concerned about was their own sexual desires and whatever they had to do to get it, be it lie, cheat, steal, or force a woman with rape; they were willing to do to get their "needs" met. Truthfully speaking, I have to say that I still wonder weather or not that's true. So I was angry....very angry....another confession; sometimes I still am.
By the time I was 22, I already had a plethora of negative ideas about men and about love. Even in the events that I did meet great men, honorable men; somehow it still seemed to me that I would never be blessed with having one of them love me with a romantic kind of love and me actually love them back. That just seemed impossible. Sometimes it still does. I mean what were the chances that? I, the girl who got talked about all the time in school, the girl who got picked on a regular basis, and the girl who the boys made fun of and laughed at would EVER be acceptable to people who seemed so extremely driven by acceptance from a society that would never accept me? When was that ever going to happen? On what planet? Are you kidding?Not likely, is what I thought.
The thing about this is that even though there is still a desire there to have the companionship and love of a man that I actually love back, it is still a very hard pill for me to swallow. Since it is so hard to grasp, even now; the very idea or concept just seems so incredibly far fetched to me. Now I have a major dilemma: God has made it clear to me that love and marriage is definitely a part of his plan for my life. As you may have already ascertained, even though God has said this, it still doesn't make sense to me. I mean I know that He has in fact said this by the spirit of God, but in my logical mind, it makes no sense and is incredibly far fetched....which would make all attempts to get to know anyone of the male gender who I'm attracted to or who has expressed (verbally or otherwise) attraction to me a waste of time and energy. It just doesn't seem like there is a point to that.
Even though I STILL can't make sense of it, God continues to echo the same thing. On top of the fact that God is relentless about that, he's also relentless that the man I am to marry will be a phenomenal man of God with a powerful anointing and call on his life. Great God, make it harder why don't you?!! Just how many of those type of men are around that are actually single(and would actually interested in me)? 5? 10? 15? I mean on one hand, I've always felt that there was no point in marriage other than to be married to the man that I was created for so that we can do the work that God created us and brought us together to do. On the other hand, my experience says very clearly that there is no way, no how.
So what do I do?What should we as women do with the promises of God? Especially those of us who have been so assaulted by life, and have dealt with the pain of rejection time and time again? What about those of us who have every logical reason why there is no way that love could ever be a part of our lives either because of the pain we feel from being abused, neglected, or dejected? Should we go with what we feel or what God has said?

The bible says this: "For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." (2 Corinthians 1:20) It also says this about God: "...he is faithful that promised." (Hebrews 10:23) The word of God is filled with instances where God made a promise and delivered on His promise; even when it seemed impossible. God told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations way after he or his wife Sarah were able to bare children. (Genesis) Although Sarah and Abraham wavered in their faith in God and decided to take matters into their own hands, God was still faithful to deliver what he had promised, never mind the fact that it defied logic, reason and biology.
In the same book of the bible, there is the account of Noah. God told Noah that there would be a great rain more than a century before it happened. Although people jeered, and made fun of Noah, what God had told him more than one hundred years before had actually taken place. In the book of Luke, it says "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!" (1:45)It's important for us that may be discouraged to note that God ALWAYS delivers what he promises. But we are partners with God in that we activate and access his promises through our faith and trusting in him. "without faith it is impossible to please God..." (Hebrews 11:6) God is definitely well able to do anything and everything. (Ephesians 3:20)
What we have to do is to pursue our healing, believe God again and stand in agreement with what HE says, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how it may look or how it may feel. So even though, I'm still a work in progress; and even though there are a number of things that still need to come out of me before I am ready to be any man's wife, and even though truthfully the thought still scares me a little, and even though I still have so many questions; in the end of it all, I have an obligation to myself, my God and my future husband to believe God and trust God. That's definitely a process, and it doesn't happen over night. However, I know that if He says it, then that settles it in the earth.
God has been working on me for quite some time and telling me to stop repeating what I feel and what it looks like and to only repeat what he has said and is saying (either by his RHEMA divine word directly to me or by his written word.) I'll tell you what; it's definitely not easy....and I'm definitely biting my lip allot lately.......but I know that in the end it'll be worth it. Soon, it'll be harder to be negative as it is now to be positive. I hope you make that same decision until we meet again. May God show you again what he said, and may He give you the grace to hold on to it, process it, and believe it...as I am endeavoring to do.
Be blessed.
Sarah E. Rios
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