#leslieanne

Two days after Christmas and man I miss talking to you. I miss laughs with you and just special moments with you. So instead of texting you or calling you, I decided it would be best to write how I feel on here. I mean no one would ever really know who I am, kinda, but I don’t really care. Nothing on the internet is safe haha.

Stew,

I miss you every single day. I wake up in the morning hoping for a text that I know I won’t reply to. I go to sleep hoping I get a call or a text from you. I think about you literally every single day. Where did it all go wrong? I wish that we could be together. But I know for both of our own good, that now is not the time. I know how much each of us just want this to work. How much we both want to grow alongside each other and walk our faith with each other in our lives. But this is why I believe that now is not the time:

There is still so much to grow within both of us. Yes, we are walking in our faith. Yes, we are being obedient to the Lord. Yes, we have a fire inside our hearts that has not been there for so long. But it would be premature for us to jump back into the relationship that we once had. When I think of us doing that, I see a lot of chaos. There is still so much healing that needs to be done. On my end, there are things that I have realized that I could not see while we were together. 

We cannot be in a relationship with each other until we have healed from our past hurts. That includes our relationship and any other relational toll that we taken onto our load throughout our life. Without allowing God to heal us, this leaves room for the enemy to sell us lies of insecurity, fear, anxiety, etc. And the enemy will use that until he breaks us apart. This will continue to happen if we do not heal. Time does not heal everything...intention heals everything. And I learned that if we never heal, so many aspects of our relationship do not allow our individual selves to truly be who we are. 

I noticed that we are both free-spirited, personable, and fun people. This is such a beautiful aspect of us both! We love to be free and independent, we thrive off of having our own personal boundaries that are not constructed by the insecurities of our past. You see, when we are not healed, we constantly put these walls for each other between other people. We are not secure with each other being our true selves. And I believe we’ve gotten pretty crazy about it. Both of us. And that is not who we are. Now some things that we ask of each other are within reason, but I believe that both of our hearts stemmed from a place of insecurity or fear or lack of trust. I don’t want either of us to feel like we’re on a leash. And I felt that with you. I felt that I couldn’t really be myself when I was with you. I felt that I was being somebody else. Which is probably part of the reason as to why you felt that I wasn’t being honest with you. I do not want to once again lose my identity and I’m sure that you do not want that either. 

I think it is best for us to just be friends. If we end up together, then that’s amazing. I think we work great together. But I know on my end, that I could never fully commit to you unless I have already healed and let go all of the fears and insecurities of the past. I truly do not know if a marital commitment will ever be possible with us because there is just so. much. pain. On both ends, it is just so much. And though our simple moments with each other are so perfect, when we look at each other, we are constantly reminded of who we used to be and the ways that we have hurt each other. I truly do not know. It would be amazing to look at you and not feel like every other girl is worth so much more than me. It would be amazing to not even bat an eye when a girl’s body is better than mine or feel enraged that you noticed her. It would be amazing that I would see myself beautiful when I am with you. It would be amazing to not feel like every question you ask me is as if you were interrogating me. So. many. things. I just wish I could erase it all. I pray that God would heal all of our pains, our worries, our fears. I miss my best friend so much. I wish that our relationship as friends would be the same as a possible relationship with each other.

Being an emotion-led being, I find myself time and time again lacking the confidence of being able to communicate the way that I yearn to. My emotions flood me and there really is no source of peace when both my emotions and thoughts become scrambled together, leaving my mental chaotic and my outer relationships disastrous.

Writing is good for me. Or typing I will say. I have been living on this earth for about 23 years and it is only till now that I see a beginning. I lived a life proclaiming Jesus’ name. But behind closed doors, I was the complete opposite. It was confusing because when I did praise God, I could still feel Him. His Spirit flowing through me, whispering in my ear to let go of this world. Time and time again, I would praise Him, then my actions would speak differently. 23 years now, I still find myself doing that same thing. I’m tired. I’m so tired of being a slave to the world and rushing to my sinful desires over the peace of Jesus’ love for me. I’ve been walking with my eyes closed all this time, yet I am so tired. No rest, no peace, no contentment, nothing. And I still do not know what true love is.

About a month ago, this man proposed to me. Every girl’s dream right? The dream to have a ring on your finger and to have a passion to build a life together. It seemed as if the closer we got to our marriage, the less things began to work out. I learned a lot about myself and I still am learning, but about two days ago, he told me that he no longer felt loved, and called the engagement off. I had bitterness in my heart because the ways that he believed I was not loving him, were also the ways that I did not feel love from him. He claimed he felt he was doing everything he could and I also claimed that I was trying as hard as I can. At the end of the day, I realized a couple of things... 

One, I really loved this man. I saw God through the beauty of his being. I saw how perfectly yet imperfectly crafted this man was by our Creator. God used this man to show me His love for me, even if he did not know the FULL extent of God’s love for him. I truly believe that. Even with all the pain that we have caused or have endured, at the end of the day, this man brought me joy, in the simplest things. And I loved that. And I loved him, before all the chaos dragged us down. 

Two, even though I loved this man, I did not love him enough to tell him the truth. That I was still broken and hurt from our last relationship. That I never fully healed from it. That I was a broken person trying to blindly serve God but my actions did not show that. That if I were to even be with someone, it would need to be someone who relentlessly chased after God’s heart more than he could ever chase after mine. That I did not feel comfortable sharing his music because I did not believe it reflect the person I was trying to be. All because I did not want to lose him. And I was wrong for that. 

I should have told him. I should have been honest with him. More importantly, I should have been honest with myself. But I know that now. Now, fast forward to today. Or I mean yesterday, he calls me and begins by saying “This is not me trying to get back with you...but would you be willing to honor our engagement while I give you space to think if you still want this?” Of course I said yes. I have no plans of hoe-ing around or trying to appeal to a crowd that does not even see my full beauty. I want to be changed, to be made new. 

But now, here I am, at this point trying to decide whether I want to go through with this. Or if I think this decision will be what’s best for me. And if I am being honest, everything is telling me no. Or at least not right now. And this is not because I am wanting to look somewhere else. It is because there is one thing on my heart that I desire more than ever in my life. And it is to serve God and to fully surrender to the plan that He has for my life. It sounds so cliche but I just got so tired of living as a slave to this world. I know now that for me, it is DIFFICULT to pursue a REAL relationship with God when I am in a relationship because my devotion primarily goes to the love I have here on earth, the love that is more tangible, and seems “easier” to work on because I can actually see and talk to this person face to face. But I finally want to walk into my relationship with God with full speed ahead. To chase after God, so that if this man is the one, he would chase after God the same way. It hurts me to know that I’ve already made a decision about this, and it is to not continue our engagement. Literally, it makes me so so sad. Because I love this man, and if I could take away all the pain and past hurts that he has endured, I would. But I cannot do that. My power is limited. But I still have a peace that I can rely on, because I know for sure, that if this man is the man that God has purposed for me, even if I were to let go of him now, he would still be that man in the future. I just need to trust God and see where He leads me. 

I love you Sterling La’Tion Winston, if you ever read this. You really are the love of my life.