Trusting in Love

There is another area of my life where I am struggling with trust, my personal life. I grew up in a family where we followed along with what my dad wanted to do.  There were times where I wanted to do something else, but I was told not to “rock the boat”.  Growing up in this kind of an environment where family life revolved around the wants and desires of one parent left me feeling minimized and insignificant, that what I wanted was not important.

            As I got older, I decided that I would not let other people make me feel this way, if other people would not validate me, I would find a way to do it myself.  Therefore, I developed an inflexible and defensive side to my personality. I decided that I would do what I wanted to do, and to hell with what others thought or wanted. I ended up going very far in this direction and developed a my way or the highway mentality.  I allowed myself to have tunnel vision and became so inflexible and defensive that I did not let people in, and lived in a “bubble.”

            At this point in my life, I was an independent person and could do what I wanted, when I wanted to. However, I also had built up an emotional wall around myself and was cut off from the world around me.  I equated subjugating my own wants and needs for others as a weakness that meant I did not matter.  In the past when I had been told to sacrifice what I wanted to do for another, it was out of the selfishness of that person.  Therefore, in my mind, I equated sacrifice and doing for others as being equal to not mattering to the person I was making the sacrifice for.  On the outside, I felt like I was in control of my life and fought hard for it, but on the inside, I was lonely, and miserable.

           

In the summer of 2011, I found Christ and met the woman who would become my wife.  They both changed my life for the better.  I vowed to trust more, and to put myself out there, and to put other people’s needs before my own.  The past few months have really put this plan to the test.  I have been questioning the motives of people around me.  Do they care about me?  Do they have my best interests at heart?  I have allowed the demons of my past to affect me in the present.  I am reliving thought patterns and behaviors that I have engaged in since my mid teens and I want to throw these off like an old garment.

I want to be able to break out of these patterns of negative thinking, insecurity and lack of trust.  I want to view sacrificial living and loving not as a weakness, but as strength.  I can still be my own person and live my life but also give of myself to my loved ones and those that are less fortunate then I am.  I want to be able to trust in the love that Christ has for me, the love that my wife and I have for each other, and leave the ruminating thoughts in the past with my memories.