Vulnerability in Pre-Camp Prep

The theme for this summer with the camp I'm working at is Close Encounters. I'm supposed to think about encounters I've had with Christ and get ready to share them. The time that I've felt G-d's love most clearly was during the six months surrounding my break-up. But to share that story, I feel like it's so complicated. And if you've heard me tell stories, you know that I get long and rambling and try to tell all the little details. There are details in that story that I don't want to share right now. There are details in that story that I don't think are necessarily public information. Honestly, I don't even want to share the fact that I was engaged. I feel that it adds to the failure I suppose. If you've gotten that far with someone and you couldn't make it work, isn't that a sign on you? Never mind the fact that he gave up working on us before I did. Never mind the fact that it wasn't G-d's will in the first place. Apparently ending my engagement makes me a failure.

Consciously, I don't think this. But apparently my subconscious does. Because she doesn't want me to share that. I also feel like it will make me less desirable to men. Like my past will scare them off. So my ex-fiance has become simply "my ex" and I am going to choose to leave out the wedding planning and the proposal unless it's absolutely necessary for the point I'm going to make. (If my point includes my sexual past, then my engagement will probably be mentioned as well. But does my sexual past need to be included in every discussion? No. I'm no longer broken. I'm over it. Unless it makes sense to become that open, that particular struggle is going to remain private. My closest friends know. Everyone who reads this blog knows. But do my coworkers need to know? Nope.)

Because of my tendency to try to include every detail, the story of how I encountered G-d so closely and so tangibly would be very very long. But if I bear it down to the essentials? (Or is it bare it down?)

We grew apart. We grew up and as I got closer to G-d and he did not find Christ, we fought. Our priorities were misaligned. I was unwilling to admit that we couldn't make it work, unwilling to give up my first love, and I was unable to see that I was more emotionally invested than he was, that I was more serious about us than he was. He was done fighting for us, wasn't willing to work on us any longer. But I was stubborn. And I wasn't ready. So we made an agreement not to decide until I was home from finals. During that three month period, we would work on us 110%. During that time, G-d worked to show me I had been romanticizing and that my view of where we were was very different from where we really were. Our issues were bigger than I thought they were. G-d showed me that Ron was already out of the relationship emotionally. He showed me also that it was never in His will for me to be with Ron and that my relationship had become more important to me than my G-d. I moved from unwilling to let go to tentatively willing but praying with all my heart that I wouldn't be forced to. Finally, I saw that I had to. And in that three months, in all the chaos that was going on in my soul, I knew that was the right thing to do. I knew it was so difficult because I was so resistant, because I was so stubborn, and because I had fought against it for years, if I'm truly honest. G-d gave me the strength to call it off and He gave me comfort in the aftermath. Both through Himself and His love, through the reassurance that I was doing what pleased Him, and through the support of my family and friends in ways I never imagined.

When I bear it down to that, even if it's still not a short explaination, it's much shorter than the rambling story of why that I could give. And it's much more reasonable and less scary to think about sharing.