Finding a (knit)che

I have yet to complete a full semester in college, and my college experience is definitely vastly different from the 'norm', but I've learned a little bit about juggling responsibilities. There were days at the beginning of my semester where I would go straight to work from class and straight to my community theater after work where I would stay until 10pm.

My schedule change mixed with downsizing, moving, and normal life things caused a bit of a stress shock on my psyche.

don't get me wrong, I could handle it. It's not impossible to have a full schedule. But it was different. Change of any kind is hard on a person's mind and body regardless of how tough you'd like to say you are.

My way of coping with change and adapting is by creativity. Whether you're good at something or not, creating is satisfying. There's a unique happiness that comes about when something new exists in the world because of something you did.

Write. Scrapbook. Knit. Crochet. Create. Run.

Doing something you love everyday is the secret to enjoying life through stressful times.

Doing nothing but stress out about deadlines and workloads is the secret to making yourself miserable.

This is how I dealt with my first semester.

To the Single Friend

You’ve heard it all before. Trust in God’s timing. He has the perfect person set aside for you, you just have to be patient. He’s shaping you into the person you’re meant to be. All these well-meaning sentiments are true, but they don’t always fix the problem, do they? Hearing these facts doesn’t help the late, lonely nights spent crying into your pillow. They don’t calm the green monster in your chest that rears its ugly head as you obsessively refresh the pages of your engaged, married, and pregnant friends’ social media. All that does is send you into a bitter spiral.

I know about your secret wedding boards on Pinterest. All those bookmarked articles with a similar theme (‘Letter to my Future Husband’, ‘How to Enjoy Your Single Life’, 'To the Single Friend') are evidence of your impatience. But do those Pinterest boards and Facebook articles going around your friend circles actually do anything? Or, do they result in a short-lived burst of motivation to be the ‘best you that you can be’ and gloriously independent?

Enjoying your single life isn’t possible without crossing out the word ‘single’. Your relationship status should not be an adjective when thinking about your life in general. Being happy is a way of life. It’s an active experience throughout your entire existence, not just for one phase of your life. If you live life trying to simply survive until you meet someone that will take all your burdens and unhappiness away, you are going to be sorely disappointed. You can’t put that sort of pressure on another person because they will not, and couldn’t ever, live up to that standard.

Take care of yourself. Drink lots and lots of water. Sleep when you need to. Take a walk. Get moving. Feeling good about yourself is a huge step in living a happy life.

Many of my friends married young. 18 or 19 young. And that's great! It really and truly is! It's when marrying that young becomes an expectation that's the problem. If you're not married right out of high school, what are you doing with your life? And wait. You don't have any desire to go to college? How are you ever going to find a husband and get your life officially started.

-__-

I always thought that I would be married by now. It seemed like a rite of passage. You get handed your diploma, turn around, and there's a tall, dark, and handsome stranger on one knee with cartoon hearts in his eyes.

Well.

That didn't end up happening for me.

But my life didn't end.

In fact, my life still isn't over.

Here are some more words that you've already heard so often that they probably feel numb.

Your worth doesn't come from your relationship status. Your worth doesn't come from how many boys you've kissed. Your worth doesn't come from the fact that every one else seems to be happily in love while you're in a blanket burrito eating a bag of chips and binge watching Gilmore Girls.

Your worth comes from the blood of a man that loved you enough to die for you.

I heard that so many times growing up. In Sunday School, on Christian radio stations, from peers, and from my parents. It's a great truth. The only problem is that when it gets repeated with such frequency, it starts to lose its meaning. Yeah, Jesus loves me, this I know. But that doesn't change the fact that the boy I like doesn't know I exist. Jesus loves me, and technically I know that. But I don't feel it. If he loves me so much, why don't I feel special?

Something that I'm still learning is just because you don't feel it, doesn't mean it isn't there. Your feelings aren't really even a part of this, to be honest. You're loved despite anything you've done, felt, or said. You were loved yesterday, you are loved today, and you will be loved tomorrow regardless of how much you feel it at a given moment.

No matter how much you choose to ignore this fact, you will never be fully satisfied through another human being. How do you go about changing your reliance on other people when it's so ingrained in everything you see around you? Date Jesus.

Read the Bible during breakfast. Pray while you walk to work. Download a Bible app. Set prayer alarms on your phone. Have an accountability partner. Whatever your daily routine is, there's always a way to sneak a little Jesus time in. No matter how crazy busy you are or how stressful your life is, if you have time to text that boy or call up your best friend you have time to date Jesus.

There are so many ways to make this personal relationship unique. That's important. I always felt a little uncomfortable around people who gave regular testimonies or spent their time trying to encourage me to love Jesus with my whole being forever and always. Amen.

I felt like a toddler who was being told to clean up his toys. Not only did the task now become a chore, I didn't want to do something simply because an authority figure or peer told me to do it. That's part of why I'm still not a fan of randomly bringing up my faith. I don't want to pressure people into feeling a certain way or doing a certain thing. I don't want to come across as a goody-two-shoes who has her life in order because she prays about it because that's simply not true.

I'm not here to force you to have a relationship with Jesus. You aren't going to find true comfort in an article. I can't convince you that you're loved.

He can, though.

There are near limitless tools at your disposal to help forge a truly personal and unique bond. It's up to you to use these tools. It's up to Him to work through them to help you.

You're going to make yourself miserable by seeking value from people and worldly ideas. The high you get when that boy likes your profile picture or views your SnapChat story will be short-lived no matter how great it feels in the moment.

Maintaining a steady line of communication with God is worlds more important than your relationship status, even if it doesn't result in an immediate dopamine rush. Building a foundation of love the slow, steady, and smart way is always safer than putting together a quick-fix, easy solution to your problems. It's also the path to finding the greatest happiness and satisfaction in your life and potential future relationships.

The Ring on my Left Hand

In middle school, one of the big things in my social circle was purity rings. Now, I’ve never been comfortable with the term ‘purity ring’. A ring doesn’t make you pure. Nothing magical happens through a piece of jewelry. Even wedding rings don’t somehow create a force field that stops someone from cheating on their spouse. Rings can be a way of physically representing a personal commitment. A commitment, in this case, to your future spouse, to yourself, and to God.

Sometimes I wear a ring that I consider, for lack of a better term, my ‘purity ring’. There are days that I forget to put this ring on, don’t feel like wearing jewelry, or I’ve eaten too much salt and it doesn’t fit quite right. This doesn’t make me ‘unpure’. I’m not a different person when I don’t have my ring on.

On the other hand (pun intended), wearing a ring doesn’t make me a better person. Purity is more than not giving in to physical sexual desires. It’s honoring your future spouse with your mind as well as your body. It’s taking care of yourself. It’s in the way that you act around other people and the thoughts that guide those actions. If watching a certain movie, TV show, or listening to a type of music cause you to fall into lust, consider changing those habits.

Let's Start Out By Talking About Porn

A college instructor once told my class that we are the porn generation. We literally carry it in our pockets, have it with us as we’re driving, and have access to it wherever we go. Just don’t access it on the campus wi-fi, please and thank you.

This is incredibly true. The internet is near universal. Access to any sort of pornographic image is available at the touch of a button. It’s as difficult a time as any to remain pure in that sense. And pornography, despite media’s portrayal, doesn’t just affect males. Girls can be addicted to, and struggle with the aftermath of, viewing porn. Not only that, but through pornography young girls are exposed to unrealistic, disgusting, impossible standards. False images of what women look like or are expected to act like flood the world around them at the most impressionable of ages.

It’s not just on our phones or in sketchy shops on the side of the highway. It’s in malls, on TV, in magazines (and not just ‘those’ types of magazines…), and any form of media. Everywhere you look, porn is being sold to you. Blown up Victoria’s Secret advertisements on billboards or on the side of otherwise seemingly safe websites. I know I sound like a crotchety, old man telling young whippersnappers to stay off his lawn, but darnit, I want photoshopped, bikini-clad models and beefed up, shirtless men to stay out of the advertising that I’m unwillingly exposed to.

Thank you.

Studies have shown the addictive aspects or porn and the detrimental effects it has on the brain. The taboo around it doesn’t help, either. Limited or nonexistent availability to open communication about porn makes it nearly impossible for those needing help to seek it. Chances are, those suffering are blind to the long-term problems that their addiction causes and refuse to believe it’s even a problem at all.

Porn is cheating. It may be a socially acceptable form of cheating, but it’s cheating nonetheless. It’s not okay. Young children are getting exposed to this everywhere they go. Conversations at the lunchtable or in the schoolyard revolve around things they know about sex from TV or rumors that they heard from other classmates. Normalizing images of sex while keeping it taboo or unsafe to talk about isn’t the way to go. Which is why this fight is so important. Kids shouldn’t have to go to the internet for their questions about relationships and sex. Keep an open, respectful, informative, age-appropriate dialogue with your children. Make sure they know that they have a safe setting to get answers for those questions.

Arm yourself with tools for this fight. Porn is a reality. But that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. Educate yourself on the dangers of pornography. Learn about the sex trade business and how it affects young girls across the world. It’s not pretty stuff. Talk to your friends about it. Be the annoying person who shares the heck out of well-informed articles. Dress modestly. Pray for people involved in the porn industry. Pray for the generations of people who will suffer and struggle all their lives. Pray for yourself. It’s not easy to avoid temptation. But avoiding the sources of that temptation is a whole lot easier than trying not to fall deeper and deeper after the first misstep.

It’s not something that should be taken lightly or joked about. It’s something I’m very passionate about and willing to talk about in depth. I’m frustrated with the way sex is portrayed in the media. I encourage you to search for the Porn Kills Love movement if you’re interested in finding ways to actively be a voice for change.