Sub-Letter #7
Hey there Mister Mystery,
There are so many unanswered questions about you in my mind. Only you can answer these questions. It is hard for me to have questions remain unanswered. However, I am learning to be patient and work on becoming my ideal self. I’m finding enjoyment in bettering myself and keeping myself busy with working on my goals. Also, I find it easier to wait for you when I am regular with praying for you or just praying in general.
If I’m working on me and drawing closer to God, it is easier to see I’m doing all I can.
Praying and drawing close to God also helps me to see what I can change and accept what I cannot. He is a great comforter and guide.
You know what? I can even give you a more step-by-step explanation on how I deal with not knowing you and not knowing all the answers I want to know.
First, I read the Bible as much as I can. Most of the time this means reading between 6 and 18 chapters a week. The more scripture I read the more I learn about what God has already done for those who love him. My confidence in His power and my faith in Him knowing what is best grows with each chapter I read. The more I read, the more God becomes my life’s foundation and I realize how secure I am.
I also pray daily. To be honest with you, like I promised earlier, some days it is just a quick good-morning or “please, be with those hurting people.” Other days, I will spend half an hour in prayer that starts with thanksgiving, but most of the time my prayers flow into venting all my hurts and problems. After those times of prayer, I leave refreshed knowing that my problems are in God’s capable hands. Again, He is a great comforter for your soul.
In addition, I try to journal 2 times a day as reflection, each time is about 1-5 sentences. It is when I wake up and when I go to sleep. Most of the time it is just notes either about how I slept or about my day. Sometimes it is just, “I need to pee!” Other times I can’t fit everything I want to say in the space I have given myself.
I like to review my goals and well my life at least once a month. This helps me stay focused on my goals, which helps a lot. If I’m on my game, I’ll review my goals and set new ones every week. It keeps me on the life path I want to be on and moving towards my ideal life.
Another good thing I do is what I’m calling self-dating or dating myself.
This means that almost every week, more often than not on Fridays, I’ll do something that could be a date. A lot of times it is going downtown for Sushi and then taking a walk while eating ice-cream. I’ve also gone to see a movie by myself in the theater or rented one from an online store. Some of time it’s buying good food from some place I like and relaxing at home for some me time.
All these things help me learn about myself, my needs, and how to be patient. Learning patience is a process though and at this moment I want the answers now. I want to know who you are.
I want to be my dream self and to figure out how to be my ideal self. I hope to be the dream girl of my dream guy. In my later writings I will explain what that means, but I’m still trying to stay in the correct chronological order. You’ll just have to wait. I also need to hunt down that writing, since it was hand written. It could be anywhere.
I own a lot of notebooks, since most of the time I have multiple notebooks that I am writing in at a time. Each has a theme such as journaling, creative writing, daily notes or ideas, and studies. I have also started project notebooks. As the notebooks fill up the themes or categories will sometimes blend. I mean sometimes a random thought comes about a writing project and the closest notebook is my journal. That or my train of thought will go from one topic to another with little warning. Once these things start my concern for keeping the theme correct will lower and soon it is all a mixture of ideas. This causes some difficulties in finding a particular writing.
I have begun to date and index my notebooks. I should note that I have only done this for my daily notebook, which I bring everywhere. The other notebooks, that are only for projects, are still complete messes of ideas. The complete mess of idea type of notebooks have dates, but that does not help when you don’t know when you wrote something.
Well, that was an off topic tangent.
You will notice I do that often. I hinted at that with the pogo-stick thought process. In my other writings I will edit the random off topic bounces out of my writings, but I will not do that here. I want to tell you everything and show you the inside of my mind. I want you to know everything about me, because one day I will learn everything about you.
To answer your question that I think you are asking. Yes, I realize that sounds stalker-like and creepy. I do not mean to be creepy sounding. I really am not obsessive. Let’s just ignore the fact that I am writing a book long love letter to someone that I don’t even know.
Hey look, a change in the topic.
In the end of 2011, I moved back to the east coast for a couple of years. I wanted to be around my family and thought moving back home would be the best thing for me. In a way it was. I learned a lot about myself, God, and my family when I moved back.
When I was planning the trip, I thought I would show my family my new life and spreading what I learned about God. I wanted to shine God’s light on to my family and share the little I understood about Him. He had different plans. Towards the end of my 2 years of living on the east coast again, I realized I did not go there to teach, but learn. I learned what I needed to be happy and now have a better understanding of my family members that I don’t think I had before. It took moving away, growing a bit, and moving back to show me things I missed before. I think it was a bonding experience for me and my family.
My time at home, living with my mom, step-dad, sister, and nephew, also grew my relationship with God. I had my social life built into my living situation with my sister, Poison-Berry Pie, nephew, and my mom living in the same house. Since I didn’t need to leave my home to be social, I had extra time on my hands. My mom mentioned that she did not agree with how much Poison-Berry Pie and I stayed at home. She thought we should be more social, but we were social. It was just we were social with one another and that was enough for us.
After years of fighting as kids and Mom telling us we would be best friends when we were older, we became best friends. It’s just that Mom thought we would have more friends.
I also did not have to drive far for work. I worked at a warehouse that was only 15 minutes down the road, if I drove slow.
I used my extra time to study the Bible and write.
Once I was settled into my living situation I had to search for a new church on my own. I was now exploring different styles and hearing different pastors speak. It widened my church experience and helped me filter down what I appreciate in a church.
I learned that I dislike typical churches where all the members appear to be over cleaned or born in pews. I know we are all cleaned by the blood of Christ, but I mess up and I don’t want to feel as though I have to hide when I fall. There is no growth or true community if everyone is hiding their flaws. It is like asking a flower to grow to the sun, but only letting the blossoms into the light. It won’t be truly healthy unless the whole plant is in the sun.
Another issue I had with the churches filled with people who appeared too clean was I felt like I had to dress a certain way to go. I enjoy expressing who I am through my appearance. Sometimes that is with a fun shirt with an elephant reading. Other times I express myself with bright red or blue hair. Although I’m sure I could technically do these things at the abundantly clean churches, I would stand out and draw attention to myself. Most of the people in the highly clean churches would wear nice button up shirts or dresses, which I also enjoy doing. I want the option to be whoever I want to look like any day of the week.
God sees me every day and I spend time with Him every day, so why should I look different on Sundays. I never understood wearing your Sunday best to church.
I also learned that I like smaller churches where I can connect with people. I want to be part of the community of the church, learning, and growing with people. I cherish real community and spending quality time being with fellow church members.
With each church I tried to go to a Bible study or small group. Besides the church I ended up going to for most of my time living on the east coast, the Bible studies were all female studies. Out of the two I remember I felt more welcomed and similar to the one with older ladies. The women that were my age seemed more focused on their husbands, kids, or other things that I could not relate to. I was clearly the outsider in that group. The older ladies primarily kept our time together focused on God and seemed more relaxed or use to their lives. They also noticed and included this shy introvert.
That was another pogo-stick bounce of thoughts. I only wanted to tell you I moved back to the east coast for a couple years. I guess expanding and sharing a little about my time there may be helpful or at least interesting. It shows that I struggled to find my church and feel as though I didn’t fit into some different churches I tried out.
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