Grace...

Ughhh... Sometimes I frustrate myself beyond all measure!  My week in general has been a challenge, but tonight was the last straw!  I found myself mad at Dustin.  Madder than I think I have ever been knowing all the while there was no really good reason for it.  I suppose a large portion of my attitude began by the fact that when I settled down enough to think rationally I realized that pretty much my entire life this week has consisted of work and my apartment.  I think unknowingly I'd been living for this evening.  Unconsciously I had made it my goal.  If I could make it to that moment on Friday night I was good.  I would have time to relax and just enjoy Dustin's company for the evening.  Well, the unexpected last minute change of plans that I feel necessary to point out I suggested should probably take place for some reason sounded like a really good idea until an hour and a half later when I was sitting in my apartment going out of my mind because I was alone yet again.  Now I must admit I find it rather curious that I've been at home alone by myself for nearly every evening for close to 10 years now.  So it really makes no sense as to why over the course of the last year or so I have found myself increasingly distressed when I find myself alone.  I think possibly that the periods of extended alone time serve to remind me of a time in my life I struggled with depression and didn't even completely realize it.  It reminds me of a period that felt very hopeless at times.  My adorable little Winston filled the emptiness and loneliness some, but there were so many nights that I found myself sitting alone waiting for the evening to finish so it could repeat itself the next day.  I think that's what I struggled with reacting to today.  I'm engaged now.  No we don't live together, but somehow I think I thought I wasn't suppose to be alone.  The other thing I find interesting is that this consuming anger that had me slamming car doors (something I NEVER do) comes just over 24 hours after walking in and being surprised by flowers, a clean house and a dog that was already taken care of for the night.  The distressing thing was that in the moment I couldn't even figure out what exactly I needed to take to God.  All I knew was I was angry!  I swear there are sometimes I really do wonder exactly what Dustin sees in me that makes him want to marry me because times like tonight I just feel exceptionally ugly.  I don't like the way anger makes me feel and even less the way it makes me act.  Tonight my struggle was with the desire to lash out with every single thing I knew that would hurt him.  I was hurting and if I couldn't have company to help me forget part of me seemed to want company in the pain itself.  Somehow God must have heard the cry for help hidden somewhere in the anger because gradually I started to settle down.  I have discovered one thing since Dustin and I began dating.  When he starts to try to figure out what's bothering me no matter how angry I want to stay at him I can never fully manage it.  There's something about the effort that goes into searching for those answers of what is bothering me that won't let me stay angry and distant.  Maybe it's the prayer and thanksgiving that goes into the good times or the down times that I can manage to beg for help that causes God to help out during the times I can't bring myself to ask for it aloud.  Or maybe it's just grace.  His grace that I don't screw the relationship up completely.  Grace that God gives Dustin to love me even when I feel pretty unlovable.  It kind of brings to life Jeremiah 29:13...You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  Israel angers God, but when they seek him and look for him earnestly he doesn't stay angry.  He doesn't punish them for what they have done in the past.  It stays right there in the past.  He allows himself to be found.  Now I am by no means comparing myself to God, but if our intimate relationships are suppose to be things that draw us closer to God maybe the moments like this are designed to show me a side of God I've overlooked before.  Yes, He's both a God of Love and Judgement equally, but the Judgement is brought about by our wrong doing, (the truth one simple text would have changed my reaction to the circumstances), but the Love allows Him to be found when we seek him out of love (despite the irritation and the anger the love and caring in sorting out the misunderstanding and showing me I mattered to him made it impossible to stay angry).  So I find myself walking away from a couple of very trying and emotional hours with a greater understanding and appreciation of what it feels like to God when we are actively seeking him out of love and trying to maintain that closer relationship with him.  If he feels anything like I feel at the moment it makes me ashamed that there are times I don't seek after him deliberately, lovingly and constantly...