A few months ago, I had my heart completely and utterly broken. I felt like my world was falling apart and nothing could go right. I got dumped by the one person who I thought would never hurt me. Two days later my dog died. Three days later I got the flu. Four days later I had to go to the ER. I wish I could say all the bad stopped there, but for about a month random negative things continued to happen to me.
Everyone felt sorry for me, and I hate being pitied – so it was a really rough period of my life. I’m sure you can imagine having two huge losses like that back-to-back really took a toll on me. I was really down for about a week. Then I was filled with rage for about a week. By week three, I began to ask myself, ‘what are you going to do about it?’
"In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials." -1 Peter 1:6
I didn’t want to be sad or angry. I wanted to be me and move on with my life the best way I knew how. I started trying to do just one thing every day for myself. Something to make ME happy. Not something I had to do, but just one little, simple thing to make the day better.
I’m sure everyone thought that I would be depressed and think that the world sucked for a long time, but as unfair as life may be sometimes, you just have to play with the cards you are dealt.
I got my act together. It hadn’t even been three weeks since the breakup and in one weekend, I got offered a job (further away than I ever thought I’d go), I got an apartment, and I started making plans for my future.
I could tell my family and friends were proud of me, and I think more than anything they were all in shock at how I handled my situation.
Life is not easy. We all go through difficult times and deal with things we may wish we didn’t have to. No matter what your circumstances are, please hear me say this – you will get through it. You will be fine.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." -James 1: 2-3
The past few months taught me so much about patience, and I think more than anything I learned so much about myself. They say you don’t know how strong you are until it’s the only choice you have, I believe that. My family told me, “Everything happens for a reason,” I 110% believe that. Over and over again people keep telling me, “You’ll be fine.”
Guess what? They were right. A few months ago I thought my world was falling apart. Time is the best healer though, and I can say now, without a doubt, that having my heart broken was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me. I have never in my life been so happy, and I didn’t realize how unhappy I was in that relationship until I was removed from it and actually got perspective to see how toxic it was.
Find power in your pain, I promise you, you’ll be okay, too.