This blog post is a personal testimony about how my faith finally overcame my doubts to transform my love life.

The Worm

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve had this worm that has been perched in my brain.  I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know why it persisted so long, all I know is that it was there and it took me years to realize how much of a liar it was and how was devastating it was to my life.  This worm crawled around all day long and had an important message for me: 

You aren’t good enough.

I feel like I’ve come a long way in my life – I’m married, I have a good job, I have a one-year-old little boy – but every once in a while, this worm makes its way back into my thoughts, especially when I face difficult situations and hopeless odds.  It’s wormed its wormy little way into my subconscious and has implanted itself fully into my psyche  And no amount of prayer, or getting closer to God, having solid relationships around me, therapy (hours and hours of it!) has seemed to fully dislodge this plague of the mind.

Dating

So it should come as no surprise, then, that I have struggled with dating.  How could I find love that I’ve always assumed no woman would be interested in me?  Even when they did, my worm would just wiggle around and say something like “there must be something wrong with her, then” or worse, “she just doesn’t know the real you yet”.  There wasn’t something wrong with her, though (well, at least not any more than anyone else), but there was certainly something wrong with me.  And I could never figure out exactly what it was.

So I sabotaged my relationship opportunities for most of my adult life.  Finally, when I was 29, I agreed to date somebody.  However, it was long distance and messy and we didn’t really connect, so she eventually ended up breaking it off.  That felt bad because despite how unhappy I felt, I couldn’t be the one to break it off, because the worm, now fully made king with a wormy crown on his dumb little head, told me “you’ll never find anyone else” and “she’s the best you can do” and therefore breaking up with her was not an option.  But when she finally did it, although my ego took a hit, I felt okay about it because I knew the relationship wasn’t working.

The transformation

Fast forward to when I was 32 and I met a gal on SALT.  This woman is the whole package – smart, beautiful, authentic, loves Jesus, aligned with me politically and morally – the whole nine yards.  Literally couldn’t have dreamed up someone better.

And yet the whole time I was dating her, that worm in the back of my mind kept going off, pointing out her flaws, showing me why she wasn’t marriage material.  Because of this, I lost interest in her and I would want her to go home early every time we hung out.  I convinced myself that there was no spark (even though our banter is incredible and I love spending time with her).  Fortunately, I was aware of my own flaws at this point and she had the patience to put up with me.  Now I am absolutely head-over-heels for her, but I still sometimes think “she shouldn’t have stayed with me because I’m not worth it”.

God’s Story is Not Complete

I’m writing this not to depress you, but to hopefully give you hope and wisdom.  We all want to hear miraculous stories about how God healed up from the inside out and changed us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  I loved these stories too, and I wish this was the case for me.  But in the absence of that, I’m more aware than ever that I’ve come a long way in combating these thoughts.  And even though they don’t plague me as much as they used to, they still come back over and over and I’ve just learned to manage it the best way I can, with the support of people who love me and Jesus, who I know does.

And sometimes that’s enough.

So I’ll say this – whatever your struggle, however you have felt held back in life, whatever challenges dating seems to raise in you – it’s not hopeless.  If someone like me can find the love of my life and be (mostly) happily ever after, so can you.