Do You Like Being Yourself?

     Before we even start to touch the question of, "What's your type?" I have to ask you a pretty personal question:

Do you like being yourself?

     Maybe that's too weighty of a question and somewhat abstract to answer right now, but let me help you answer this honestly.

     Have you grown bitter, even if just slightly?

     Have you lost your innocence, completely?

     Are you having trouble dreaming about your future?

     As with any proper survey, if you answered "Yes" to any of those question, it's safe to say you need to get your love tank filled.

     Now see, this is the time when our culture would tell you, to just go out with they guys, get wasted, and laid. This would also be the time when our culture would tell you, just go out with the girls and put your lips on the first guy who tells you you're pretty.

     But as most of us know, the results of such a solution leaves one pretty empty. And instead of filling our actual love tanks, we often feel a bit more depleted.

     Another person won't fill the gap, at least not in the way in which you're hoping. You've probably figured out by now, that love and romance doesn't normally work out perfectly and tied with a bow like it does in the movies. Plus the typical Hollywood romance movie follows a specific formula. A formula that works, and a formula that keeps you coming back to the movies over and over again. It sets up an ideal and the rules of that ideal world, and then, like magic, it delivers.

     But our lives are messier and last longer than 120 minutes.

     Your quest for true and meaningful romance, won't begin with another person. It will actually begin with you.

     If you haven't taken the time to enjoy your own company, you're going to find it difficult to sustain a relationship with another person long term.

     You will have something of value to add to your romantic relationship, it's called yourself.

     But if you haven't placed any value on yourself...well...there won't really be a fruitful and lasting relationship.

     Now as much as  I love leaving myself little love notes, I alone am not capable of filling my own love tank.

     It's under the guise of love that I can begin to see myself and others much more clearly--for who we really are.

     It is then and only then, that I can appreciate the eccentricities that make up Patrice Patrick. It's only then, when I get into a quiet space with God (Whether on a hike, my room, or church) am I able to truly enjoy myself and the other aspects of my life.

     It's then that I realize that I actually like being myself.

     In those moments, God validates that I am "fearfully and wonderfully made" and no one will be able to steal that fact away from me.

     And I take in God's beauty, knowing that the beautiful things around me are simply a waning reflection of the absolute beauty that He is. And even moreso, how He wants to lavish His love on you.

     This week, take the time to get still (Or even after reading this post--just take 5 minutes). And let God speak to you. Let Him wash away the past and begin to show you His future. Take the time to let Him love you.

     You are in no way a nuisance or a unwanted obligation to God. He is and has been pursuing you with His great kindness.

     Let Him wash away the bitterness. Restore your innocence. And give you new dreams.

Wisdom's Knocking: 

“The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .

It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, 

that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.” 

 ― C.S. Lewis