Day 357 - Starting Over at Day 1

Just kidding.  I'm not really starting the vow over. But technically, by my very most original hardcore intentions, that's what I'm supposed to do. 
I missed last night and quite frankly, it was a double whammy.
I didn't do my "devotion"...AND!...I was out with a guy on a date.
Double conviction.

This really is laughable, right?
It certainly is to me now...but at barely 20, I was so, so, so, so, so, so serious.

Now I'm just so serious...
So really, I've come a long way!

Yeah, so the nutty thing about the vow was that I was convinced that what I wanted was selfish and wrong. The irony is that I was both kinda right and also waaaayyy off. But let me back up a minute and explain.

* * * * * * *

This all started more than 15 years ago.

I can hardly believe I'm still here.

Writing these words yet again.

For the umpteenth time.

I had just turned 20 years old, perhaps only a few days before, because I'm pretty certain that it was a warm August morning, down by the pond nestled among the Appalachian hills, when I first spoke those fateful words that would forever change my happily ever after.

I was about to start my second year at Appalachian Bible College (ABC). During the summers the college operates as an outdoors adventure Christian ministry, Alpine Bible Camp (although it might be Alpine Ministries, these days) and I had stayed to work as a lifeguard when school was not in session. That statement is so completely neutral and factual that you would never know the hell I lived through during my two years there.

Nope. Scratch that.

Not all of it was hell.

Well, to be honest, it wasn't really a hell that I was forced into; I had volunteered for this...and then I dedicated myself to making it as hard as possible to get out of hell. 

That first year at Bible college was painfully judgmental, but I actually thought things were smoothing out, that I was coming to terms with who I was, who god was, and who he wanted me to be. I thought I had arrived, albeit a little ungracefully, but I finally felt at peace with where I was.

Except for one thing. Boys.

More than anything I wanted to be loved and to have another want my love. However, I believed that god was the only being who perfectly loved me and therefore deserved my love and devotion first, above all.

^{"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."}

^{John 3:16, NKJV}

^{"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment."}

^{Matthew 22:37-38, NIV}

I also believed that if god perfectly loved me, then he knew what was best for me and he would give it to me in the right time. I believed I should and could trust god to do exactly that: to love me like I so desperately wanted to be loved, to make everything make sense, to give me a purpose, to give me belonging.

^{"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."}

^{Romans 8:28, NKJV}

^{"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your paths straight."}

^{Proverbs 3:5-6, NASB}

^{"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."}

^{I Corinthians 2:9}

I didn't think that loving boys was bad, but I couldn't get my heart to stay focused on god first and that had to be bad - for god, for the right kind of me, and for the right kind of boy. So, I decided to deny my heart, to shut it down, to take it captive. And I made a promise to god that I would not give my love, nor accept another's love, until I had demonstrated my devotion to him for 365 consecutive days. I prayed the vow aloud with bold intent. I wrote it down in my journal. If I missed even one day of my devotion toward god, it meant that I would start over until I was able to love god first, above all.

^{Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.}

^{II Corinthians 10:5-6, KJV}

See what I mean by locking the door on hell and throwing away the key??

However, it wasn't just my ruthless determination to love god first that proved to be the disaster.

It was that love showed up almost right away and in all the wrong ways.

* * * * * * *

So, yep, according to the strictest version of the vow, I would have to start over today on day 1 - or 365 - whichever way you prefer to count. But as I've wrestled and sobbed and pled with god and myself and pastors and my sister and my mom for the past 15+ years, I finally realized something. 

This vow is for love and it's for me. Period.

Maybe it's still important to do this, but the concept of god and spiritual curses and sacrifice of your firstborn for victory in war*, these are just stories - no different than my own and I can choose whatever ending I want to live with. 

I can't live with a silent, insufficient, vindictive, cold-hearted god. 

So I let that part go a couple of years ago.

But I can live with promising to love myself and daily committing to expressing that to myself. The love and the belonging that I want is already here...and I never needed "god" to make it happen.

So, no, I will not start over today.

I will be grateful for life and love 

and that it is always with me 

- whether or not there is a man around. 

That is my best goal for the vow. 

This is my love vow now.

* Jephthah is a military leader for Israel who makes a tragic vow to God, if God will grant him success....which the all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful god does - as if god merely shrugs his shoulders and says with all the Jewish shrewdness he can muster, "Oy vey! That is some chutzpah, but glory is mine!"