Imagine a little girl. Blonde hair and bright eyes in the toy aisle at your local store. She is eyeing one of the sparkly princess crowns and considering this to be her purchase. She has had to pee for the past ten minutes and being only six, her bladder isn’t that large. Also, the store manager has told her and her grandmother that store bathroom was for employees only. The little girl is just trying to focus on what toy to buy and take back to her grandmother’s house but she just can’t hold it in any longer. In her striped tank top and unisex denim shorts she lets loose and pees. She is relieved by the freedom of releasing her bladder only to realize, that she had made a mess, not only on the floor, but on herself as well. If this wasn’t embarrassing enough, the same employee who told her and her grandmother the bathroom was employee only came around the corner of the aisle with a big broom. The employee’s face fell as she took in the scene. She looked the young girl up and down and with a forced smile asked if she had done this. For a reason unknown, this girl looked at the puddle of urine around her feet and the stain on her shorts. She then looked back up at the woman who denied her entrance to the bathroom and heroically shook her head no and proceeded to walk away to find her grandmother.

Okay, it was me. I was the girl who peed herself in the local Dollar General. I will say that thirteen years later, as far as I’m aware, the bathrooms at this particular location are available to the public. You are welcome.

Anyway, what was the point of spilling my most embarrassing moment? Just hang in there it’ll make sense in a moment. So here I am, a sophomore almost junior in college. I am 19 getting closer to twenty every day. This event was years ago and forgotten by everyone in my family, including me until recently. I went through a breakup and got dumped for the first time ever. Totally life changing to be on the opposite side of the breakup. I won’t lie and say I didn’t cry my eyes out and tell anyone who would listen how much it hurt. I thought that I had found my person, heck everyone in my family and neighborhood was convinced that he was my person. It left me up a creek without a paddle and looking at myself really hard in the mirror. I saw a girl with mascara running down her cheeks and that she was crumbling and holding on by a thread. Had I not just had the worst week of my life? Had I not been struggling with so many things that God just had to throw another one on the pile? I was so hurt and confused and asking God why He was doing this to me. It made no sense. Sitting on the concrete floor in my plain dorm room re-evaluating the situation the little girl that peed herself came back to my mind for a visit. The memory replayed and I was just like what does this have to do with anything. I kept contemplating why that came to me over the next few hours it. It hit me about midnight.

My younger self had been weighed down. In this case, it was myself being weighed down by pee. I’d been holding it in for what felt like so long by something that was natural. Human’s pee you guys, it’s not a laughing matter. When you have to go, you go. I finally had enough and relieved myself everywhere because I just couldn’t hold it any longer. I had been told no to the only logical solution so I made my own and suffered the consequences. I had to deal with the wrath of my grandmother who now had a pee stained child to transport home. Things get messy before they get better. That is why that memory came to mind. So how is that relevant to my situation?

I’d been weighed down with stress and worries over things I could not control. I was drowning in activities and emotions just trying to stay afloat. I was relying on one person to handle me and I guess I put too much on them to handle or God just said that’s enough and caused the unthinkable to happen. He crashed my world down around me in one week. I don’t think God had any other option to get my attention. Why was I relying on a human to console me? Why wasn’t I relying on He who is stronger than I and all humans? I had put all my happiness and faith into one person. That one person wasn’t God. We serve a jealous God. He does not like our focus off of Him or us to rely on others when we need to rely on Him. So I sat on that concrete floor after phone calls from my family asking what I needed and talked to God about what I needed to do. What did He want me to do. The thing is, He wanted me to build my life back up, but to focus my attentions on Him. So that’s what I’ve been doing or at least striving to do. I’ve forgiven some people who I never thought I would and become friends with old enemies. You never know how God is going to use people or situations in your life to help you. When I was six, I didn’t realize I would look back on that embarrassing moment thirteen years later. How that was a teachable moment. So here I am, a few weeks into being single. Single for the first time in a while. No potential prospects and that’s okay. Now is not the time to jump the gun into a relationship to make myself feel better or feel loved. I am loved and I am loved greatly by the most amazing God. He is my strength and He is what is pulling me through every day. We don’t always understand why God does the things He does. (Although, I have a good feeling I figured out why he did this time.) We just have to trust that all the things He does do, are because He has something better planned for us. So my life was a complete mess not too long ago but things are getting better. Now is the time for me to get myself together and work on who God is wanting me to be. I have no doubt the right person will come along when they are supposed to. I may make jokes about how I will never get married and how I just can’t pick the right guys for myself, but there is a reason for everyone. There is something to learn and grow from. God has a plan bigger than my selfish human nature worldview. Things have been messy, but they’re getting better. Don’t hold things in too long that you collapse under it all and ALWAYS keep God center. As one of my favorite characters in a novel once said: “I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up my friends.”

God bless and thank you for continuing to read my articles, I appreciate all of you for taking time to read my opinion and thoughts on things.