The Beginning (My First Blog Post Ever)

I have never done a blog before, nor have I even wanted to create a blog before; until I found out I had cancer.  I figured that since I would have all this extra time on my hands now, why not?  Perhaps this can be a way of sharing my testimony to people and it is a good way to keep everyone who cares about me updated on my progress during my cancer treatment as well as giving me something to do and share my thoughts on whatever I am thinking about (hope you all don't mind)  =P

To begin; the past year of my life has probably been the hardest/yet most eyeopening and in other ways, perhaps the best so far in my life.  In June of last year I unexpectedly met a wonderful, fun, and adventurous woman.  She fell in love with me and I quickly did the same; once I let go of the small walls I had put in place to try and protect myself from getting hurt.  It didn't take much though, her amazing love quickly destroyed my defenses and I gave her my heart and a commitment (which I wrongly gave because the type of commitment I made inside of myself to her was one that should only be made in the covenant of marriage) that I would have loved her for the rest of my life; no matter what.  At the time, she just made my good life, even better!  However, something started to surface from inside of me that I wasn't even fully aware of; the more I fell in love with her, the more I found myself becoming unhealthily scared to lose her.  I am already a sensitive guy, which in many ways is a good thing (or at least I think so), but once the fear of losing her started to "take over" inside me, I wrongly became reliant on her for my happiness and approval.  I started to get jealous and "controlling" where I would get upset if she hung out with other people and assuming that every other guy was better looking or just better in general than I was.  I started to lose confidence in myself and I forgot how great of a guy I truly am and stopped acting like the great guy that I actually am.  In no way was this her fault, she never did anything to validate these feelings inside me.  It was something that somehow had just manifested inside of me; perhaps from my parents divorce, the fear generated by the knowledge of low marriage rates, my past failed relationships, or perhaps from the years of being teased that I was fat and gay in school.  Basically, I started to see how broken my BIG loving heart actually was and how even though I meant well and I had a lot of pure love to give, it was a love that was quite broken and in desperate need of healing.  Those reasons above and more may have been reasons for my actions; however they are NOT excuses for them.  She didn't deserve this man I was acting like and neither did I.  It's not who I truly am and not who I want to be (nor will I allow myself to continue to be).  Long story short, we continued to date even overseas for about 4 months.  We shared A LOT in those 4 months with one another and we also watched as more and more baggage that we both carried (more so on my end because we didn't get to focus on her much with all of my junk) became apparent.  We tried to work through it all and in a lot of ways, getting everything out in the open really benefited us both greatly.  She started to regain her strong faith and as I discovered mine, we were able to sometimes support each other in that.  We really did a lot for each other in a spiritual sense.  However, in a physical sense, our relationship was dying.  I desperately tried to keep it alive, naively thinking all we needed was to be close again and we could "start over" because now we would have God at the center of our relationship.  However, too much damage was done and she put up her "shell of protection" as I call it because I was in a place where I didn't protect her; I couldn't at the time.  I still moved my life to where she grew up to be there when she came home and things were okay for a few weeks but she quickly admitted to me and herself that she no longer was in love with me anymore.  I was devastated.  I had hoped with everything I had that we could make it work, as long as we did it together with God; because with God ALL things are truly possible.  I believe that with all of my heart.  However, it takes two for a relationship to work, and only one of us was in it.  The next four months were the most painful of my life as everyday I watched the woman I loved slowly separate herself from me while emotionally and physically distancing herself from me as I desperately tried to show her I was different and that God was changing me in the hopes that she would have a change of heart and not only see who I was but be able to fall back in love with who I was... however, I was heartbroken and I couldn't truly be myself.  To this day I am still heartbroken and working my way to trying to become myself again.  It's not an easy task when you dream of marrying someone and then that dream gets crushed.  To make things worse, about 3 weeks ago I found out that I had a large tumor in my chest and was recently diagnosed with having cancer, specifically lymphoma.

However, it's not ALL bad!   There is a lot of good that has come of this...

As I briefly alluded to above, the woman I love regained/re-found her faith and nothing is more important to me than having the woman I love (whoever she ends up being) than for her to have a great relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; and I discovered Jesus for the first time in my life.  I had grown up going to church for much of my childhood but just as a child would, I never really understood what living for Christ really meant.  It wasn't until I got fed up with my brokenness and hurting the woman I loved that I surrendered to our loving Savior and said that I no longer wanted to live a life without Him; a life that was full of pain and fear.  It has not been an easy journey at all; in fact it has been the hardest road I have ever been on, but I thank God for it.  I do not understand it; I do not understand why my ex and I cannot begin again or why I have cancer at the age of 24; right when I was trying to start my own life after college, however, one of the MANY things I have learned throughout all of this is that life hardly ever "makes sense" and that God has a plan for me, a good plan for me, and a plan that I will never fully grasp.  There are a few Bible verses that have brought me some comfort in this time among many others.

"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." - Jeremiah 29:11

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take." - Proverbs 3:5-6

"So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold; though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world." - 1 Peter: 1-6-7

 

I still struggle with all of this, but I can see how the Lord has been working through me; especially in these past 5 months.  My love for my ex and now since I am no longer the man in her life; my love for God and for myself has forced me to really examine who I was, who I am, and who I want to be.  Praise the Lord because I have done this seeking the wisdom of my loving heavenly Father.  It has been a process; and I know it will be a process that will continue for the rest of my life, but He is healing me and remaking me and I know that as long as I seek Him and do my best to live a life that models Jesus, I will live a life that will truly be worth living.  He is helping me to become who I have always been and who He created me to be, and in many ways, I couldn't be happier because of it.  God is making me into a better man than I was, and whether I get to be that better man for my ex, or for another woman down the road once I can move on, I will always be thankful to God for sending me her because He worked through her to help change my life. 

I pray for Love and Blessings to all of you reading this...

Until the next post, I leave you with this:

Think of God not as a "selfish or prideful deity" but rather as a loving and amazing Father who only wants whats best for His children who He loves greatly.
 
God Bless

Love,

-Matthew

Today's Song:
The Afters - Life Is Beautiful