It dawned on me after scoffing a Tweet I read earlier that I've allowed some serious bitterness to creep into my heart. I was reading this person's tweet, being particularly annoyed, when I had the most original and brilliant idea to "unfollow" them! By jove, give the girl a medal! Why didn't this dawn on me sooner? This person's tweets warrant nothing but rolling eyeballs from me, and I don't particularly enjoy seeing their posts clog up my feed. But instead I spent months building up this irritation towards this person I haven't seen in 2+ years.
I've also just been snarky lately towards the general populace. Not necessarily in a way that others have noticed (Lord do I hope not!) but I've caught myself criticizing others in my head. Why? What does this benefit me? Does it lift them up? Does it make me a better person? Who is this snotty, judgmental girl I've caught myself impersonating the last few months? The Redhead I thought I was had compassion towards strangers and didn't use profanity so casually (Note: The cursing isn't often, but it's definitely been on the rise from previous years!). I've built up a tolerance and hardness towards things that I once would have never considered. What is going on?
I've been remiss in not spilling all the juicy details of my December 14th proposal (see here! :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc4bLB8zCJg), but I've noticed in the last few weeks I've started to build up bitterness in regards to wedding planning. Now let me preface this: I am so unbelievably grateful that we're so blessed with our budget. We really are. My parents have been amazingly generous, my beloved is being so great and sweet, yet I find myself being irritated at the economy of the DC Metropolitan area. I've burst into tears on more than one occasion (ok I think it was twice. Maybe thrice.) just because we seem to be spending a ton of money yet it's "not enough". I don't actually believe it's not enough, but the fact is we live in an expensive area. A friend of mine is getting married in upstate New York, and for the cost of his entire wedding + reception (including food!) it's a little over what we paid just for the space for our reception. That's frustrating to me, a girl who loves bargains and only spent 10% of her allotted dress budget on her dream dress. But I've noticed I've built up a bitterness that everything is so much money. I'm frustrated that the wedding industry is celebrating something so beautiful and so amazing by marking up their prices 100-500%. A cake that would normally be $200 becomes $500 all because it has "wedding" in front of it. Paper that should cost a few dollars is in the $100-range. All candles are suddenly known as centerpieces, and hair do's cost twice the price.
Welcome to my frustrations.
What I'm not doing though is turning to God with my bitterness and concerns. I'm sitting her stewing and being cranky. I can't change the NoVa economy. I can't make money come out of nowhere. I can't lessen the price of sugar and flour.
I can, however, submit my requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus.
I'm not saying that God's going to give me the massive wedding I secretly desire. I'm not saying I'm not in the wrong with my language or my thought life. But I'm saying that God can give me contentment with what we have. God can change my thoughts and my speech to match His thoughts and His speech. In 10 years, my love and l will remember that we [hopefully] ate food and I wore a pretty dress, but in 10 years I'd rather be celebrating that we've been married for a decade! It's so easy to get caught up in stuff that just doesn't matter, which includes my completely unnecessary opinions about a stranger's attire. Do I need glittery napkin rings? Nope. Do I want to feed our ~200 closest friends and family? Heck yes I do. Does that random stranger care what I think about them? Nope. Probably not, especially since I'll likely never seen them again.Do I want to see the pictures of my love and I as we get our first glance? Yes. More than anything. But I need to turn to the Bible and to God everyday to keep myself in check.
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,
since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
2 Corinthians 4:18