The Ultimate Life Test

This post is very serious, very real and very important for me to blog about. I've decided to finally open up about my life the last few months. I've gotten past the point that I won't feel judged for what I've gone through and I'm ready to discuss it with anyone. If you read this and you haven't heard the story, you're probably going to feel pity for me and say "awww, Devin, I'm so sorry." I don't want your pity. Trust me...I just want to make people more aware.

So my last few blog posts were pretty angry posts. I was mad, angry, upset and hurt by a lot of things at once. This was the start of a very hard, depressing time for me. In my last post, you'll notice that I had been hanging out with this guy. I thought we were friends. I thought things were great. We had the usual argument here and there and I let him say things to me that weren't so nice. I just took it as he's mad. I let him say things to me that were so hurtful and degrading and I never thought twice about walking away. I let him control me and he ended up verbally and emotionally abusing me to the point that I ended up at my rock bottom. He told me how horrible of a person I was, how immature I am, and all the reasons nobody wanted to be with me. All of this started last summer and I just let it continue on...I was brainwashed.

January 3, I came down with the flu. A week and a half later, I was still coughing and was diagnosed with bronchitis. While being sick and out of work, I still let him put me down, call me names and tell me how worthless he thought I was. All of those hurtful words turned to lots and lots of tears on top of all the coughing and hurting. I ended up with pleurisy and in more pain than I ever imagined. So much, that I ended up in the ER. They gave me some pain meds and sent me home.

A few days later, I knew something was seriously wrong with me when I looked at the bottle of Percocet and wondered how many it would take to make all the pain go away, pain from coughing, being hurt by the words...everything.

At this point, I knew I had to talk to someone. I saw my doctor and a counselor and was diagnosed with depression. After several meetings with the counselor and some medication, I finally was "myself" again. Depression apparently can affect ANYONE at ANY age. I realized that I'm not the crazy one. I'm not the worthless one and I'm not the one that really needed help. I'm just the one that got brainwashed into thinking all of those things about me and he is the one that needs help. Soon after all of this, I blocked the crazy guy's number and have not seen or heard from him in months...life is so much better now. I recommend to anyone that is having a hard time, go talk to a counselor. Talking to friends is great, but talking to a stranger who is unbiased and you know won't judge you is so freeing and makes you feel so much better.

With that said, I became closer to my best friends and realized that they have nothing but love for me and only want the best for me. My friends were there when I needed them the most and I will be forever grateful and appreciative for that. Just knowing that I could lay around with my best friend all weekend and watch NCIS marathons with her and not really say anything was what I needed one weekend, and Emily didn't seem to mind one bit. Live you :)

About the time I blocked his number, I met Jason. He could not have been put in my life at a better time. We instantly struck up good conversation and realized we had a lot in common...I mean he is ONLY 4 days older than me. Jason and I have been dating for almost 2 months now and things are going great. He makes me smile more than anyone else has before and he makes sure that I'm happy. He knows my past and is helping me to move past all of that.

Life is so much better now and means so much more to me. I smile more, I laugh more, I talk to my friends more. I had become someone I wasn't and it wasn't fun anymore. I'm just glad I realized it before it got too serious. Now that I'm back to "me," my plan is to lose those last few pounds I need to lose and feel even better about who I am today. And with it being summertime, I'm very excited about having Fridays off and soaking up the sun...yes, I promise to wear sunscreen, but I'm going to need my tan :)

Brain Fart

I can't seem to come up with a good title for today. Sorry, I didn't blog yesterday. I was out of commission. Home all day. Sick. That sucks. Oh well. Feeling better today.

So when I first heard this song, it had one meaning...now I hear this song and it has a completely different meaning. I love my friends and wouldn't trade them for the world. They were put in my life for a reason.

On His Clock

I am a quarter of a century old now! WHOA!! 25! Well at least my car insurance dropped (sometimes getting older has its perks)

I learn new things every day and even at 25 I love learning new stuff. A few things I have learned along the way have taught me life lessons and made me who I am today and I could not be more appreciative of those lessons. Not too long ago, I tried to reconnect with an old friend on facebook and apparently she is too grown up for me now. And this is where I had to remember a lesson I was already taught:

There are those people that look down on me and put me down because I'm not married and I don't have kids yet, and when I try to reconnect with them as an old friend, they tell me to grow up because I'm still stuck in the past and they have grown up and started their new life with their new family. Well, let me tell them something. First of all, if that's how you feel, you're not worth my time anymore anyway. Second of all, just because you're married with kids, doesn't mean you're grown up. Telling me to grow up and move on just because I'm not married with a family is pretty childish if you ask me.

1 Corinthians 13:
¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

My life may not be perfect (who's life is really?) but it's perfect for me. I'm pretty sure out of me and the people I am talking about, I'm the one that is grown up because I have chosen to make a life for myself, learn to be independent and make myself stable before I bring someone else into this organized chaos of a life I have. I do want to get married and have my own family one day, but I'm putting that in God's hands and I don't see the need in rushing things. When I have kids, I want to be able to provide for them myself, not depend on my mom and dad to do that for me and keep them all the time. I'm 25 and still young, there is plenty of time for me to get married and start my own family. Just because I'm not married like 98.99% of all of my friends, does not give people the right to judge me. I'm happy in life and only He can judge me and it matter.

Philippians 4:11:
¹¹ I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

Hebrews 10:35-36:

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

And to my friends that are in relationships, married and have kids or have kids on the way...well, I aspire to be like yall one day. I want to have the loving relationship and the beautiful happy family too, and my time will come. I know it will. And to all my friends, well thank you for loving me and supporting me through this journey of life! Yall are the best!!