Blocking Ya Blessings

I’ve been living in Memphis, TN since the second week of April. When I got home from my internship in Spain, I had two weeks to find a place to live, pack up my life, and start this new adventure. It’s been a great time thus far and I’ve found more than just employment in my short time here. Since the beginning of 2018, I’ve been thinking about how none of the things that I have experienced this year would have happened without going through a broken engagement. I’ve been feeling very blessed to be able to “start over” and move on although it hasn’t always been easy, and I haven’t always had this mindset.

I’ve gone from feeling like my life was being ruined by a relationship that I had no say in, to seeing it as a blessing. Let me tell you, that doesn’t happen overnight, and I was scared that I would never be able to see my broken engagement and devastated heart as a good thing. My past can now be used as a tool to help those in my present. When I was in the midst of the storm, I wanted to know someone with the same story because I wanted to know if I’d ever be okay. Although I’ve yet to meet someone with the exact same story (because honestly, I hope that it never happens to anyone else), since moving to Memphis, I’ve met some people with broken engagements and I felt like I could connect with them. One being a pastor and that was very eye-opening to my journey of healing.

I was at Life Church one Sunday morning and the pastor comes out and says that he always gets asked how to know how to make life altering decisions (e.g. Should I quit my job? Should I leave this relationship? Should I buy this house?). He then goes on to talk about how he met his wife and had a broken engagement. He shared four “tests” to help make those large life decisions. I didn’t know when I went to church that Sunday that I was going to receive healing for something that happened a few years prior.

He started out by sharing Psalms 23:1-3. “The Lord is my Shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; He leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to His name.” I can just picture the meadows and the streams. Being in nature has always been so peaceful for me and I take solace in them. He guides me along right paths. I don’t always understand the paths at the time, but He guides me.

There were four “tests” that he suggested thinking through before making that life altering decision. Each one has a biblical truth and Bible verse. Here’s a summary:

1.      The Bible Test

a.      Truth: God will never lead us in a way that contradicts His word.

b.      Numbers 23:19

                                                    i.     “God is not a man, so He does not lie. He is not human, so He does not change His mind. Has He ever spoken and failed to act? Has He ever promised and not carried it through?”

2.      Test of Time

a.      Truth: God’s timing is perfect.

b.      Ecclesiastes 3:1

                                                    i.     “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under Heaven.”

3.      The Door Test

a.      Truth: God wants/knows/gives what is best for you.

b.      Rev. 3:7

                                                    i.     “What He opens, no one can close; and what He closes, no one can open.”

4.      The Accountability Test

a.      Truth: God confirms His direction through spiritual relationships.

b.      Prov. 12:15

                                                    i.     “Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others.”

c.      Give people the right to speak into your life, but also be willing to listen.

Throughout my struggles, I held on to the verse that says, “I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says the Lord” (Isaiah 66:9). I had no clue what that would look like for me, but I knew that God had a plan. That verse was my hope during the darkest time in my life. When I think about the timing of things in my life recently, I can see where they would not have been possible without me being single. I wouldn’t have been able to experience Spain again or move to TN because I would’ve been too worried about how the other person felt about it. (It’s important to think about your s/o in life decisions, but in mine particularly, I would have felt guilty for Spain or wanting to move which isn’t healthy.) If I wouldn’t have been so adamant about leaving the relationship, I think I would’ve kept the door open. However, I knew what had to be done and as painful as it was, I shut the door. I kept wishing that it would work out, but it wasn’t happening, so I had to shut the door and walk away.

God never intended for us to get married. When I heard the pastor say that about his ex-fiancé, it hit me hard. God never intended for us to get married. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. That relationship was blocking the blessing of us both meeting our future spouses. That relationship wasn’t my blessing. God was trying to shut a door and will hopefully, eventually open the right door. I always thought that he was the one God wanted me to marry and it always felt amazing, until it no longer did. I was confused on how something so happy and loving could be wrong. I didn’t think that a broken engagement was God’s plan for my life, but now I can see that it was.

I would always hear people’s testimonies and the struggles they went through and how they found God. I could never relate because I found God at a young age and never had a major struggle. Until that day. I’ve been able to relate to people going through major heartbreak and try to be an encouragement to them that I lived through it. The good and the bad. I’ve been at rock bottom questioning living, to becoming myself again. There’s a song that goes, “Healing doesn’t come from the explained.” It seems so fitting. If I could only heal from things being explained to me, I’d never heal because to this day, I still don’t understand what caused the broken engagement.

TN is a blessing that would’ve been blocked by wanting the relationship to work so badly. I know that I’m where I’m supposed to be right now. When I think about that past relationship, it still stings. But it’s okay because I know I’m better now. I try to focus on all the new things that I’ve gotten to do and see each as an opportunity to become a better Brittany. Each day is a new blessing that I wouldn’t have gotten to experience. I think this is how God sees us when we come to Him. What blessing are you experiencing today?

“Your promise still stands, Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness. I’m still in Your hands. This is my confidence, You’ve never failed me yet. I’ve seen you move, You move the mountains. And I believe, I’ll see you do it again. You made a way, where there was no way. And I believe, I’ll see you do it again.”

-Brittany

(Here’s the link to the sermon if you want to listen to the whole thing: http://thelifechurch.com/videos/series/summer/summer-part-one)