Emotional Desires- can't earn love

Every girl wants to feel desired. They want to be told by some handsome someone that they are beautiful and attractive and that all the little flaws they carry around aren't that bad.

I'm no exception. I've never felt very attractive or beautiful. It comes from childhood scars that I didn't know were so deep..but that's another story for a different time. I've always tried to convince guys to like me so I could feel pretty....

Then last semester I found someone that should have by all means made me feel desired. I was wanted. I was desired. I should have felt beautiful and attractive and sexy and wanted. And I did....for a little while.

But after a few weeks the original excitement faded and my heart grew heavy with want. I wanted to feel desired...but wait...I had felt desired. I was being desired, why was I feeling this way?

I marched on, allowing this man to make me feel attractive in some way, hoping that every hang out would lead to my fulfillment. It never did, though. Every time I left, I felt a little emptier, my heart a little heavier.

Until the last time I left...and I cried. 

I felt so..unloved..so unhappy. Which didn't make sense. The world  tells me that the way our relationship worked, I should feel like the baddest mofo in town! I was desired! I should feel strong, beautiful, sexy! I felt all the opposite. Ugly, naked, vulnerable. 

That's when the Lord spoke what was true to my heart and I'm sure to many other women's hearts:

As women, we don't desire to be wanted only physically, we yearn to be desire emotionally as well. 

What a mind blowing reality! I wasn't fulfilled because at the root of wanting to be desired physically, is the desire to be desired emotionally.

I'm an emotional person, more so than most. My emotions are always on overdrive, so when I was happy, I was happy! But when that didn't last, my heart was devastated. Reality set in and I knew no matter what, I could not make this man desire me emotionally.

Joy is supposed to come in the morning (lamentations reference), yet all I felt was defeat when the sun rose. When it all ended with this guy, I didn't feel more unhappiness or more emptiness, I felt the same, lasting yearning to be desired emotionally. I still go through ways in my head to make him interested in an emotional relationship rather than just a physical thing...even though I don't want him emotionally, I want him to want me emotionally...I'm a very circular thinking person.

I think --scratch that, I KNOW-- our society has poisoned women's minds by telling us we will be given that emotional satisfaction if we do x, y, or z through chick flicks and other porn for women. We have this diluted sense of having to EARN that affection.

But it's all LIES!!!  We are desired in every sense of the word by the One True God! He literally gave His all for us thousands of years ago! (even if you don't believe in Jesus as the son of God, He did die for you...that was His intent while hanging out the cross. Whether or not He was legit, He died willingly for all of mankind. Let that sink in.)

I can't offer a solution to my own grief other than to start allowing the love of God to pierce my own heart. To be vulnerable with Him. And that is SO much easier said than done. I need to learn that I don't have to earn any kind of love. That it should be given as a gift without strings or condition. I honestly don't know what I actually can do that...and with the risk of sounding "Shit Christian Girls Say" cheesy, I can only do it with His strength, by faith and prayer and by giving it all to Him.

More thoughts to come on this subject, but for now I leave with this reminder and beautiful instruction:
Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient affliction, and faithful in prayer.

--Maggie Mae