I'm scared of commitment

Now when you hear that, what you may tend to think of is just some guy who won't put a ring on it. And while that's a type of commitment that's not really what I'm talking about.

My whole life has been a series of moves. I've lived in 6 states, moved 18 times and in my mind have no intention of stopping. But maybe my mindset for moving doesn't come from a place of flexibility and willingness to follow. Rather, the more I've looked at it the past couple days the more I think it's because I've developed some sort of defense mechanism for not having to feel the pain of moving on.

My dad is a pastor and so my whole life we've gone where God has asked us to go. I love that part of my life. I love how my parents have shown me what it means to be faithful. And very rarely do I not wish for the life I've had because while it means a crazy long intro speech… "Hi I'm Bella and my story is 4 hours long, but I would love to tell you everything about my life..." Ya… It also means that I've gotten to experience things some people will only dream of.

So why am I scared of commitment? I've always jumped around, I've always been on the lookout for what's next, what's new and exciting. But what that means is that I've never fully invested into anywhere. If I had, then once I moved, which I know I was going to, it would've hurt more.

I was the person who was in every club, every sport. Every single thing I could possibly be involved with, I did. And I absolutely loved it. I loved being the person people could count on. I loved being the one who had the reputation of knowing what they were doing or at the very least could figure it out. And so when I got into college I did the same exact thing. I dove into every club, every activity, I even walked onto the track team as a thrower even though I'd never done it before. That's who I am. But as last year went on it got harder and harder to put my time into things that I loved more. I began to be flaky. I began to let people down which I hate more than anything in the world. That came from not committing myself anywhere. I put myself into so many things looking for what was better. I was missing what I’m actually good at and passionate about. The things that I loved I was ignoring for things that I thought I could be good at. I began to fail in ways that I never could have predicted.

I'm terrified of failure. Always have been. I fear messing up relationships with people. I fear that I'll make the wrong choice when it comes to what career or major I pick in school. I fear that I'll never be enough. And the thing is-- I won't. I'll never be enough, but what I've been learning lately is that's okay and in fact that's a great thing.

I am incredibly inadequate. But the great thing is God is adequate. He is beyond adequate to love people that I can't, to pick up the pieces when I've failed, to guide me through the fog. He's enough.

I’m also learning the great relief that He brings when I've given everything to Him. This stage in my life has been one of continual peace because of how deeply He's demanding trust and how faithfully I'm learning to dive into Him. Do I succeed every time? Heck no. But he’s so gracious with me and I just fall more in love with Him every day.

Recently I heard something in my writing class, “Trust your reader. They’re smarter than you give them credit for.” I don’t trust the people around me to give me grace when I fail. But I should. If Christ is in anything, it’s grace, and his outpouring of it onto others means I get to experience it in return.

So am I scared of commitment? Yeah, a little bit. But at the same time I’m glad for that fear. You wouldn’t trust a leader that was cocky and arrogant. You trust the leader that’s humble and willing to be consistent. You trust a leader that has commitment to what they’re leading and doesn’t plan on jumping ship when a better offer comes along.

It is my prayer that God would begin to throw long-term things into my life so that I would be challenged to stick to just the few things He wants for me. That I would be encouraged to become better than decent at what he plans for me. And that I would make deeper connections in those places; Connections that when I break away are hard because I put everything I had into it and wasn’t afraid of what would happen afterwards.

Winston Churchill wrote, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”