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Getting Over the One: Step One

Getting Over the One: Step One

We’ll just skip right over the whole argument about if there is really "one" person for each person and jump to the part where we, regardless of what we may previously have believed on that topic, discovered "the one" in our own lives. It’s hard to argue against “the one” when he is staring you in the face, isn’t it? Some have never felt this, bless you. Others know exactly what I am saying and are nodding along right now.

We share the same story.

First, you meet "the one," then you meet each others families, you talk marriage, every day growing more and more certain that "it" has finally happened for you. Then, for whatever reason, suddenly you aren’t together. The moment of break-up was at once beautiful and terrible, like something from a film. You know just what I’m talking about, don’t you? Each of our experiences, played out with different scripts and characters, were equally devastating.

Now to the good stuff: Moving beyond him and rejoining single life after already throwing it a goodbye party. Ah well, it happens to the best of us, right? Sure, break-ups do happen every day. We have all been there, but this is different and you know it. This isn’t "Why doesn’t he like me anymore?" This is "Oh, God, how can I face tomorrow?" It isn’t "Did I say the wrong thing?" It is "I’m not sure I can find my next breath." You get the picture.

It starts with your friends saying, "You need to get out more." Okay, out. Tuesday night Bible studies, Friday movies, Sunday lunch with the whole gang—you’re out, and it isn’t helping. You are dizzyingly busy, yet continually find yourself looking over your shoulder. There isn’t a moment that you completely relax, every moment fighting a war inside, simultaneously wanting to bump into him and wanting to avoid him at all costs.

As the days go by you get tired of the tears and the insipid headaches that follow, so you decide you will no longer cry, either. In fact, regardless of the fact that you feel like a shell, you decide you will no longer give him any more emotional energy; he has already taken too much. You are moving on. You write it in your journal, marking the date you are officially free of thoughts of him. Then you do it again. And again.

Are you there? Have the weeks turned to months yet you can still smell his cologne in the air? Have your prayers come full circle from "God help me" to "teach me some lesson through this" to "surely You have a plan for this pain" to "God help me" again?

The first step to getting over "the one" is to realize that time alone does not heal all wounds. While it helps, while it can benefit us, it does not have magical powers to make us whole. We need more. We need to reflect, to recall; we need to go back and re-consider the good and the bad of the days we shared with that person. We need to remember the beginning and the hope and realize that hope itself has not died with this relationship.

We need to wrap our minds around the concept that somehow, some way, we can be happy and whole and full again.

This first step is a battle of the mind. We are not weird to still be crying months after the break-up, neither are we overreacting. We are dealing with real loss, not only of a relationship that was important to us, but also the loss of an ideal we have carried with us from our earliest days. While we may not believe in “the one,” we still want it to happen to us. We want the fairy-tale moments to share with our children; we want the butterflies in the stomach, and we are afraid that after finding it once, it will never come again.

I could tell you it’ll work out, I could say “hang in there” but the reality is that this battle isn’t won with trite phrases, the battle of the mind is won with truth. You may not find it in the words of your closest friends; you certainly won’t find it in the memories of your broken relationship. There is a source of truth in the Scripture that will meet you right where you are. All it takes is one verse, one truth to hold onto. Find that one verse. Write it out on your mirror so you see it every morning, tack it up on your dashboard, carry it in your wallet; do whatever you have to do, but let that truth sink in slowly. Mixed with all the memories and the pain, let there be a seed of truth.

For me, it was Habakkuk 3:19, in the Amplified Bible. “The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]!”

I held unto the truth even when the thought of a new love terrified me—He stood as my personal bravery. When I fought through the night for my sanity; He was my invincible army. I began to understand that the things I knew I couldn’t do, He could do for me. I accepted the truth that I have high places in my life, certain struggles unique to me, and He knew them already and prepared me to walk, not stand still in terror, but to walk upon them.

What is your verse? Don’t have one yet? Don’t worry, if you look for it, you’ll find it. And when you do, plant it, let it sink in slowly and let the healing begin.

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