There's a little #Olitz in all of us.. Scandal

Hey Y'all... So let's talk a little bit about Guilty Pleasures.. I LOVE Scandal!!
I mean I LOVE Scandal. I have been watching it since it first aired and every Thursday night, I would sit with my red wine and popcorn and watch it-- Until Season 6, when I stopped briefly. But I have since caught up and finished the series with Season 7... But I digress...

This was my show, you couldn't call me, text me or tweet me during Scandal. There was even one time, my best friend knew that I needed to watch the show and timed it to pick me up so I could help him pack for a trip between a commercial for me to not miss a beat. There was another time that I ended a date early so I could make it back on time. 😆

So I know all of the theories, the comments people made about  the love story that is #Olitz. The frustrations that people had that a woman with the confidence, strength, power and intelligence of Olivia has a weakness and that weakness is love. The frustrations people had that this same woman's weakness was also married.

People often held that as the dark stain on the show, but if we separate the fact that Fitz was married, the reality is we all are #Olitz or have had the potential to have that experience.


I am a Christian, but before I was saved and moreso before I fully understood what it meant to have a relationship with God, relationships were not clean or easy. You see, in the world we don't understand how to truly love people. We live in a fallen world and that translates into relationships as well.

There are things that I know now about how I handled and sometimes still handle relationships that were unhealthy. And not because I intended to hurt someone, or hurt myself, but because I didn't know any better. So when I think about #Olitz I know I am not that different. Two broken people in a fallen world, fell in love. At the heart of it, the tension, the emotion and the drama of their relationship--aside from the infidelity is a reflection of that brokenness. When I rewatch this show, I see glimpses of me. I see moments in how I acted in relationships where I lashed out because loving someone that deeply was just so painful.

I also just think about their back and forth and how they try to walk away but can't. We all have our Fitz or Olivia. In being a Christian, that part comes with now knowing I didn't know how to guard my heart and therefore I allowed myself to let someone else in deep in to a place that should be reserved for my husband and I still navigate the remnants of those past relationships. There are some that will stick with me, some that I continue to pray are finally released. These are known as Soul Ties where literally your soul is tied to someone else. Why, because I gave pieces of myself away to that person, pieces that were reserved for my future. So when I see #Olitz, the yo-yo of their relationship IS a Soul Tie. They are tied to each other and so in that tie, they will make choices that are not the best. They will ultimately destroy each other in many ways because while they might love each other, that love is not contained. It is not harnessed in a way that creates safety so it implodes.

I have certainly had that type of love, or have allowed the thought that that type of love has been in my grasp. And in holding that type of love, I have definitely been in situations where I have been destructive to that type of love.

So we all have a little #Olitz in us. I just also now know that my next relationship will be contained, under the protection of God and there in that space that explosive type of love will not be destructive.

And yes, I own there are a lot of details I am forgiving in this show, but in this go round, all I see is the love. As toxic as the love might be, I am in for the love.

I'll likely come back to this again, because there are definitely layers.

Untitled.... love

Hello world, it's been a while since I got deep in my emotions in this space. I actually separate my posts about relationships into a private blog, but I needed to not hide from the things I am about to share.

I fell in love and for the most part it was amazing. Especially when you think about all that it took to get me there. And honestly, all that it took to get him there too. We were not perfect and that's not what I was seeking. There were challenges and lots of tears. But when it was the two of us, linked in, connected, it was just this perfect simple place. Wrapped in each other, like our tangled limbs when we slept.

I miss the simplicity of love, I miss just knowing that a glance, a smile, a hug came with so much comfort and peace. But in honesty, those moments were few and far between. Love, relationships is consistency and I would be lying to myself if I didn't say I felt like I was working HARD and often alone to build a structure around a relationship.

There are many things I could say, many things that I could say to rationalize the human logic around relationships, but this post isn't about that.

As you might know, and maybe I need to do a little bit more posting on this, I am a Christian. And my walk has been colorful to say the least. This last year or so, I have been on fire for the lord. My heart ended up traveling oversees and for 6 months I had to learn to put my energy into some other place and not into the relationship I had been pushing for, for now 3 1/2 years. And in that, I found the stability of God. Which comes with so many more details, make God the Center of your Life because HE is the center of it all. When your eyes are focused on anything but God everything else becomes so complicated. Aligning with the Will of God is the simplest way to live your life. It doesn't mean it won't be challenging, because your battle every day ends up being with the world that man created and trying to flip the world's understanding to align more with God.

Anyway, if you have been graced by the love of God you know that you don't have control of the speed in which He grabs hold of those heart issues and goes to work. And there are things in our walk that we will try to keep a hold of and my imperfect, but simple and perfect man love, was one of those things that I wanted to keep hold of. I wanted to take it along in my new life.

But when you live in Christ, the old things fall away. And unfortunately, making my relationship and my heart in a place ahead of God, was one of the old things that needed to fall away. And God's timing it is PERFECT, isn't it. Two days before my heart was to return, two days before I could go back to that simple place, wrapped in each other--- the Lord gave me a word. Leave Him Alone, Let me be God in both of your lives.  I don't think if you have never heard the REAL voice of the Lord that you will understand what this meant to me. You see, I know I have been in the presence of the Holy Spirit. I know that I have been comforted by his everlasting peace. But hearing the VOICE of God has been something that I have only prayed for. That my relationship with God would deepen so incredibly that I would know the voice of the Lord when He spoke. And this day, two days before my heart returned to me, the Lord gave me my prayer and I heard His voice. And when you hear the voice of God, you know it. And when you hear the voice of God you obey it. As painful as you know it is going to be, you do.

So the first round of emotion was so hard, because I wrestled with God-- do I have to? Why? What will happen? But I begrudgingly obeyed. And in this space, I gained some peace, that what God was meaning to do would work together for my good. That what God has His hand in, is for our good. Not to destroy us, but to build us up and to set us up for something bigger. So while it hurt, I had peace.

But then recently  came the second round of emotion, when my heart, after a few weeks of silence, caught on that things were not going to return to our simple love. And here I am broken more than ever, because he is my heart, no matter how imperfect our love was. He has my heart and I can't think of any other human who will capture it the way he had. And it kills me because, in all of our challenges, the biggest one was pushing him so far, that he would hate me. And here I sit, probably the most hated person second to one other in his life and there is nothing I can do about it--- but pray.

Pray that we are both healed and comforted by the grace and wisdom of God's love. I pray that someday we might be returned to each other. Maybe not in the same fashion, but at least with understanding of what we went through together. I pray for him the most, because my biggest fear is that the man I know he is going to be, might be more delayed because of this. But, I have to trust in God's perfect timing, even though I may not understand the reasons, I trust in the love of the Lord, because I have been saved by His Grace and His Love in my life.

So there, unfiltered, raw, my heart open, very broken, but knowing it is in the hands of the Lord to heal.

Love: A Game of Strategy or Heart

Hey World, It's been a while. We all have guilty pleasures and mine come in the form of reality tv. This time around it's in an MTV show Are You The One?  The show brings together various men and women and over the course of 10 weeks they have to determine who in the house is their "perfect match." The group only gets closer with opportunities to put couples in what's called a "Truth Booth" or at the end of each week seeing how many matches, but not who the matches, are they get right.

What I love about this show is that in 10 weeks you see how people operate and whether or not they are in it for their hearts or just to win the game. Did I mention if they get all 10 couples right, they win $1 million?!

When I watch this show it comes down to two themes are you in it for the strategy or are you in it for your heart? Attraction wins out at during the initial night. We go to what we know, the group thinks more with their eyes than with getting to know the individuals, well because, you're on a tv show, it's some exotic location and well the cast is usually very good looking.

Over the course of the few weeks and when your truth booth guesses and matchups turn out to not be working, you start to play the game with a little bit more sense. Hoping that you start thinking more with your head and heart.

Here's my assessment, for some leading with their heart puts them in the right path. For others it can be a distraction, that all they are left to lead with is their head. But when it comes to what happens after the game, what works out best?

Countless times in this show there are pairs that continue to be magnitized together but we KNOW that they are not a match and you wonder what are they risking? Not only are they risking the money that the other members are banking on, but they are also risking an opportunity to figure out who their possible true match is.  Do you take yourself out of the equation when you don't allow yourself to be open to someone else. What are you actually learning, about yourself, about love?

The precarious situation arises, when the team gets the 10 beams, but you have been rocking with someone who you have allowed your heart to pursue only to find out that your head wins over more and your perfect match is someone you didn't give a chance. Aren't there questions that you end up thinking? Like- What if you leave the show with the person that you spent all that time getting to know, do you ever wonder what could have been with your "perfect match?" What if the relationship doesn't work out, do you call up your perfect match one day and say why not give it a shot?

In the grand game of reality tv around love, honestly I would rather be on a show like Are You the One?  or Married at First Sight rather than shows like The Bachelor. At least with the first two there is some level of science involved, matchmakers are connecting you with someone that you could be more compatible with. It's for you to see the signs. With shows like The Bachelor, you end up risking way too much in the hopes that one individual sees you out of the 20 or so others that are also vying for their attention.

I don't know about the game myself, I am still figuring it out, but I think it's a little bit of both- Strategy and Heart.

That's all she wrote folks...