**a guest blog written by Michelle Pratt**

 

PART 1

The perfect Christian,

someone that loves Jesus more than me, brings me devotions every day, prays before every meal, spends 30 minutes with Jesus daily, and serves on at least 2 mission trips a year.

This was what I had always anticipated my true love to be like. I had heard about unrealistic expectations so I took off the basics like “6 foot” or “blue eyes and good forearms.” I knew I could live without those things, but the church had always taught me the important things to look for in a guy. I held these things near and dear to my heart because I do think the church is very wise to teach girls that these qualities are indeed the most important things to look for in a potential spouse. However, God made my story a little different and I believe God was purposeful in doing so.

My senior year was one for the books. I was on my fourth year of Baylor cheerleading and enjoying our first year in the new stadium. I was on to student teaching, and I was living with fellow Pi Phi’s who were by far my best friends in college. To top all of that off, I was even living day by day with Jesus. Honestly, senior year was going by so perfectly. I had even gone on some dates with some really great guys, but had made up my mind that I did not want to leave college with a boyfriend because I enjoyed dating around too much. Not sure if that’s great advice, but it’s honest. But then…. curveball.

I met Ryan.

We had started off as just great friends. We were both attempting to date other people and were actually helping each other by giving our best advice. Needless to say, our advice must not be that great because neither of those relationships worked out. During this time, I knew my feelings for Ryan had grown because of his humor and loyalty as a friend. However, I suppressed these feelings because at the time, Ryan was not living out the kind of life that I thought followed my stipulations listed above. He was a Christian, but was enjoying college a little more than I would have liked at the time. He cussed a little more, drank a little more, and brought in some things he was dealing with personally. Surely, this was not the guy God had for me.

Journal Entry - February 28, 2015

“So many emotions going on that I cannot control. Jesus, I try to leave my guard up, but I have to have you in order to do it. I don’t want to develop feelings for Ryan, but I can tell I have to put a wall up.”

As you can see, I was trying so hard to fight these feelings. However, I did go to his formal with him in San Antonio and after a full weekend together it was hard to fight off feelings. We had a college version of a “DTR,” but I refused to do anything more than just acknowledge we had feelings. We went on a few dates and really started to like each other. It made me bring up discussions about alcohol and physical boundaries and religion. I thought we were starting to be on the same page, but one weekend I went out of town for a friend’s bachelorette party. While I was away, Ryan made some poor decisions that really broke a lot of my trust in what we had. I called my dad and had the intentions on ending whatever “fling” we had going on, but my dad said to hear Ryan out first and have a talk. For some reason though, my pain was a lot more internally severe than I think anyone’s disappointment would feel like. I fell into a pit of depression and cried the whole four hours back to Waco while my friend drove. I know that sounds crazy, and honestly what Ryan did was not even that horrible, but this was when I was starting to see that something was wrong with me.

My friend that was driving me played Cecie’s Lullaby by Steffany Gretzinger pretty much the whole way home.

“Call my name and I will answer all you need. Here inside my arms, just breathe, you’ll be safe and sound with me. - No one knows you better than me.”

These words played over and over (remember this portion for later in the story.) I made it back to Waco and Ryan and I had several long talks that were pretty hard to bear. We resolved the issue of the weekend, but began to talk about our relationships with God in general. Ryan gave it to me straight, which at the time, I wish he hadn’t. He told me

“Michelle, I am a Christian and I love Jesus, but the way I have lived my life for the last year has made me distant. And the heart is not something that can just be fixed overnight AND it can’t be for you. I cannot and will not fix my relationship with Christ just for you. You need to give me time to grow and better my relationship with Christ for myself.”

This was so hard to hear. This was NOT what or who I should be falling for. I prayed and prayed over this situation because I had never started to like anyone like this before.

Journal Entry - May 6, 2015

“Ryan feels like I am disappointed by him. Lord, he is definitely in a growing stage and he even said that. However, what is the point where I stand by him and encourage him, and where is the point where I don’t settle? Jesus, I don’t have clarity right now.”

At this point, Ryan had asked me out twice and I turned him down both times.

But that’s just the surface of what was going on inside of me. All the while, I would have extreme panic attacks about everything - transition, Ryan, new job, Ryan, graduation, Ryan. And this is not your normal kind of nervous. This is the I have lost ten pounds off of my 5’2” body frame. I had woken up at 6 every morning with severe anxiety and found myself with no appetite. My roommates were seeing me cry every day and nothing was making sense. I thought it all had to do with figuring out if I needed to date Ryan or not, but as I started seeing my parents at the end of the year, they were noticing something very extreme and off. My mom took me to her psychiatrist and after realizing the turmoil that had been going on in my head and body the last few months, they started to observe me. Background - I had been being watched for a while because of my families history with mental illness. I had also been diagnosed with OCD my sophomore year because of the anxiety I would get about weight and money, etc.

Well the psychiatrist put it together that it was not, in fact OCD, it was General Anxiety Disorder.

And this was just the beginning of a long, hard road. Not just for me, but for me AND Ryan.

PART 2

I finished out my time at Baylor and about a week before graduation, I did eventually let Ryan be my boyfriend. I had prayed about it and could not distinguish what God was saying from the anxiety. So I just decided to give it a try even though I knew it most likely would not make it past the summer. Ryan really had began to turn things around. He had started going to church again, even on his own. Now, what was very hard for me was the need to control things. I would want to call him on Saturday and tell him “Remember, you have church tomorrow!” I wanted so badly to play God and fix Ryan and his heart. However, I kept seeing verses like,

“Be still and know that I am God.”

“And the Lord will guide you continually and SATISFY your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” Isaiah 58:11

Unfortunately, I did not and could not let these verses guide me. I could not be still and wait on God. I HAD TO FIX RYAN. I needed to make sure he went to church and did not drink too much! I had to make sure he prayed before dinner! I had to worry about all of these things!!

This turned very unhealthy, ESPECIALLY when paired with my anxiety. I would begin to get queasy every Saturday and would lose my appetite because I would be so concerned with Ryan getting to church the next day. It is one thing to be concerned, but y’all, this level of concern IS NOT NORMAL. I was losing even more weight and was crying almost every day. Adding to the latest list of worries that notion was that because I went to Baylor, and everyone was getting married, I HAD TO figure out if I was going to marry Ryan.

And you know what?

God just would not tell me anything.

This drove my anxiety sky high. I was beginning to lose so much weight and my hair was starting to fall out. My family had to cancel a trip because I was so distraught about everything with Ryan and so anxious I could not get off the ground of our upstairs. I remember laying their sobbing, feeling like my body was too heavy to lift off the ground. Now that school was over and I had no distractions, my body and mind were caving to this anxiety disorder that I had had all along, but I had no way to fight it at the time. My mom started taking me to her counselor and I would cry the whole entire time. When we would talk, things would mainly revolve around Ryan, but my counselor (who was a Christian counselor) would draw me out of this unending circle of Ryan worry and would make me realize there was a pattern. My brain would take a worry and make it explode leading me into a pit of despair. In all reality, Ryan was not even the problem, it was just what my mind decided to fixate on. Things were actually going pretty well with Ryan, but I was so focused on fixing everything and figuring out if we were meant to be or if I needed to break up with Ryan, that I was just not able to enjoy getting to know him better. I was so confused.

 

Journal Entry - July 20, 2015

“I feel like you have us together right now because we are both learning so much. I’m learning about grace and compassion and how you view the broken. He is learning how to honor You in a relationship and how to seek You.”

There would be moments where I would release some control and I would not question Ryan about every little thing he was doing, and it was in those moments that I saw God work on his heart the most. I would see glimpses of his growth every time I stepped back. But the anxiety just got worse and I was starting to lose trust in a God of guidance and faithfulness. I was really falling into a bad depression. I honestly dreaded seeing friends because it hurt too much to keep silent about my internal battles. I started doing a treatment called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. It was supposedly going to stimulate areas of the brain that were underactive during my anxious spells. I was also on two different prescriptions and taking medicine daily. I was also having to use Xanax pretty regularly.

There was one weekend where I went up with a friend to a wedding (cried the whole way there, because I did not know if I could see a wedding with Ryan…. We had been dating maybe 3 months.. if even.) I stopped to see Ryan in Waco on the way back. I had an anxious thought the evening I was with him - “What if Ryan drank too much and displeased God? What if God is mad at Ryan? What if God is mad at me for dating Ryan?” That night, I stayed at a friend’s house and woke up every single hour with severe sweat and extreme panic attacks. I would only see black around me and it felt like something was sweeping into the back of my brain. I took Xanax so I could fall asleep for another hour.

The next morning I went and woke Ryan up at six because my anxiety was so severe I just cried! He took me to breakfast and just listened to my craziness as I cried and tried to get him to break up with me. I thought if I could just get him to break up with me, my anxiety would be gone. No more wondering if we were meant to be or not. Ryan would have made the decision for us and the anxiety would be gone. Unfortunately, its only now that I know that’s not how my anxiety actually works. However, Ryan refused to break up with me (even though I asked him to) and told me there did not seem to be an actual reason to break up at that point. He insisted that I leave Waco though and go home to rest and get some clarity. I was such a wreck on the way home, my parents had to fly home early from California. I got to my empty house in Sugar Land and had such a severe panic attack that I was left on the tile floor of the pantry and could not get up. My mom had to call her sister to come get me and take me to the airport to pick them up. I think this was truly the lowest point in my struggle with my anxiety. I felt that not living would by far be better than experiencing this much turmoil.

I continued treatment and focused on getting ready for my move to Dallas at the end of July. It was painful, but by the grace of God, I kept going.

PART 3

Journal Entry - August 23, 2016

“Oh, how You intertwine and weave life together so beautifully. Lord, this summer was so painful. It hurt so incredibly bad and the anxiety swallowed me. I was unable to hold on or fight, I was simply being held together by a most loving God.”

I’m in Dallas and I have started my first year as a teacher.

Things started to get a little better. I was still going to counseling and taking medicine. I was still dating Ryan, but keeping an arm’s length distance from falling more for the guy. Bless his heart, he knew every worry I had about him, he knew I did not know if I would want to be with him. He also knew I was worried about his faith, AND he knew I was basically crazy because of how bad my anxiety had gotten. However, this sweet boy stuck with me. He even told me he loved me one night in August after a friend’s wedding (after only four months of dating…. how do you fall in love with a crazy person??) to which I replied, “thank you!” I was not about to let my guard down when I had not heard from God on whether Ryan was the one for me. I continued to work and move on with life, but still had moments of panic every few days wondering if Ryan would be the one for me to marry. Ryan was living his senior year and had moved in with some pretty cool guys from his fraternity. I don’t know what kicked into gear for them, but as a whole, they really grew up a lot that year. Basically, four of the guys found the loves of their life and decided to marry these girls. I think this put things into perspective for Ryan and his friends. They started holding each other accountable for things that guys deal with and life in general. Since I was so consumed with trying to feel better and do well at teaching, I had relinquished some control on Ryan’s life and really saw God starting to move. He was going to church regularly and pursuing me constantly. He was writing letters thanking me for staying by his side.

I had another friend reach out about her personal anxiety and I was able to drive to her and stay by her side during a panic attack. I was watching how God weaved my battle with anxiety with other friends as they battled their own mental illnesses. This was when I started to realize that maybe my God was extremely faithful and ACTUALLY had a plan for my pain.

I was still struggling, but the pain was not as often or severe. Honestly, what helped a ton was being consistent with Jesus time, counseling, medicine, working out, and eating right. I started to slowly but surely get back up. This was an extremely long process and went throughout my first year of teaching.

Several months had passed by since Ryan had said he loved me, yet I still did say to him those words in return. I always told myself I would only say those words to the person I would marry. I still did not know if that would be Ryan. He had grown so much, but I just did not yet know if I could see him as the spiritual leader my future family needed. Yet, I did not see a reason to cut him off. He was growing and he was trying so hard. I saw so many wonderful qualities in Ryan - he was humble, constantly trying to better himself, and he was persistent in his pursuit of me even though the “love” was not returned. Very long story short, I finished off the year feeling quite a bit better because of all of the help I had received. I went home some that next summer because Ryan was moving back to Houston and my parents were down there. I had been doing so much better, but one weekend in June, I had my very last panic attack. I started sobbing in the car with my parents because I had been dating Ryan for over a year and God had still not told me if I was going to marry Ryan. I started to give up on the idea that God had a plan for this relationship and started to wonder if it was all wasted pain. My dad finally said, “This is what we’re going to do. We are going to tell God, you have had enough and you need Him to be very clear with His answer.” My dad prayed over me and asked God to confirm whether or not I needed to be with Ryan forever because if it was a “no”, I needed to end the relationship at this point and move on. I went home for the next week and was praying that prayer over and over.

I got a text from a girl with whom I had gone to college asking to meet for dinner. It was strange because we had not been super close in college and hadn’t spoken in about a year, yet she reached out to me. I went to dinner and the Lord began to slowly reveal Himself. She had heard from a friend that I had some wonderful Christian girls with whom I had been friends and she wanted to get involved. As we started talking and opening up, she revealed to me that she had recently started to see a counselor and was not sure what was wrong with her. She had been struggling with unsure thoughts about her boyfriend even though nothing pointed to it being a bad relationship. She really loved him, but would get extreme anxiety when deciding if she should commit to him for life. I was able to feed into her every wonderful piece of Scripture and Godly advice I had received that last weekend from my own parents. I started crying with her at the table because I knew then and there that I needed to have that last panic attack to be able to comfort her. I had not felt anxious about Ryan in so long that I needed to be reminded of the pain and the thoughts so I could freshly help this friend of mine.

God was very present during this conversation and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that His plan was being revealed.

Not long after that, I told Ryan I loved him. And you know what? I had PEACE about it. It was not filled with anxiety. But let me tell you, at this point Ryan had really grown into that guy that fit many qualities listed in my first portion of the story. He is not perfect and may not bring me a devotional every day, but he lives in Christian accountability, he prays over me and with me, and he LOVE LOVE LOVES my sweet Jesus.

I realized at this point THAT GOD HAD A REASON for not telling me sooner if Ryan was right for me or not. If I had caved earlier and told Ryan I wanted to marry him, his growth may have stopped there. He may have not continued to strive to grow into the wonderful man God and I both wanted him to be.

Now this is the cool part y’all have been waiting for. He called me one day and said, “Michelle, I have been listening to this songwriter and I want you to walk down the aisle one day to one of her songs…”

Can you guess who that artist was?

Steffany Gretzinger….

Like what?? Is this the same boy that made me cry and listen to her songs over and over just to feel better? It is now a MAN wanting me to be his bride and walk down the aisle to one of her songs. Unreal.

Journal Entry - January 6, 2017

“I AM MARRYING RYAN. I SAID YES!”

Y’all, I could go on and on about how wonderful Ryan truly is. We still have our issues and from time to time I will experience anxiety, but NOTHING like what I had experienced two summers ago. AND, the best thing is it is no longer about Ryan.

I now know that he will be imperfect and he will fail God’s standards, but so will I. Marriage is about two imperfect people coming together to try and be more like Christ and to draw each other closer to Him. It’s not about making the least amount of mistakes.

Last weekend, Ryan decided to get baptized. Even though he accepted Christ in seventh grade, he wanted to show his profession of faith and also wanted to just wash himself of his past. He did it before our wedding because he wanted to show that he was a new man, wanting to walk with God and me as we continue to serve this same God that led me through the valleys and the mountains.

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I write this NOT to tell girls to let their boyfriends have a chance if they aren’t following Jesus.

No, it brought about a lot of pain. AND there was a difference. I did not start dating Ryan until he was in the midst of growing in God. I waited and waited until I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God wanted me to marry Ryan. So, in actuality, I am telling girls to wait.

Wait until you have a clear direction from God and you are at peace with marrying a man. He should love Jesus well because he cannot love you well without doing that.

Do not ignore God, but let Him have room to work. God has His own timing and I am so thankful for it. I also want to help raise awareness about mental health. There is help out there and boy am I thankful I received it (Ryan is too!)

May this story preach of the faithfulness of my God! He let’s nothing fall through His hands.

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Journal Entry to Come - August 5, 2017: The Clements

- Michelle Pratt