The white-gray space heater was on, only one foot to the right of
me. It felt like ice was slicing through the air and stopping an inch from my
body, emanating its thick chill onto me.
I was actually shaking. But not just within my body. Much deeper within
my heart and mind.
I had to push a name on a phone screen. A name I’d called many
times before. A name that had called my phone more. A name that, over two years
ago after I texted, I’d fling my phone as far away as possible, so nervous of
having communicated and yet so hopeful of having communication back: wanting it
and dreading it at the same time. What if
I said something wrong? But what if I said something right?
This conversation was going to be different.
I’d sat by a heat source: a fire built by someone who was family.
I’d started journaling, the packed-up processing I’d neglected from the past
nine months pushing out. Ten pages later, I’d written almost a letter—written
for my own processing but now unintentionally for me to process to him.
I edited. Refined. But tried not to edit my heart, not remove it from my words so much
anymore as I used to. Struggling to know how much to share, to know how to
share, to know what parts to leave quiet and which to expose. Struggling, when my
heart wants to finally love but when my mind screams that this is just what brings
the most fear, and when the shadow of his answer was already materializing in my mind.
We texted and were having problems finding a time to talk. I felt nauseous,
carrying my words within myself as something spoiling inside. It was time, time
to let them out so I could fully heal.
I read my words, recorded them in a voice message, and sent it.
Didn’t want to but almost didn’t have a choice anymore. Forty minutes later
surrounded by new friends and salmon fishing camp stories in a semi-new city,
the waiting began. I was juxtaposed: carrying old pain and anticipation but
anticipating the new hope on the flipside of almost deeper than speakable pain,
the freedom on the underbelly of costly release.
Five days later, I was by the space heater, pushing call. We
talked, for about thirty. It was good. He said thank you, truly thank you for
taking the time to share. He said sorry, sorry for the confusion and
misactions. He said honesty, honesty that he’d be conflicted too, wavering between
wanting and doubt. He said encouragement, encouragement that God is working. He
said care, deep care for me. He said closure, closure and locking and a new
kind of leaving.
We end capped it with theology and prayer requests, classic us. Three
years of knowing him, one year of seeing him for hours almost every day. But
now, the end my mind had been crying for but my heart had been fighting
against: the door was locked to us ever being more than what we once were, of
him becoming family, of me becoming his.
I pushed end, knowing as my finger touched the red that his would
likely never hold me again, that our relationship which was more than it
sometimes should have been was now finalized as less than it could have been.
But every leaving is a coming.
I was coming, first. Feeling anger slide away as soon as his voice
slid in, but now I started sinking into sadness. Anything other. I hate it,
despise it, can’t figure it out cleanly and make it go away. Then doubt. I could have, should have done something differently.
If I would have changed my words, my thoughts, my appearance, not been so
focused on myself, sought the Lord more, prayed more, then this would be
different. Pressure. I’m letting my
family down. All those who commented on how they saw this working. It must be
my fault. Fear. You don’t know how to
let people in, you wanted this but you always talked yourself out of wanting it
but loved even though you doubted and still doubt doubt doubt, you may never
find someone, he isn’t the right one but maybe he could have been or maybe he
was and you’re wrong, who is going to know you as much as he did but you didn’t
let him know you as much as you could and that is the problem, you are always
the problem.
To every thought, a counter-thought. To every belief, a disbelief.
To every hope, a shadow. To every confidence, a certain uncertainty. And pain.
Soul-deep pain blanked with suffocating sadness, worsened by the compression of
swirling change of the past six months, months when I uprooted my life and
unbared my soul.
But every leaving is a coming.
I was coming, second. I stood by the deep mahogany cabinet, the
amber yellow lamp casting a small glow as we turned out the rest of the lights
in my parents’ home. I’d been talking some, sharing.
“It’s like I’m holding on. There’s this orb of so much piled high,
and I’m clinging to the edge, dangling. Dangling and afraid to let go.
Dangling, afraid to let my expectations go and go where He’s taking me.”
Trust. James had hit the core of it. A year before, I’d been
writing a Greek paper, sitting in the deep red chairs of the library. The song
had blazed through the ear buds:
“What
if you could let your guard down? What if you could trust me somehow? I swear
that I won’t let you go. I won’t let you go.”
I trust God with my life, but I hold onto my control of my days.
Know He’s working it all out in the end but worrying about my messing it all up
from the beginning.
James had let me go, but maybe he’d really shown me that I need to
let go. To let go to this fear of people leaving and it always being my fault,
to let go not only of the expectations people have of me but also those I bear
upon myself, to let go of my fixation on perfectly pleasing God and to come, to
come as a sinner in need of a Savior, a girl balancing belief and brokenness, a
wide-eyed daughter who is learning to guard but not hide her heart, a woman
afraid to trust, a human who is weak but can chose to seek: to lay down her
dreams and desires when it actually costs, to come to the feet of Jesus with
all of her and say five simple words: I can’t. But, I come.
Every leaving is a coming.
And maybe coming to a pain-dripping end of myself leaves me in the
best place possible: surrendered.
Lord,
have Your way in me.
“What if you could let your guard down? What if you could trust me
somehow? I swear that I won’t let you go. I won’t let you go.”
 in Review: My Listening Journey){kind=link}
