I didn’t see it coming.
Her sweet and strong voice through the FaceTiming phone had become
a regularity in my irregularly sporadic existence. But this time, she was extra
persistent in the texts.
“Debbie, when are you free? When will you be off work? How much
time will you have?”
I answered later that day and showed her the clothes pile on my
bed. Lightheartedly, I talked about how we, the previous roommates, hadn’t seemed
to completely lose our “wow, we’ve exploded” tornado-ly clean and not clean
ways. I was packing. Packing for another trip and expecting another one of our
normal, generally light and deeply encouraging conversations.
But I stopped folding the denim and reaching for hangers.
“I called your parents and sister to make sure I should tell you.”
“What? What’s going on.”
“I just wanted to be sure, you know…”
“Yes, but you’re starting to scare me. What happened?”
She then told of a not-ex ex of mine who was the tip of the
iceberg of pain that had led to many painful conversations and tears over the
past year and a half, that sent me pacing back and forth till 3AM after crying
and crying out because I wondered if the pain of ending, of leaving, of not
having his existence exist with mine for hours every day would crush me. It was a piece in the post-grad seven months of healing, processing, grappling, praying, his
present absence one of many large broken shards the Lord was using to make something
new in the albeit breaking process of who I was, who I had been, where life was
heading.
“Debbie, he asked to date me.”
And I felt a rush. Logical: Yes, yes, if the Lord is leading you
two to date, then I will stand with you and pray for blessing. If you want my
opinion, I don’t think it’s a good match. But do not let me stand in the way.
Yes, yes, I just told you that I have
worked through this, in a way God could only have done. And that’s still true. Yes, yes,
I have compassion for him. Yes, yes, I
understand why you don’t want to talk to him again. But reactionary: What is going through your mind when you pick up the phone, call
Deborah’s best friend, and so casually try to start a relationship? Why did you
think you could have this conversation without it hurting her and me? Deeper
still: Why didn’t you call me? You could’ve, but you didn’t. Why am I never
enough? What is it about me that makes people come in close and then pull away?
Then, anger flaring, my hurt’s residual healing-tenderness jabbed. Then, sadness
seeping in, stigmatic memories and the exhaustion of it all.
Not surprisingly, she didn't want to date him.
I texted, this time. Some of my closest Tennessee friends who knew
the situation. Their responses were balm, but I was still a little caught off-guard-raw. I finished folding denim and grabbing hangers, packed into a personal item
and put inside a Lyft with my roommate to lift us to gate B11. We sat beyond
the gate in empty, sticky-blue, July-heated chairs, and I told her, she who knew
it didn’t take a label to start to fall in love, that our egging house jokes now really might become a reality.
But she knew deeper, too.
The self-criticalness that had stayed with me even after I
separated from him. The doubt that I should have could have needed to have done
something better so that the result was true difference. The lingeringly
suffocating insecurity that I’m too much and just not enough. And the fear, the
deep ice-cold wind-gone fear that, since I struggle to let people into the
deepest parts of me, that I’ll do my habitual, almost unintentional avoidance
of connection, sitting in the backseat, letting others do the driving, running
from relational risk subconsciously, and then having to live with the conscious
effects of hating that I run but watching myself run repeatedly.
I knew deeper, too.
That this fear is long-seated. That I don’t feel good enough to be
chosen. That when someone sees my intensity they’ll leave. That I present
myself as misunderstandable. That I make people turn away. That I don’t know
how to let them in. That I’ll be second-choice and back-up-plan till the cows
come home.
I’m afraid. Afraid that not only will I maybe never be loved but
that I keep myself from love and do not know how to love in return.
Back from the post-flight trip, I was sitting in the warm
almost-globe-lit-warm room, me and two other student leaders and one student.
Though our ration was 3:1, I was being hit maybe the hardest. What does it mean to be fully satisfied in
Jesus? What does it look like to acknowledge the hardness of some seasons while
also recognizing idols manifesting during that season that are making it
harder? What does freedom mean?
I got in my blue infiniti and pray-cried again, something I hadn’t
done in a long, long time. What if my heart fixated on and was fixedly
satisfied in the love of God to wash over these insecurities? What idols—of even
good connection—have I made? Abba, I’m in
pain. Abba, I’m so heart-cry-deep tired of being alone. Abba, I’m scared, so so
scared.
I’d written, the night before. “For love is the flipside of pain,
dependence is the exit slide of doubt, and courage couples with trust.”
And maybe I’m learning just that.
We must be willing to feel the pain if we want to be rushed with
the love. And love doesn’t just leave a deficit of pain but ushers in
forgiveness and shields from fear.
We can’t truly depend if we don’t acknowledge the doubt of our
tiny capacities to make our life be independently right: our haunting doubt
that maybe we’ve messed everything up, that we could have done and been so much
better. Dependency is a rushing release.
We can’t hope to move in the direction of relational connection
unless we learn to trust enough to be courageous. To trust that people are
pain-inflictors but worth the risk, so we courageously step toward them anyway.
To trust that if all goes wrong, our core will not be shaken because it’s
hidden in the cleft of the rock of Christ.
Simple, really, but I really simply didn’t see it coming.
Didn’t realize that a FaceTime conversation would bring me again
closer to the feet and face of the Savior, crying out that I want to learn to
love and be loved but am such a fumbling, broken being, crying out that I want
to love the Lord with not just my mind but also with my heart, seeking for the
idols I’m chasing be chased down and crushed, wishing for the transformation
and breaking of these wall-barriers I’ve erected to keep me from not only being
loved but pouring that love riskily out onto others.
Able to bring the change? I am not. But seeking? Here I am.
Father,
ground me in your love so I’m not afraid of love. Refresh me with your truth so
that your truth is all I focus on. Give me a heart of worship so that I can be
fueled by love of You. Only You can bring the true transformation.
Maybe this love is what I’ve been searching for all along.
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I definitely don't want this to be a monologue. What are your thoughts? Questions? Ideas?