I have a story to share. It’s about a young girl of
seventeen. She had been around the world twice, finally fulfilled her dream of
being an actress by joining the home-school drama group and was on track with
what God had for her… or so she thought. Until every plan, every little
anticipated next step was one day completely shattered. She swore to never
enter a relationship in high school. She was completely and joyfully content
with the idea of being single for many years to come. But then he came along.
It was really nothing. I should have over looked it entirely.
But when a chronic introvert deems you an acceptable friend, how do you not
feel special? Friends. That’s all we were. We had a few things in common, knew
a lot of the same people, but I so often had that little sparkle in my heart
when we were together. He seemed so … godly and super smart and he makes the
most epic sound effects for his stories. It wasn't long before I started
imagining myself with him as a couple, man and wife.
“No, no, no! Silly me,” I’d say to myself so often, “it won’t
ever happen because you’re you.” But after a semester of getting to know each
other he asked me if I liked him. Honestly, a cow in a book store would be stealthier
than I was about my feelings for him. None-the-less he asked and I answered and
so began our journey towards togetherness. Almost exactly a year and a half
after our first date, he proposed. It was the most beautiful, spontaneous,
personal proposal I could have ever imagined. It was perfect.
Three months later I left his apartment in tears. The ring
sitting on his dining table, my heart in shreds. It was the second hardest
thing I've ever done. A week later we met with our premarital counselors and
told them what had happened. They deemed it wise and felt at peace with our
decision to call off the wedding. They advised a separation period, no
communication, no interaction. “Two months, I don’t know why but the Lord is
telling me, two months,” the husband said over and over. So two months we did.
As we walked to the car I turned to the man I almost married and said “Two
months from today is…was our wedding day.”
And on my wedding day, after two months of nearly nothing, I
met again with the man I almost married. He seemed so foreign to me, so
different and distant. He and I spoke and … our love for each other never existed.
He had never loved me. He said we could be friends, that he’d kind of like to but
as tears soaked my face I shook my head. I love him. All I ever wanted was to
be everything for him. That wouldn't go away if we were friends. It would just
be pathetic because I’d drop everything in an instant to help him in any way I
could. No, that day our connections, now burnt and frayed, were cut.
The day that was supposed to be the happiest of my life was
then flooded with tears and a desire to be… extinct. How I wished myself not
dead but gone: a wisp of air, a rock in the ocean. Just anything that meant I
didn't have to feel all of this … the strings of life being severed in so many
places. I wanted to run, disappear, never talk to anyone I knew ever again. But
I recovered, quicker than I would have imagined.
I didn't realize how
much I truly loved this man until last night. I wondered around my apartment
which was originally supposed to be ours and I felt a tug in my chest.
Something telling me “you weren't supposed to be living alone here by now”. And
I froze. It was the first bit of feeling I’d had in days. I wanted it to sink
in, burn like a dagger of ice in my heart so that I could weep and feel the
loss. But the more I tried to dwell on it the less it hurt. I even tried
imagining the man I loved with a wedding band from another woman. The ring
announcing the exact opposite of what I had imagined so many times over. And I
smiled! My heart grew warm as I imagined the woman he would marry. I loved her
for loving him. I appreciated her for being the woman he could love, the woman
I could never be for him.
I miss him sometimes thinking to myself how it felt to be
loved and then I’m reminded that he didn't love me. I have nothing to miss. I
love him enough, though, that I will adore his future wife. If I could go back in
time to that moment when we first connected, I would do it over again if only
for me but for him… that moment on the bus I’d lean over, kiss him on the
cheek, and never speak to him again. So he could forgo the guilt and heartache
of the nearly 2 years. So he could have back the time we spent together.
I loved
without love in return. Funny how much I see God in it all. How much he loves with none in return. God as my lover, that's a new concept for me but I'm excited about it. Pain and lessons go hand in hand. But, that's just how life is. Thank you, God.
