'There are a lot of different ways to cry. There's the "somebody close to you is dying" cry, the "confessing dark secrets" cry, the "I'm angry and want to kill or at least significantly maim someone" cry, the groom's "my bride is coming down the aisle" cry, the "kid whose feelings have been hurt" cry. There's the "car accident I could have died in but didn't" cry. There's even the "I just hit my thumb with the hammer and it hurts so much but I'm not going to cry, so little tears are forming in the corners of my eyes" cry. But her cry on that day was a kind of crying I have seen many times. It's the cry of someone who has had their heart broken by a lover.
It comes from someplace else.
Someplace far inside a person, deep in the soul. It's a cry with a certain ache. It's the ache of a broken heart.'-Rob Bell, 'Sex God'.
I don't like casually writing my feelings on this blog so that people simply can have a look inside my life. I don't like the impersonal approach of simply blabbering out my thoughts so that you know what's going on with me. And yet I feel as though it's very hard to talk about my situation as well. To live and re-live events that have taken place this week and in months past most assuredly means tears will form, tears will fall, and tears will keep coming. Tears like the ones Bell speaks of.
It's difficult to know where to begin. I feel foolish. I feel naive. I feel upset with myself for so stubbornly trying to hang on to my past. And simultaneously, I am concerned for him. My heart is breaking for him. I am devastated by what sin does to people and what it can cost them. I so desperately desire for him to experience freedom and to make decisions that will help him prosper, not stumble.
And I'm not even sure why or how I can feel those things for him. How after all I have been put through I can still pick myself up off of the floor just to experience disappointment again. Time and time again I have found myself thinking
'If only I could hate him...' What a flawed way of thinking on my part. I am so blatantly reminded of how
human I am. And of my own sin. I should never wish to have a hardened heart. To turn my back on the ones closest to me because that's the easier thing to do. I guess that is precisely why I do not understand the why's or the how's of my heart. Because I should not/cannot take a bit of credit for any good thing that my heart may be experiencing; the Lord is the only One giving me a shred of grace throughout this time.
I have been humbled to learn and re-learn and then re-learn AGAIN that I am not key to his salvation. To anyone's salvation. Any control I had at any point in time was merely perceived control. This is God's battle now. Actually, it always was and has been and will be. And while I am really trying to rest in that and trust Him with the road that lies ahead, it is so easy to feel discouraged. To wonder if all of my love has been in vain. To be slapped in the face with the possibility that I may never speak to or see one of my best friends again. It feels almost impossible to know how to put the pieces back together. Which one to start with? And how?
I pray that I did not speak out of turn yesterday. That I have not somehow made a bad situation worse. I was too upset at the time to really convey all of my feelings. And typing about it now feels all too risky, but on those occasions where I come to the end of myself, somehow the opinions of others just don't hold the same significance that they might on any other day.
There is a good chance the one I speak of will read this. And if/when he does, I hope he at least knows that I care about him. I'm worried about him and it is so endlessly difficult to feel like I cannot help him. And that my heart is broken all over again, but that I plead with the Father to direct his steps and to give him a discerning heart. That even if I have no significance to him or a role in his life, I am truly
desperate for him to experience what freedom is. Because life is too short to live ensnared in something horrible. And that
I never, ever want him to give up. That there is help available to him out there, and I hope he will take it. And that when I gave him a hug,
I meant it.
As for myself, I have some very tough weeks and months ahead of me. I have already gone to a job interview with swollen eyes and a deflated self-worth. He is just a few miles away from me and there are reminders of him everywhere I turn. The mere thought of continuing to experience the kind of pain I have dealt with for months is scary and over-whelming and devastating. I covet the prayers of those who read this.
