542 Days
It's no 40 years in a desert but it's still been a while.
4/2/2013
Adam,
I am trying to even figure out where to start with everything. I have been praying for this opportunity to share for over a year. I didn’t even know if I would ever get it, but I am thankful for the God I serve and His willingness to bring healing and hope gradually through His perfect process and in His perfect timing. We serve a great God who sees our hearts and hears our voices when no one else does. I am just thankful the He has given me a chance to talk to my friend again.
Anyways… Let me start off by saying, none of what happened was what I expected. When we were together that last year, I was so thankful. Thankful about where we were headed. Thankful we were together. Thankful to be with the person who knew my heart. Thankful to have someone who got me and I got him. Thankful we were pursuing Christ and growing in Him. Thankful I had what I wanted. Thankful I loved and was loved.
Then I started to feel this unsettling sense in my spirit. I didn’t understand it because I thought this was it. Everything I wanted was here. How could I feel this unsettled? We were pursuing what seemed to be the most God honoring relationship we had ever had together. I did not understand. For a while, I just decided to ignore it. But it just kept getting to me. I think that is why some times I would get so upset. (By the way, I owe you an apology for those angry outbursts and need to ask your forgiveness for them… I am so sorry for that).
Finally, I decided to just pray, lay it all on the line and surrender it entirely to Christ. Each day I would place our relationship on the alter of sacrifice, just like Abraham place Isaac on the alter. I would surrender our relationship to Him saying “It is yours Lord, I want this, but I give it to you and trust you to do what is best. Do what you want with it.”
As I did this, God began to reveal truth about the cracking parts of our relationship. We cared deeply about each other, which may seem like a beautiful thing, because it is, it was the greatest strength of our relationship, but it was also the downfall. We both loved each other so much that as our relationship moved forward our love for the other would get in the way of our love for God. When I was honest with myself, I realized we centered our lives around loving each other and not around being in relationship with God. Bluntly put, we became each other’s idols. The focus of lives became our desire to be together. This was a tough pill to swallow.
As I swallowed that pill, I became more and more aware of this idol in our lives. And I became more and more aware of what I would ultimately have to do. I knew I was the one thing you wanted. The one constant thing that you wanted in your life. I knew I was the one thing that was in the way of you really being who God called you to be. I was whom you depended on when things got difficult. In order for you to completely lean into God and depend on Him in a whole new way, I would have to go. I was angry about this at the beginning. I thought it was unfair. I didn’t understand why God would put us though all this. Why He would allow me to care for someone so deeply and then reveal to me that the most loving thing to do would be to walk away and trust Him to continue doing healing that I could not be a part of? I don’t think I will ever be able to express to you how deeply this hurt me.
And the I finally did it. I let you go. Not because I wanted to. Not because you did something. Not because I didn’t want to be with you. Not because of anything other than I wanted to follow God, step out in faith, and truth Him in one of the most difficult choices of my life. And then once I did it, there was peace. Overwhelming peace, I can’t even describe to you. It was truly peace that transcended all understanding. Logically it didn’t make sense. I could not explain why it was peaceful in my mind. I didn’t understand. All I knew was I was surrendering it all to my Father. I was placing it all entirely in His hands. I was trusting Him to lead me wherever He wanted to.
The time to come next was so difficult for me. When you would contact me, I would have to fight so hard to be so direct with you because I know I could not pull you back in. I know I could not be there for you to completely lean into Him. Then I had your friends contacting me and telling me to leave you alone. So I stopped responding. I wanted to, but I know I couldn’t because any word I would give you would pull you back into me and away from where you needed to go. It killed me, but I could not ever tell you that because that wouldn’t help you heal. I would cry to God to give me strength to trust Him and follow where he wanted me to be. You continued to contact me and fight and that made it all the more difficult to continue to trust and follow.
The stuff that followed afterwards was nothing I was prepared for. I did not expect to be in a relationship or it to progress that fast. When I am at a good place and focused on Him, I think I realize that God did it to help either of us from back peddling. I think he knew it would be difficult for either of us to lean into Him entirely when the other one was still available and accessible. He knew that until we completely surrendered each other, we would not completely surrender to Him.
Now just because this boundary was put in place, does not mean it wasn’t hard for me. I would still cry every time I received something from you with this feeling of torn about not responding nestled deep inside. You would say how you felt like I cheated, or ask me what was wrong with you, or say that I was doing this to get back at you. It hurt me so deeply to have the person who knew my heart, my core better than anyone say those things. And on top of that, knowing that I could not explain to you the whole situation because I would pull you back in. It tore me apart. Sometimes it still does. I wanted to tell you the truth of it all. I wanted to explain to you that there was nothing wrong with you, that I was not angry with you. It killed me to hear you say that stuff because it is so far from the truth. I felt like our hearts were aligning more and more. You were this passionate man who really wanted to serve and honor the King and I knew that God was and was going to continue to use you in amazing ways. There was nothing wrong with you. There was nothing in me that wanted to intentionally hurt you. In fact, it was more an act of unselfish love. I know that probably sounds weird for you because you were so deeply hurt. But that was the truth for me. What I wanted was to be with you. But God had revealed to me that what I wanted wasn’t what was healthy for you, wasn’t what was best for you at that time. I knew if I held on that I would hold you back, I would stand in the way of all God had in store for you. In my eyes, staying and holding you back when God had revealed the truth to me would be the most unloving thing I could do. So I painfully let myself disappear, trusting that God would heal and grow both of us into more of His likeness. That was the thing got me through it… His faithfulness.
This wasn’t always easy. When I would receive messages from your family members or friends telling me how mean I was, how uncaring I was, how evil I was, I felt like I was about to fall apart. I didn’t know how to respond. So I just didn’t. I just took it prayed and trusted that God would reveal truth someday. And if the truth was never revealed on this Earth to these people, it really did not matter because God saw my heart and know the truth and He is all that matters. I began praying that God would use this anger towards me to bring you closer to your family, to bond you together and give you greater opportunities to share with them who He really is. I was willing to be the bad guy. I learned to realize life is so much more than being liked by others, it is about His kingdom being advanced and if I need to fall to make that happen, it is all worth it.
In regards to Christmas, I lost it. I was so confused and torn. I couldn’t open it because I know what that would do to me and to you. But every part of me emotionally wanted to. But I didn’t want to stand and be the hindrance in your walk with God. My mom found me crying and told me to go to bed. And I did, praying to God for support. In the morning, the stuff was gone. I did ask my mom where she had placed it and she told me she put it away in the basement. I didn’t want to ask more questions or open any more opportunities to get in your way, so I avoided the basement for the rest of the time I was home.
Not contacting you has been hard for me. In a way it is like my best friend just died. Because of the way it happened, because it was such a direct cut off, I never got to grieve. There has been this deep hurt in me. I know that might be hard for you to understand because I know you hurt so deeply and I am sorry for that. All I can stay is I missed my friend. Sometimes I would get mad at myself and would wonder, is there something wrong with me, is this normal, is this wrong? I would feel such shame. I would pray to God to heal the hurt and free me. I prayed that you were growing in Him and trusted that He was taking care of you. Sometimes I would feel sad because I did miss my friend, but then He would remind me that He had you and He is more powerful than I could ever be. I began praying to Him to help me grieve and heal. The blog was one way He did that. He used it to give me peace that you were running hard after Him and that made me happy. There is a selfish part of me that sometimes feels sad that I was not there to see this journey with you, but then I realize you would not have been on that journey if I was still there. And yet in all that, I’m so grateful that our God heard my cries and saw my heart and gave me a little window to see how he was using this step of faith to shape you into this amazing man.
There were still many times though when I would miss my friend. Prayed that He would heal this piece in me. Sometimes it would get so painful that I would just cry and cry out to Him, and he would remind me that He was in control and to trust Him because He was going to bring healing in His perfect time. I decided I would continue to wait and let Him do the moving. Just wait on the Lord. I just prayed and waited.
Your Facebook friend request was another reminder that my God is the a God who feels my pain and hears me cry out to Him. That He doesn’t need me to do anything. He will make the steps happen as he pleases. Earlier that same day that you requested me on Facebook, I had one of my strongest cry outs to Him. I hadn’t cried to Him that way for a while. But that day I just felt so much pain so deeply. On my lunch break I drove out to a parking lot, sat in my car and just poured it all out to my Father. Praying for peace and trust and telling Him I know He knows best will heal all in His good and perfect way and timing. That night was the night I got your friend request. At first I didn’t know what to do. I prayed and understood that it was a step towards healing. While I knew we may never communicate, it was a sign of peace, of healing. Accepting was a step in the journey.
Opening the waves of communication again is a healing thing for me. Just being able to feel free to say “hi” or “how are you?” again is freeing. I am thankful for the God we serve. He is the God who sees. I know everything isn’t going to be healed at once, I know my life is far from perfect and there are a lot of things I still don’t completely understand or I don’t think are “logically” fair, but I am thankful that we have faithful God who we can trust, who not only hears us and feels our pain, but also take the time to bind up our wounds.
Adam, I am thankful that you are my friend again, even with minimal contact. Just know I will always have your back in prayer, whether we are not in contact, have limited contact or have reach a place where we can have a closer friendship again. I am thankful for you and pray God’s guidance over your life as you share His love in the simple but most beautiful way, by being willing to see His people and hear His people just as He sees and hears us.
Hopefully, I said what all I needed to and this all makes some sort of sense and I didn’t just word vomit all over the place. Hope this is healing and helpful. Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions or if my words are just a tangled mess, which they can often be. Haha. Guess, I am just trusting His Spirit will speak beyond my words.
Blessings from Your Friend,
Whitney
Taylor Swift - Tim McGraw
I wonder Abba, was this your plan? Was this Your will? I guess it doesn't really matter. It is what it is and asking these questions profit no one. I can say with an honest heart I am at peace with the situation. I hope we can continue on the path of restoration although I'm not sure exactly what restoration means in this context... I guess what I really am hoping for is that if I run into her and her husband at the fair or something it isn't weird and I can honestly genuinely hope for their well being.
Hopefully expressing herself to me has given her some peace.