August and Everything After... Part 2 - On the Bench

As I'm navigating through this current season, I'm choosing to remember God's faithfulness to me in recent years.  It's strange, but my story with God, even though it began in my childhood, really began one August, a few Augusts ago....

Oh my goodness, where were we? Oh yes, I was going to have to "break up" with Joe as my friend.... if you forgot the story because I stared it almost a month ago, (good grief, sorry about that btw!) Here is a link to the first post.

....I was learning so much in these days of my life- about friendship, about God, about setting healthy boundaries for myself, about learning to say 'no'- even to good things....these days were full and I realize now, looking back, I was feeling more alive in my life and in my faith walk than I ever had before.  I see now, it was the beginning of a deeper, richer walk with God.  I felt like my faith was in vivid technicolor.  I felt like every book I was reading was speaking into my season of life.  It felt like every sermon on Sunday morning was being spoken directly to me.  You know how that goes, where you feel like somehow, your pastor has overheard your prayers, or read your journal. 

So after a lot of prayer, continued stealth "research" by my friends, and about 25 more confirmations that Joe was indeed seeing this other girl, it was time.  I was not trying to be dramatic.  I just knew myself.  I had a lifetime pattern of being friends with guys I had secret crushes on, (or maybe they were not so secret...) but anyways, not once in this well established pattern of my life had things worked out the way I had dreamed or hoped they would.  So along with the pattern of secret crushes on a few of my guy friends through the years, I also had a well established pattern of my heart being broken.  It was time to change.  I wanted to make a good choice for my heart- even if it meant breaking it, I knew and God really was affirming that it was the right thing to do.  He was calling me to trust Him with my singleness- a shaky subject with me, but I was determined to break my long standing pattern, and do something different.  So I took the leap of faith...and jumped, trusting that God would catch me....

My church used to have their mid-week services on Tuesday evenings.  I loved these services, not only because of the contemplative aspect of them, but it was also a rich social scene for the singles at my church.  So one Tuesday, after standing around talking with several friends including Joe, people began saying goodnight and drifting away for the evening.  Joe remained and I asked him if we could speak privately outside.

We sat on a bench near the parking lot and I remember two things: my heart was POUNDING, and I was so thankful that it was dark outside so he could not fully see my face. Exact words and phrases of that conversation escape me today (which is strange because at the moment, I swore I would never forget a single word)- but I know I told him what was on my heart.

I told him I liked him as more than a friend.  I told him my feelings were deep and real and that I could not guard my heart any longer and still be his buddy.  I told him I knew that even though he was spending time with me, he was also seeing the other girl - and that I knew things were romantic between them.  I told him something to the effect that I wanted to be respectful of his relationship with her and did not feel that was possible if we were spending time together.  There were awkward silences, I'm sure a few tears, quivery voices (mine) and just a real, heavy sadness in my heart.  I was making the choice to step back from the guy who had surprised me with his friendship and with the ease I felt while being around him.  

I don't remember exactly what he said that night on the bench, but I do remember him confirming that he was seeing the other girl and that he wanted to see where that was going to go.  He was respectful of what I was sharing and what I was choosing to do.  I remember we talked about how things were going to be socially between us.  We did not want things to be awkward, but they needed to be different.  We decided that we would only share this latest development with our closest accountability people, that we did not want it to be socially awkward or weird for our friends.  (Our singles community was close and tight-knit and very active socially).  We agreed that we would no longer spend time one on one, and would not spend time talking or hanging out at social gatherings.  We would be cordial in those awkward moments, but that was it.  It was going to be weird and so, so hard, but it was in the long run, going to be good for my heart.

The true test about how all of this was going to work was just around the corner.  A group of us were getting ready to leave in two days to go on a trip to Colorado.  At the time I signed up, my heart was hopeful that things with Joe could possibly be real.  It was going to be a fun adventure, in a beautiful place with my friends and with a guy my heart had grown to care deeply about.  But now, things lookd very different. I now knew he did not feel the same for me.  I knew he cared for someone else.  I had not been chosen, and now I had to show up, put a smile on my face, hide my tears and have fun.  I was less than excited.  I just wanted to hide out, cry for awhile and come back when I felt stronger...but God had other plans about teaching me about strength in difficulty.  I was about to meet Him on the side of a mountain.

It was the beginning of August 2006 and it was going to be five solid days of togetherness ...me, Joe, his girlfriend and 20 of our closest friends heading to the mountains.... and I had absolutely no idea it would change my life.