August and Everything After- Part 4 - Aspen- (Where the Beer Flows Like Wine...)

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 started in my childhood, really began one August, just a few Augusts ago....

Does anyone else like the movie, Dumb and Dumber? I swear, it never gets old, and somehow only gets funnier to me.  In case you have somehow missed this masterpiece, the main character, Lloyd Christmas describes Aspen and the place "where the beer flows like wine!"  If you need a good laugh and are in the mood for some crazy antics, its a good one.  Anyways, I digress....  

The last time I wrote about my story, Joe and I were sitting on the bench outside of church.  We had decided not to be friends any more.  Well, I had decided and he had agreed.  The timing could not have been worse, because we were leaving on a trip with a bunch of friends two days later- heading to Aspen. 

I don't know if you have ever traveled with a group of twenty or more people, but things can be a little bit chaotic at times.  We had reserved lodging and planned (some) meals, divided travel expenses and coordinated activities such as rafting, hiking, shopping, eating and biking for folks while we were out there.  For most of us having traveled together before, the hardest part is always getting everyone to coordinate on the timing for all of the departures and events...that can be like herding cats.  You just have to tell people that you want to leave about 30 minutes before you actually need to leave...that is the key to traveling with large groups. (In case you were wondering- ha!)   

No, everything about this trip was awesome, except for the fact that everywhere I went, everywhere I turned, every mile down the highway across two rather wide states, I felt like I was either bumping into or having to observe Joe with his girlfriend.  Over and over and over and over and over and over again I was reminded that he had picked her, not me.  I was reminded that I was easy to walk away from, that again, my gut had been wrong to think there was a connection or a spark between us.  That part of the trip was decidedly NOT awesome.  

This reminder's constancy in my life during those initial days and then weeks following our talk on that bench fostered a deep reliance upon God for my peace and recognition that I needed to surrender to His 'no' in my life for this relationship I had hoped would develop with Joe.  God had shut the door very clearly.  It erased any possible "I wonder-s" from this spinning single girl's mind.  I knew and our boundaries were very clear.  Joe's answer was "I'm not interested."  I had been obedient to what I felt God had asked me to do by having that conversation on the bench, and now, I had to be obedient with the answer I had been given. It was a hard knowing and I had to let Joe go.  Not my plan, but His plan here.  I had to trust that God had someone else in mind for me, even though whomever he was, he was no where near my radar.  I had to force my hands to be open when I wanted to cling so tightly to what I wanted....even though I never held it to begin with. 

Luckily for me, our group on this trip was large enough that we did not have to actually hang out together and pretend to be cordial all the time.  We ate in different restaurants in the evening, participated in different activities (he went biking while I went shopping etc), we spent time with different friends and rode in different vehicles. Part of the same larger group, but very far apart. What made it even more of a challenge was that on this particular trip, only Jessica and Joe knew what had transpired personally between Joe and I and how awkward so many interactions on the trip actually were despite our efforts to show the contrary.  And of the two of them, only Jessica was aware how hard I was working not to let my broken heart cloud over the blue mountain skies above me.  Joe was too busy having a blast while hanging with his girlfriend... it was VERY easy to see I was not even on his radar.  Jessica helped me breathe and push forward.

Joe was pretty gracious toward me and honored our private agreement not to talk or spend any time together even in groups.  All well and good until I realized how much I missed him and getting to talk with him about little stupid things while everyone stood around waiting for others to arrive to leave for some activity.  I just missed how easy things used to be and how happy even simple little smiles would make me.  He gave me the social space I said I needed which really, really sucked.  He held up his end of the bargain by not playing any games with my heart and sending mixed messages, and quite honestly to make matters worse in my heart and mind, he made it look easy.  

I tried my best to be fully focused on the friends around me and tried to force myself to have a fun time.  And for the most part, I did- we floated down a river in rafts and I remember screaming with my friend, Ginger as we got drenched in cold river water, laughing and having so much fun.  We ate at many delicious places, enjoying meals outside and good conversations.  We wandered through Aspen, shopped a little bit, ate ice cream in the park, explored and stayed up way too late talking and eating in our little condos and it was a great time.  In fact, I have TONS of photos documenting all of this fun...but what I remember most about this trip was not all of the fun we had.  

No, what I remember the most was how visceral and challenging it was for my heart to want something so badly, and to know God was saying 'no' to me....for reasons I could not understand and made no sense to me.  What I did not know then, was that this was just the first of MANY times in the coming years that God would use this tactic of saying 'no' to what I perceived to be a natural 'yes' type of situation to draw me closer to Him.

At the time, I could not imagine anything harder than taking this 'excellent' way of guarding my heart and making intentional hard but good decisions for myself.  I was trying to honor Him with the way I was living my single life, and it did not feel like it was a path filled with rewards...it felt like a path of challenge, resistance, despair, struggle and endless uncertainty.  I knew I was doing the right thing and going about this whole awkward relationship/friendship situation the proper way, I just didn't know if I could survive it... it felt too hard.  Too unfair.  Like it was too much to heartbreak handle....

I felt sorry for myself.  I felt unloved and unlovable.  I was on a roll with my negative self-talk.  I was pretty certain that things could not get much worse.  What I did not realize was that I was about to survive a life-changing experience that saw my view of myself plunge to an all time low (in front of everyone no less!) in order for God to teach me a powerful lesson about how HE sees me...all within the span of twelve hours.  This experience I was about to have would forever shape how I viewed challenges in my life...and trust me, I had NO idea what challenges were ahead...then or now!

My school of life had not even started...God had merely set the scene.....