My (Unfinished) Love Story

Once upon a time there was this guy …

I met him in the fall during my junior year of college, and to this day I believe it was fated. It was a Sunday afternoon at a church picnic, and though our series of interactions that day were awkward and peculiar, our fellowship didn't end as the picnic did. We went for a cup of coffee and spent three hours talking, laughing, and enjoying the company of the other.

Even though I didn't fully know him yet, I remember thinking that this man was amazing. (Spoiler: He is amazing).

It didn’t take long for us to hit it off, and we became great friends. After a few months of pursuance and patience on his end, we officially became a couple. Our relationship held its own difficulties and issues as any relationship does, but it was ultimately wonderful. We seemed to have the perfect blend of similarities and differences that we were able to be compatible, yet interestingly unique.

We had fantastic conversations- spiritually, politically, romantically- and we both have a childlike spirit that gave us a host of laughs and fun memories.  He challenged me in ways, as I challenged him in others. He brought out the best in me, and I brought out the best in him. We were the kind of opposites that we thought were perfectly complementary, and more than anything else we may have been, we were always (and most importantly) best friends.

He and I were in a relationship that appeared to be hand-crafted by God.

As it tends to do, time changed things. I started to feel unsettled and uncertain about our relationship. I’m not sure when it all began, though by the end I couldn’t ignore it. It was one of those things you don’t feel much at first because it’s so small, but then it really hits you one day and you realize you’ve been feeling it for awhile. For a handful of reasons, I felt led by God to end the relationship- so I did.

It was heartbreaking.

I let go of this amazing, godly man I believed for two years I was going to marry, and it broke my heart. At the same time, I had a deep peace about it from the Lord, and I was confident it was the best decision for my heart. I needed this season for myself, and I needed it with God alone. I knew I had to let go of my idols and security blankets if I wanted the Lord to teach, transform, and deeply move me in the ways I needed at this time in my life, and my boyfriend had been one of them.

As much as I have felt peace about my decision months ago, I have also felt deep sorrow. There have been days during which my heart ached so strongly that all I could do was collapse to the floor and sob. I would cry out to God and plead for another way. “God, why does it have to be one or the other? Can’t I have this wonderful season with you and him? Show me what I can do.”

“Oh my daughter, how you don't yet understand.”

Even when I would cry, I knew deep down this was it; this was what I needed. Needless to say, however, I still couldn’t bring myself to fully let him go. I kept holding on to hope that maybe someday we would find ourselves back together. I had an idea of what would need to change- either by time or by the Lord- for a relationship between us to again be an option, and I believed it could happen.

I liked the idea that he and I would again be together, and so I began to imagine it. I daydreamed about how God could orchestrate it and what it might look like. I loved imagining how this season could be a bittersweet part of our love story. Then one morning it occurred to me: that’s not what this season of my life is about.

This next season may be a beautiful part of a love story, but it’s not ours. No, this is a chapter out of me and God’s love story.

That’s what I wanted this season to be originally, anyway. I wanted to pursue God’s heart (while uncovering lost pieces of my own) at discipleship school in California, and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing. I wanted to know God more, and he gave me a beautiful opportunity to seek him. I wanted to fall desperately in love with the Lord, and he has already begun sweeping me off of my feet.

The other day when my heart was aching, I allowed myself to wallow in memories and conversations of the past with my boyfriend. I missed him greatly and I sat reminiscing about how well he loved me, how deeply he cared for me, and how continually and beautifully he pursued me.

God tugged at my heart in that moment. “Do you still not understand? Don’t you know I am pursuing you? Don’t you see the ways I have loved you and how deeply I care for you?”

Oh …

“Yes Lord,” I said aloud. “I hear you.”

You see, God loves me, and God is pursuing me, and we are about to have an amazing season together, but I was missing it because I wasn't willing to fully let go! I couldn't continue idolizing and obsessing about this man and expect my heart to still be fully committed to God.

You can’t hold on to an idol with one hand and expect to reach out to God with both- you don’t have that many hands.

I’m still scared to let go fully because I still want that man in my life. I want to be with him and love him forever, and I’m afraid completely letting go will mean losing him forever instead. Just like I couldn’t ignore the pit in my stomach, though, I can’t ignore this call from the Lord. It’s a call that says my vision needs to change, as this season is not about that man. I must stop focusing my time and attention on the relationship I left, and I should no longer strategize ways we could possibly make it work.

It’s not a call that asks me to stop thinking about him, praying for him, or desiring him, but it is one that asks me to stop fixating on him.

I obviously don’t know yet how our love story ends; I don’t know whether it’ll be when I’m old and gray and we've spent our lives together or if it’ll be in two months when we no longer speak and I've realized we will never get back together. I don’t know what it would look like if we were to get back together, and I don’t know how it could be accomplished if I fully let go. I guess I don’t know anything about the future, really. Go figure.

What I do know is this: the best kind of love and life you can receive is from the Lord, and if He is inviting you into a season of intimacy with him to experience those things, you ought not to let anything stop you from running full speed into his arms.

Oh, and make sure to let go of your idols before you go. God won't let you bring them along.

"When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But it's a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but in waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you do not understand.'" -C.S. Lewis 

I Love God's Personalized Plans

Let me tell you about a funny conversation I had the other day when I went to the bank. Now, when I say it was “funny,” I mean that in a slightly sarcastic way. I walked in to see the teller, and the familiar woman behind the counter smiled and inquired how many more times she would be seeing me before I left for discipleship school in California. We talked for only a moment when she asked me, “So what do you want to be when you grow up?”

I laughed at both the irony of thinking I hadn't yet grown up, and how often an answer to this question is required of me. “I'm not quite sure,” I said jokingly. “If I ever find out, I’ll let you know.”

You know, this question used to bug me a lot. In fact, I've even written a blog post about it before. It irritated me mostly because I didn't have an answer to it, and I felt like God was withholding my “calling” or his plans from me. Friends within my Christian circles, to no fault of their own, were quick to pull out the perpetually quoted Jeremiah 29:11 verse and add insult to injury.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.”

“Don’t worry,” they’d say. “God has a plan for your life.”

I didn't see it, but that’s all water under the bridge now as I've moved past the fact that God clearly isn't going to offer me a detailed map of my future. His plans, whatever they may be, weren't made apparent when I was a kid. I couldn't spend my young adulthood planning for the future career I felt called to like everyone else. It was frustrating, but I wrote about it and got over it.

Now, however, I have a few more words for those who incessantly feel the need to bombard me with questions about my future.

No offense if you’re one of them.

You ready for this? Here it comes.

Don’t ask me what I want to be when I grow up as if I’m not already something. I’m already grown up, and I’m already what I want to be- myself.

I’m a person who loves my job as a waitress because I enjoy people. I’m one whose stomach turns at the thought of punching in at nine to sit in a cubicle all day and punch out at five.  I’m a person who loves to travel and the constant change and adventure it brings. I'm one who loves Jesus, and doesn't quite know yet how, with my passions, I can "work for Him."

Ultimately, I’m just me, and that’s what I want to be when I grow up.

I may not be able to fit all of that into a fancy career title, but a title wouldn't make me happy anyway. I don’t get paid the big bucks for being me, nor can I get a degree for specializing in being Mary Bocks that will guarantee me a good job, but that’s not really on the top of my priority list.

That would be pretty cool though, huh?

I think some of us can feel cheated because the future of others seems to come so easily. We look at those who knew exactly what career path they wanted to pursue before they could even spell it, and we feel swindled, ripped-off, gypped. Maybe you don’t, but I do- I did, anyway.  Why couldn't it come so easily to me, too? Why couldn't I have been happy being the architect or journalist or screenwriter I wanted to be in middle school?

You want to know why? Because that’s simply not me, and that’s ok.

The truth is, I haven’t been cheated out of a future. God didn't decide to plan everyone else’s future but mine so I could just wander for the rest of my life.  No, as I learn more about how God plans and what that actually means for my life, I realize that God has given me freedom by planning around my personality.

What do I mean? I mean that I’m fickle. I am an erratic human being who thrives on change. So what did God do with that? He gave me options.

Maybe God didn't plan for my future to be constrained by a single career choice because he knows I wouldn't do well that way. Maybe he knew I’d feel trapped. Maybe, as Jeremiah 29:11 says, he has plans to prosper me and give me a future, but maybe that doesn't mean he has planned out my every move. Maybe that means he has provided options that will allow me to grow, glorify him, and enjoy living, but he has given me the freedom to choose my own.

Maybe my future doesn't consist of a single moment wherein I finally discover “what I’m going to be.” Maybe instead it’s a continuous process of just being myself as I follow God's guidance, whatever that might mean for that moment.

Four years ago, that was being a studying public relations. Today, that’s being a woman chasing after the Lord at discipleship school. Maybe someday it’ll be a missionary, or maybe it’ll be writer. Maybe it’ll even be an architect (though that option is highly improbable). Wherever God leads me in the future, I know two things for certain:

Wherever He takes me, it'll be what my heart has been desiring and prepared for in that season, and that chances are high my "destinations" will constantly be somewhere different because God knows there is a restlessness for change inside of me. Like I said, I’m a bit fickle, but maybe even that will change.