Simply put:
[I screwed up, and I’m sorry for that.]
J, that’s for you.
I’m going to tell you guys a story. I’ve never tried this here, so we’ll see how it goes. In this story, there’s far too much beauty to the brokenness that as much as I want to keep it to myself, because of the hole it left in my heart or even to protect myself from the embarrassment, I can’t. It is stained with the glory of the Lord, and I want to share the glory of the Lord with you.
This one is for the Hartkes.
About two years ago, I told this guy I loved him. Yes, the “L” word- I used it. I’ll tell you: before I used it, that phrase (even more so directed at a man) scared me.
But, that was all before he ever looked at me. Everything changed when all of those reservations were so quickly shoved aside just because of the way he said my name, just because of the way he tapped into my thoughts with all his thoughts and all his words.
So I said it. I told him I loved him, and I meant it. And he told me loved me back, and I believed that. So that was that. We’d said it, and it was enough for me… for a while.
What followed was a whole lot of heartache. Saying those three words was not enough. Hollywood always makes that look like the climatic point. “And they live happily ever after.” Yeah, that’s not true. Especially for two seventeen-year-old kids claiming to follow Jesus and not seeking His counsel through it.
The day he broke up with me is forever burned in my mind. Trust me when I say I tried to forget it and I can’t. But most memorable are the hours I counted down before he came to meet me that morning because I knew it was coming. This is what I wrote that day:
“ I wanted this for so long. And now, as it is coming to an end, I am not sure what I should do- fight for all it’s worth, or let him go easily because there’s nothing left in me.
In Psalm 146, David warns, ‘Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save… Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them- the Lord who remains faithful forever.’ Maybe I should have stopped to hope as hard for Jesus, as I did this boy I love. ”
It was too late by the time I realized that. All I could do was let him go. If' I’d been stronger, I would have chosen the same thing he did for us. But I wasn’t stronger; I didn’t rest in the power of the Lord. And it hurt.
There are more journals I’ve found more recently with thoughts I never remember thinking, doubts about our relationship I never remember having. I was so struck by that “L” word and the notion that caring about him the way I did was enough, everything else just seemed so small. It seemed so beyond me (and it was) that I was too afraid to let it out of my hands, to give it over to Jesus (which was ironically the safest thing I could have done.) But it took the whole experience to learn the lesson that would have brought me peace a year and a half ago.
We spent the year following our break-up just as close as we’d always been. Emotionally attached and pulling at the strings we knew of each others’ hearts. We talked about pretty much everything, avoiding only the topic of ‘us.’ I cannot speak for him or his intentions; I will not try. But I can speak for myself. My motives were not hidden in the joy of the Lord, my intentions were not built on my trust of Him. They were built on my own selfishness.
A little over six months ago, our communication came to an abrupt halt. A decision I’d made in anger and bitterness. I was out to prove that I could do it- reject love entirely. I just didn’t know it was Jesus’ love I was rejecting. Our friendship didn’t even have the chance to be transformed by the Lord into something edifying; it no longer existed. We took the pieces of each others’ hearts we’d gathered over all that time and went our separate ways.
Brothers and Sisters, no. I screwed up and I am sorry for that. I sinned against my brother with my selfishness and he sinned against me, but repentance and forgiveness were not what my heart would immediately delight in.
Nevertheless,
Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel. - Isaiah 44:23
Today I am here.
I have forgiven him, and by the graciousness of God, I have found the strength to tell him. I mustered up the courage to send him a letter after almost 5 months of no communication whatsoever. And 2 months later, he mustered up the courage to face me- repenting, and forgiving me too.
I feel that five, ten, twenty years down the road, the hurt of tearing the seal of 2 hearts that had been sloppily bonded will seem much smaller than it even does to me now. And that hurt already seems smaller than it did a year and a half ago. Immensely so. But I won’t forget it. I won’t forget caring that much. I won’t forget seeing another person the way I saw him.
I share my heart and my failures with you, my family, if- for nothing else- to encourage you. To encourage you to be unified, to urge you to allow the work of His Spirit inside you, to share with you this personal story of redemption through forgiveness, to tell you that the our broken hearts are pleasing sacrifices to the Lord. The situation was terrible. The heartache was great. And our failings were so far past what I ever could have imagined would be redeemed. I didn’t think our story would see resolve. In all honesty, I did not expect him to write me back, much less forgive me. And it was all I could do to rejoice in the Lord when he did. He has been so good to us. He has provided such boldness and, simultaneously, humility for us. I stand in awe. There is peace.
Yes, Hartkes, you were indeed correct. It was His words spoken through you that led me where I did not want to go, that challenged me past what was comfortable. And I praise Him that; I thank my God for you. And I thank my God for the redemption of sin.
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