A Story...
She wrote his name on a piece of paper. She took care and time with each individual letter, making each line and curve perfectly formed. When she finished, she carefully put it in her pocketbook, grabbed her coat and keys and got in the truck.
The trip to the ocean was a long, silent one. There was no music, no singing, no humming. In fact, when she arrived, she didn't even remember anything about the trip there, just that at some point, she had gotten in the truck and driven off.
It was a chilly night, fairly windy, and completely clear so that she could recognize almost every single constellation. She slowly but sure picked her way through the sand and made it to the edge of the ocean. When she got there, the only light she had was moonlight and starlight on the deserted shore, but it was more than enough, so bright was the shining.
She had come to take back something that was rightfully hers and give it back to God.
She sat down right at the ocean's edge, mere feet away from the edge of the crashing waves. She pulled out the piece of paper and looked at it. There was plenty of light to see the name written on it, but she knew it wasn't necessary to really see it in the first place. For the first time in almost two months, she let herself feel every single emotion, let herself relive every single memory. As she did, she told her Father every single thing she thought and felt.
Bitter. Hurt. Angry. Confused. Broken. Ashamed. Unloved. None of these emotions directed at anyone else, though a few were directed at herself. She didn't blame God or anyone else for what had happened, because despite the barrage of painful emotions, she knew that all things work for the glory of Him.
Yet, somewhere amidst all of those hurtful emotions, she found surprising emotions. She felt blessed. Fortunate.
She told Him that she didn't understand and that she never would. Some things are not about understanding. When she thought about it, what happened made perfect sense, but at the same time, it didn't. She knew that initially, it was a choice she made. It's always a choice in the beginning to care about someone. She had never ever cared for someone so much in her entire life, save her best friend. Even though the fact of how her feelings had progressed to the level they did didn't make sense to herself or anyone else, it was something she and those closest to her knew to be true. It wasn't real to him, but it was real to her. She thought back to the many times he had asked her to jump off of that cliff with him. She also thought back and remembered that every single time, deep down, she knew she was jumping by herself. She knew deep down that in the end, she'd crash into a thousand pieces once she hit the ground below, and no one would be there to pick up the pieces but God. She had known that all along. The only thing she could do while she was falling was watch him back slowly away from the edge. So, then...why had she taken the jump?
Because she had to know. For the first time in her life, she had found something worth taking that jump, almost positive that it would only lead to a crash. But she couldn't let it go...she had to know. She had to take that chance. For the first time in her life, she took a chance. She felt blessed and fortunate because even though she had broken, she had experienced something she had thought was she was incapable of feeling.
She wondered what she had done wrong. Was she not pretty enough? Not funny enough? Not interesting enough? Not smart enough? Not patient enough? Not Godly enough...? What? What had she done wrong?
She wondered if she could have done anything differently. If maybe there was something she should have said. Or maybe she had said some things that were better left unsaid.
Maybe she COULD have been prettier. Maybe she WASN'T Godly enough. Maybe she COULD have done something different. But then she realized- it wouldn't have mattered. It wouldn't have made a single difference in the world. Why? Because it simply wasn't meant to be. And as simple as it was, she knew that was the only correct answer. And she accepted it, because she had learned to trust her Father.
She didn't blame him. Just as one can't be mad where the heart goes, once can't be mad about where the heart doesn't go. She knew that just because you truly care for someone, that doesn't mean that they will or have to care in return. Strangely enough, she took comfort just in the simple fact that she knew that she had made him happy, at least for a small while. She smiled as she remembered his laughter, one of her favorite sounds, while a tear slid down her face. He was her bittersweet victory, in a sense. It was how she'd come to think of him.
But it had come to the point where the pain of holding on was greater than the pain of letting go. She knew that it's a choice to move on. Letting go and moving on doesn't mean that you never cared about the other person...it just means that you care about yourself and the people around you, too. It means you care about your relationship with God. She cared more for him than she thought he'd ever realize...but she cared even more about her relationship with God and the people who had been there for her. The experience had, in some ways, taken her from God, but at the same time, it had brought her closer. You could say that while it brought her closer, she was trying to run away from it. Holding on was becoming painful, and it was keeping her from progressing forward on her walk. The hurt kept pullling her away, darkening her skies and dulling the little bit of heart she still had left, since he still had almost all of it. She was ready to take it back and give it to her Daddy, the one person who would never break it. You see, even though she thought she took that jump by herself...she didn't. God had really taken that plunge with her, staying beside her all the time, even though she hadn't realized it.
She knew she couldn't do it by herself. She was weak, sinful, she was human. But she knew that with His help, she could.
As the earth slowly turned on it's axis, she pulled her knees to her chin and sat there for a long time in prayer. Then she sat for a while and reflected. Standing at an empty shore and staring out at the endless sea can make one feel like they're the smallest, most insignificant thing. She felt like an ant, standing on that shore that seemed to go on for miles, staring at the water that seemed to go on past eternity. But even the smallest, seemingly most insignificant ant has a reason for existence and can be of use to it's colony.
She was ready.
She stood up and rolled her pants legs up to her knees and waded out ever so little into the water. She looked at the paper one last time, then she slowly tore it into tiny little pieces and closed her hand around it. She stood a few moments with that hand over her heart. The wind whipped her hair and her clothes and she smiled ever so slightly, thinking of the way the wind would catch the name and give it to the tide, where the tide would take it out to sea.
She closed her eyes,
Opened her hand,
let it go,
turned around....
...and walked away.