Last year, I met a boy.
He's now one of my dearest friends.
And he's turned out to be one of the most amazing, incredible humans I have ever met.
And as any girl, like myself, would stupidly do, I fell in love with him. Somewhere between the donuts, the snapchat, the giggles, the Bible studies, and the dinners, I fell for him. I heard a quote once, "I fell in love like I fall asleep: slowly at first, then all at once". Yes. Because I can't pinpoint a moment; one day I just realized that I wanted him to be apart of the rest of my life.
I can both see this happening and being my forever, or I can see it getting shot down fast and hard. I can see him responding both ways; I can see it unfolding both ways.
I play tricks with my mind, running through the endless possibilities of what "might" happen or "could" happen or "probably will" happen. I get my belly in knots with fear of losing him or saying the wrong thing to him. I almost constantly worry that I am annoying to him, or that I have pushed him too far. I lose my ever loving mind all the freaking time, and go off, completely psycho on him.
And yet, he always stays. No matter how many petty things I yell at him about, no matter how many side eyes I give him, no matter how many times I get my fragile feelings hurt- he stays. To him, it's no harm done. To me, it's someone in my life who is faithful, even through the fire I douse him in. Please understand how huge this is. He stays. And he stays faithfully.
I am a person who equates love to feeling safe. And he makes me feel safe. Because no matter what kind of poison I have thrown at him, he lets it roll and he stays. This is why he has become one of my best friends, because he puts up with psycho me, so, so, so well.
I want and I long for him to be apart of my life, so badly, in a long term relationship way, that I have made the decision to let go of him.
Over the last several weeks I have made this comment to Kate many times, but I have begun actually acting on it. I have begun asking the Father to remove him from my grip- because my nature is to hold on too tightly. But I know when I do that, all I am doing is asserting my own will. All I want to do, is His will.
And then today, it happened. After all my prayers, and continually asking the Lord to soften my heart, to be open, to let go, and to treat him like the "just a friend" he is, my heart did something it has never before done when I have made the choice to let go: in my resolve and fruition of letting go, my heart began to ache. I was washing the dishes, when deep ache swept over me- realizing that letting go might mean I don't get him back. That giving him up might mean I don't get to hold onto him. But that was the point, right? To let go? So why did I ache so?
I believe because I finally did. I let go of the hope and dream of a "maybe one day" with him, and wholly resolved to enjoy my todays with him. Because today, he is just a friend, truly. I build up such a false reality of my "one days" that surrendering them, was painful. And today that pain settled on my heart.
I will continue to pray for him, I have no plans to stop that, but my hands are wide open. Free to receive whatever will the Father places on them, and willing to let go of whatever He takes from them. But I confess, today, my heart aches with the knowing of what may come.
XO,
Ellen
