Word finds – terrible, addictive things. Once they get you in their clutches, there’s nothing for it but to go with it – the hours wasted, the bleary eyes, the ink on your fingers. It’s just too fun.
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And enlightening, too. I discovered this Monday night when I was livid at B____ for so stubbornly keeping his distance. Calling me “kiddo” in his voicemail? What the hell. I’d already been tossed around for a month by the unpredictable and undeniably slow-moving waters of this resurgence of our relationship, and I was just done. I was ready to take him to task for not being clear about his feelings and being aboveboard with me about them. Turned out to be a good thing he kept not answering the phone.
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I was laying across my hotel bed at the Homestead, stewing in my own juices, calling him terrible things in my head, and determinedly doing word find after word find. My focus kept splitting and my word finds were taking longer to do.
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And I noticed a trend emerging. Inevitably, you’ll come across a word you just can’t find and you think, “Well, the creator of this puzzle made a mistake and obviously forgot to put the work in.” You’re frustrated and irritated and all you can think is, “I can’t find this word!” I find when this happens, the only thing that works is to step back a moment – because invariably your focus has narrowed to each letter you’re looking at and you’ll never find the words that way – and start again with a new perspective. If you’ll look again for the word as if you just started looking, with the assumption that you will of course find it still intact, suddenly there it is. It was there the whole time. The creator of the puzzle didn’t make a mistake, didn’t simply forget to include a vital piece. As long as you’re focusing on how you’re not finding it, you’ll keep not finding it. But if you change your perspective and remember what it felt like with you started, when you were still unquestioning and certain you would find what you were looking for easily, you find it like a lightning flash.
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And it occurred to me, sprawled there on the bed, my knuckles white with strain and anger around my pen, that I love B____. B____ R____ M____ is my choice. The only one I want. But I’ve been so cautious about choosing the right one that I didn’t know how far my own choice carried me. How much say did my fallible, short-sighted human desires count in the grand scheme of “God’s plan,” and what would prove itself as the right choice in the long run?
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But I recognized that at every blind turn and hesitant step since summer and the demise of my relationship began, I have actively sought God’s wisdom, God’s plan, and God’s will, at the expense of my own. How many times have I thought of how much I want B____ but prepared myself to accept that he was not the right choice for me? And you cannot seek God so consistently and so humbly and still be acting out of accordance with his will and wisdom. It doesn’t happen. When you align yourself with God so diligently, you don’t have to stop and study every action, every desire, every choice as closely as you would if your will and desires were still wild and rebellious. And I had already over the past several weeks come to the startling realization that while all my l ife I had waited for God to point to the One – already planned out with no input from me – perhaps it isn’t so fatalistic. I had known that God knows what man is destined to be my mate, but I believe now that part of what makes that man the chosen one is because I actually choose him. It does make a difference that I point and say, “Him. That one right there, I want him.” Sort of like those time-travel stories where you can’t figure out which comes first, the chicken or the egg. So maybe it does make a difference that I love him. Maybe the fact that B____ is the one for me isn’t just a matter of God choosing for me, and then I’ll love him, then I’ll feel it. It’s an amalgamation of the two. But I was still a little unsure of how much I could do to make him indeed the one.
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And then two nights ago, I realized there’s no need to keep hesitating, waiting for God’s wisdom. I already have it. This whole summer of fire has aligned me with it. God isn’t going to just leet me drift into a relationship where for the rest of my life I’m doing all the loving, where I’m left neglected and unsatisfied by a man who just doesn’t really, passionately love me. It’s not possible that I would hold onto B____ out of sheer rebellious stubbornness, more concerned with what I want than what will make me happy in the long run. That’s just not who I am, first of all, to keep my head down and not think and hold onto something out of fear or habit. And second, that’s certainly not going to happen when I’m consistently praying for wisdom to let go of what I want “if it’s right.”
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Seeking God so much means that I come under his protection. I don’t have to constantly look in all directions to ensure I don’t wander or slip down the wrong path because someone’s doing that already. I’m letting someone do that for me. So (1) I have a pretty good chance after so many months being refined in the fire of wanting the right thing, and (2) I can focus on my desires and follow them single-mindedly because someone else is taking care of curveballs and upsets coming from other directions.
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And all this time still doing my word finds which allow my mind to wander down this path, I’m thinking and thinking. And I land on the final piece of the puzzle which answers my long-held question: What do I do?
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Be stubborn.
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B____ is, hands-down, the most stubborn person I have ever met. And I’m more stubborn still. I want him. I know that my love for him is the kind that will outlast both of us. It’s been refined in the fire. And I have the conviction that I can, indeed, hold onto him even if he’s not holding back yet, because my wanting him makes him the one for me. And all the awkwardness and terrible uncertainty fall away. I can talk to him and not obsess about the lack of clearly romantic signals. They’ll come.
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I am going to be stubborn about this because every time I hold it up to God, ready to hand it to him and face life without it, I look down to find it’s been left in my hand. Too, God and I both know at any moment, if it’s done and needs to end, I’ll let it happen. So knowing God’s taking care of me and knowing I’m in the right place for the “right thing” to happen, I can be stubborn and know that he will come to me sooner or later. No more fear, no more doubt, no more wondering if I should hold onto it. I’m holding on till it’s ripped from my fingers. Brock on!!
